Dear Reader:

Don’t you remember swinging upside down and how cool the world looked head down instead of head up. Even Eloise loves to play “horsie” and wait in anticipation for the horse to fall down so she can lie on my extended knees and look at the world around her upside down. She giggles in glee.

Watching the grandchildren play happily yesterday in the backyard made me smile…children are never content to do the same skill over and over on a swing or slide or whatever…they have got to find a more challenging position to show off for their siblings… how they turn the mundane into something more exciting. Particularly…like Rutledge if you are the big brother.

When do we lose this joy of trying new things…especially when we aren’t sure of the outcome…if we are going to land on our feet or our heads?

I think I understand Grandmother Wilson’s expression more fully now, as an adult, when she said, “When things go wrong, don’t go wrong with them.”  We are all going to face obstacles in our lives…some more challenging than others, and unfortunately, sometimes they will come in bundles, instead of separate units. But they will come, if we are living we are facing problems…one can’t have one without the other.

Or can we? What if we don’t regard the obstacle as a problem…a challenge, certainly, but not a problem. Once we get the negative connotation removed, mentally, we feel less stress and more open to finding solutions instead of just worrying about problem potentials.

These days there is a part of me that is (really kinda) excited about figuring out ways to over come daily problems. It reminds me of the simile of playing in the ocean as a child. Waves, like problems, kept coming and we children had to make quick decisions…like do we try to jump over the wave or dive under and if several waves are hitting us in succession we learned quickly that diving under and staying under was the right strategy until the ‘coast was clear’ again.

The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Yesterday was a fun day…I was getting ready for Libby to come spend the night and the grandchildren wanted to surprise me and take me out to get ice cream….sadly Guerins Pharmacy/drug store is closed on Sundays so we went to Groucho’s and had a great time. The boys are big pickle eaters and it looks like Eloise shares their tastes….”Three pickles in a barrel.” Too fun…there and at Boo Boo’s!

So until tomorrow….

“Tomorrow is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

Ya Libby Clarkson, a.k.a. movie star, showed up yesterday afternoon all decked out for the deck…it will be our home for the evening and at intervals throughout tomorrow. The world’s problems are always solved best on the back deck.

*Now where did I place the citronella plant in the garden?

P.S I found it and guess what…neither Libby nor I were the least bit disturbed by even one mosquito….it really works!”

Now where is my boa for Mama Mia?