Don?t Forget to Laugh

Good Morning all,

Just a note today to share with you all something that occurred to me on Tuesday and today is probably a good time to share with you.

I was having 2 of those days, you know, the ones where everything goes wrong. And any of you who know me know I have a short fuse at the best of times and it doesn’t take much to set me off. One thing that’s sure to get my goat is trying to make something nice in the Kitchen and it turning into a disaster. Well, I was baking a batch of Cranberry, White Chocolate & Pecan Cookies and forgot to set the timer. As the smell of burnt cookies wafted around me I realised what I’d done! They were incinerated (serves me right for making dinner at the same time). As I pulled the baking tray out of the oven and looked at the black smokey discs i had a sudden revelation.

This was my train of thought “Ok , it’s usually around now that you lose the plot and do a Therese. Normally when you have a day like this topped off by your cookies burning, you’d fly off the handle, throw the tray in the sink and stomp off in a huff. Well, actually, you have a choice in how you react to this. You can A. Do a Therese as you usually do! or B. Laugh, shrug your shoulders and put it behind you.” I chose B and it made the difference to my day of things going wrong.

The following day was the same. In the morning I got a mean email, then Penny fell into the canal and I’d to pull her out getting drenched in the process but it all was topped off by going up to my mothers to tidy before she comes home from holidays (A 45 minute drive away) and I sit outside the house and realise I forgot the keys to get in!!!

Again, I thought, “Ok, do a Therese or Laugh!” Well I laughed. It really does make all the difference when you realise that you have a choice in how you react to things that happen to you and that you really have no control over.

So it’s the day after the dreaded Budget and I’m glad it’s over because now we can all make a plan and get on with our lives. We have ALL been affected by the 3 budgets in the last 14 months in some way, shape or form. We are all in this together – public & private sectors, carers & unemployed, bankers & doctors, teachers & shop assistants. So lets all pull together and start focusing on the positive instead of the negative. I know, I know……there are more negatives than positives at the moment I hear you cry. But are there?

Yes, we all have less money but hopefully most of us have our health – health is wealth as they say. If not health, family then? We can take solace in knowing we are loved and we have people to love. No family? Do you have a roof over your head, clothes on your back & food in your belly? Thank God if you do. If you don’t have any of these things, do you have your senses – can you see, hear, smell, touch, taste? Can you walk & talk? Thankfully I can do all of these things and I am Blessed!

If you can say no to all of the above and you feel there is no light at the end of the tunnel and no good can be found in anything, all I can say to you is (having been there and feeling like there was no way out)

There still is one positive! If things can’t possibly get any worse – they can only get better. There is always a way out. There are always people to help, help is there for you, please seek it out and use it. I know more than anyone that if you truly feel depressed that no one telling you to snap out of it or to go and get help will make any difference but I say this to you anyway…….without any other agenda other than hope.

Have you ever heard the saying – “It’s darkest before the dawn”. I truly believe that’s true.

I heard a really good metaphor for exactly what I’m talking about in a movie called “Come Fly with Me” staring Leonardo DiCaprio and Tom Hanks, about Frank Abagnale Jr. who became the youngest and most successful con artist in the United States.

In the movie, his father, Frank Abagnale Sr. says this: “Two little mice fell in a bucket of cream. The first mouse quickly gave up and drowned. The second mouse, wouldn’t quit. He struggled so hard that eventually he churned that cream into butter and crawled out. Gentlemen, as of this moment, I am that second mouse.”

Anyway, they’re just my two cents.

Back again soon with some tips for Christmas.

Therese