A snow day breeds positive vibes

I stared out longingly at my sailboat this morning. It looked dejected and beaten down by the skiff of snow that covered her like a thin white layer of wax paper that weighed two tons.

I’ll bet she, too, was thinking “Really? Snow? I just want to sail.”

And then again, she looked so right at home sitting there, waiting patiently for the next round of new paint, a cleaner hull, and a new life for the water.

A little snow wouldn’t keep her down.

It’s Monday night and it’s snowing again as I write this. I have the heat turned up, two sweaters on, and there’s a pot of pea soup brewing on the stove. The warmth feels good. It feels like a cozy winter story.

Mother Nature plays hard to get. 10 days of sunshine, one of snow. She gives and she takes away and she gets us all talking mostly about one cold snowflake event in a score of many sunshine moments.

Life is like that.

My ex-husband Peter used to say, “It is much easier to be bad than good.” He was right.

Don’t allow the negatives to get more attention than the positives.

I’ll bet the person out there with terminal cancer and is still able to stand at the window each morning, didn’t say today, “oh blast, it’s snowing again.”

I’ll bet that person said, “Thank you for another day.”

My grandson stood outside this morning and let snowflakes fall on his tongue and smiled at the tingling magic feeling that those most original phenomena in the entire world left on his palate.

Find something really good to talk about.

Take up positive thinking like my dad and repeat after me, “It’s always a possibility.”

My dad used to say that to my brother and I a lot when we were growing up. It gave us hope for whatever it was we were hoping for. Maybe we got our wish, maybe we didn’t; but we always had a positive spin on things.

Read the life lessons by Regina Brett, written at age 90.

“Life isn’t fair, but it’s still good; When in doubt, just take the next small step; Life is too short to waste time hating anyone; When it comes to going after what you want in life, don’t take no for an answer; If we all threw our problems in a pile and saw everyone else’s, we’d grab ours back; Burn the candles, use the nice sheets, don’t save them for a special occasion, today is special.”

I’m dreaming of future holidays that are on my bucket list. How about horseback riding in Iceland or kayaking the Haida Gwai on the B.C. coast? Italy is on my list and so is the Grand Canyon.

And now I have a sailboat and my adventure list is growing to include not only the fabulous Rainy Lake, but also sailing my boat one day on Lake Superior and to the Apostle Islands, or maybe even a salty dip in the ocean off Florida.

And I’ve been told by a reliable source that recently there was a Catalina 22 tied to a dock in Belize. Just imagine. One day it might be me.

All these great thoughts and all because it snowed today.