Too Tired to Think by Angie Ledbetter

Boy, what a day I had. Twelve hours of working the football jamboree! Can I tell ya? It's no fun to work over a hot fryer or grill cooking food when it's about 200 degrees outside and so muggy you're breathing wet air. Having an internal thermostat that tends to run on Warm anyway, added to a stadium filled with teenagers, and you get sweat dripping in your eyes.

Selling raffle tickets wasn't too bad, and when I cut up 6 bags of onions into thin rings to grill for burgers, at least I was sitting down. That our home team lost in the very last seconds of the game after running the first kickoff back for a touchdown in the first play was deflating for all the moms and dad who'd been out there working since noon.

Even with the loss and the running sweat and my onion-smelling hands, there are still things I'm grateful for, like working with great and generous people. We've made as many preps for hovering Hurricane Gustav as we can, the little school band of about 15 kids which one of my sons plays in did a valiant job with the Star Spangled Banner, and I got to take a break to go serve and eat supper with the men at one of our local shelters...always a great pick-me-upper! The 30 or so guys there loved the food and enjoyed visiting with us over dinner.

It's past midnight and my bed is crying for me. Please excuse any typos or bad sentence structure. Too tired to edit. I'm grateful for the coolness of my house and that I now get to go to sleep. Simple things, but things which many people do not have. (The shelter guys sleep on hard cots or bunks!) I will keep the many Gulf Coast evacuees traveling north and west away from the eye of the storm in thought and prayer tomorrow as our main Interstate switches to contraflow. It's just too hard to think of another Katrina coming toward us on the exact date of "her" third anniversary.
I'm grateful we have supplies and the means to flee should it become necessary.

Good night.

Gratitude Schmatitude by Angie Ledbetter

Yeah, today I’m grouchier than the average bear, and I’m not even sure why. It’s probably a combination of several factors – constant interruptions when I’m trying to write, people who don’t come through for you when you think they will, frustration over sidetracked goals, teenage angst times three in my household, and even traffic woes (I could write a book on the traffic situation here since we almost doubled our population with New Orleans evacuees after Hurricane Katrina).

I can usually get myself out of a blue funk quickly by counting my blessings or trying to gain perspective by seeing the bigger picture, both hackneyed aphorisms, but effective nonetheless. But something’s off kilter today because even the smell of fresh coffee wafting through the house isn't doing the trick. What to do now?

Well, I could “wallow in it” for a while and see if that improves my attitude, or I could vent to a friend – usually a good way to drain the poisons – or I could just press on in my daily routine and “fuggetaboutit,” as Stephen King says in his book on writing. But, wait! I say to myself. You forgot your secret weapon for getting outside of and over yourself. Do something unexpected for someone else (even and especially a stranger). My favorite of these gorilla random acts of kindness is paying someone’s restaurant or coffee shop tab. The confused-turned-delight look on the stranger’s face is always good for a jolt to my outlook. I bet that Secret Santa, Larry Stewart, who anonymously gave out hundred dollar bills every Christmas felt like a king all year round. His generosity will be missed. http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,243578,00.html

Okay, now that I have a game plan, I feel better. I’m looking forward to surprising someone in the bookstore cafe to ambush at the cash register.