H A Double P to the Y

I won’t get into details but the bottom line is I’m at a complete loss for most of my waking hours based on specific events that have happened to me
lately.

As I’m not one to sit around and wallow, I have tried to work on what might help me. I’m sure there is a myriad of self-help books I could read on
the subject. Not an e-book, not a book on tape (yes I know they are on CDs but I like saying tape), an actual physical book that I don’t have to log
onto my iPad to read. I like to read without notifications popping up about a new gift with a purchase at Sephora or getting lit up about daily
randomness from the chive.

Unfortunately even if I had motivation enough to go to Barnes and Noble to purchase said books, I would find that the Barnes and Noble I would normally
go to has been since been inhabited by a restaurant that is groundbreaking enough to provide us detailed information about exactly what our meat ate,
before we ate our meat.

I’m sorry, but since when do we care about this?

We live in a world where there is a well-advertised website you can actually visit if you are looking
to step outside of the sacrament of marriage. Even more, tanning beds still exist. Hey, can you put as many poisonous rays of light into a small
confined area, let me get into my skivvies and lay in it until I want to cry? What, only $20 a session — sign me up!

But I digress. The only thing I can think to do is to think of all things happy. I’m not, in any way, trivializing the challenges our country and
world is facing right now. And if that isn’t enough, we have our own lives where tragedy can strike at any moment leaving us reeling and wondering why.

I feel the only thing that can help us deal with death, dying and tragedy is to remember why we love being alive. Love isn’t even the right
word. More like cherish. Take every bit of it in and hold on tight and be OK with the fact that it won’t be there forever. But it’s here now, so in
the meantime let’s celebrate it.

I wanted to list things that make me happy and try to add some sunshine to the darkness that can be brought into our lives. Darkness cannot
survive in the presence of light.

I challenge you to do the same.

Here goes… things that make me happy:

1.) That my 3-year-old will randomly tell me to “pull over” from the back seat. I used to inquire after he would bark the order at me. Was he trying to
have a citizens arrest and put me in the clink but now I just say, “no, it’s a cardigan” and then we have a solid five minute discussion on it and I get
to replay the whole Dumb and Dumber scene almost daily.

2.) The chip, inside a chip, inside another chip. Basically four chips spooning, which is so cute of them! Then you get to bite into with pure wild
abandon. Even though there is a chip explosion hitting your fellow diners in their corneas causing temporary blindness of which you have no awareness
of because you are lost in the pure joy of your chip. In a chip. In a chip.