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The other day a very kind man was helping Tricia and me make some major changes to the Simply Celebrate website. Techno babble server changes whatnot. This kind man stumbled into some unforeseen problems and the upshot was that for a day the website and all its lovely accoutrements — blog, emails, etc — just disappeared off the face of the earth.

This was not fun.

So my pseudo-Zen self, speaking to me in that annoyingly calm voice,  said, “Don’t be upset.” It told me that I was a “spiritual person” and that I should put things in perspective. And then it turned on its heels and left, saying simply, “Smile. Have a nice day.”

I thought of the popular expression, “When life gives you lemons, make lemonade.”

And then I felt even worse, because not only was the website down and the blog was down and I couldn’t receive emails … but now I was supposed to be so Pollyanna about the whole thing. Fooey.

So here’s what I decided about life and lemons:

  • Life gives me lemons.
  • I say, “What?! No. I don’t want lemons.”
  • I take those lemons and pound them with my fists in frustration.
  • I throw those lemons so they bounce off the walls.
  • I hold a lemon in each hand and bang them together, all the while saying, “stupid lemons.”
  • I call my best friends and I say, “Aghhhhhh! Darn lemons.”
  • Ten minutes or thirty minutes or an hour passes.
  • I squeeze  these now-very-soft lemons and get lots of juice because they’ve been thrown around and pummeled so much.
  • I get a pitcher, get some ice, get some sugar. I make lemonade.

And it is sweet and refreshing … because I didn’t force it when I was still so sour.

(P.S.: Thank you kind and helpful Joe for all the website wizardry!)