Life is good, it's all in how you look at it

I was talking to my sister-in-laws the other day about how people can often make it seem like they are living the perfect life and you get the annual Christmas photo of the perfectly dressed family and the letter of how wonderful their life is and how smart their perfect children are and everyone just looks so happy and then whammo out of the blue some secret life is revealed and the cover up is removed and now the family I was so envious is just like the rest of us, just trying to get through, find happiness, be a good parent and so on.  Life is not always as it appears from the outside.  So anyway speaking of perfection, I then proceeded to tell them out about how I had put together the cutest photo Christmas card, and got it printed off and even addressed the envelopes and then they both said to me, "I didn't get one!"  I kind of laughed and said well yeah no one got one.  I put them in a bag to get postage and then mail and completely forgot they were in the trunk of my car until my dear husband found them in February =(.  (Insert my embarrassed face here).  That is the story of my life, I have great plans and ideas but they don't always go down the path I intend.

This brought our conversation to one of my favorite scenes in a movie.  The movie was Parenthood and the scene was this:

[Gil has been complaining about his complicated life; Grandma wanders into the room] 
Grandma: You know, when I was nineteen, Grandpa took me on a roller coaster. 
Gil: Oh? 
Grandma: Up, down, up, down. Oh, what a ride! 
Gil: What a great story. 
Grandma: I always wanted to go again. You know, it was just so interesting to me that a ride could make me so frightened, so scared, so sick, so excited, and so thrilled all together! Some didn't like it. They went on the merry-go-round. That just goes around. Nothing. I like the roller coaster. You get more out of it.   

It is a perfect description of life.  Life is wonderful, exciting, stressful, scary and a whole lot of other adjectives.  It definitely does not always go as planned, but you can make life enjoyable but just being grateful for what is brought your way and not look at the rough stuff as bad.  I also find that staying away from the daily media that blasts out mega doses of negative crap to be a very wise idea.  

I am a much happier person when I don't give that negative stuff my time.   That is a daily battle.  Here is to a beautiful day.

Peace & Love