We have had a rough couple of years, and over the last few years I have truly learned the value of simple things and of being happy with how things are, rather than yearning for how I would like them to be.  Don’t get me wrong I still have those moments when I think about the what ifs but they are certainly fewer and father between than they used to be.

Most recently we had a neighbors dead tree fall into our yard hitting our driveway and breaking our storage bin on its way down and narrowly missing my mother in law’s car.  At first I was angry and full of venom.  After talking to my calm and collected husband and doing some google searches I realized that it was our responsibility to clean it up which added to the anger and bitterness. I kept thinking what if this had hit the house, what if they were responsible for cleaning this up, what if …..   That’s when I realized that I was wasting time being angry and that I was looking at the situation the wrong way.  We had recently run out of fire wood and this large dead tree, once it was cut and chopped, would provide us with at least a cord of wood if not more.  So the money that we would have used for firewood will just get shifted to buy a new storage bin (I never liked the bin there anyway), for a net loss of $0 and a little bit of time.  Also I should be thankful because in the grand scheme of things we were lucky, it could have hit a car, or the house or even worse the kids.

As I write this I’m sitting by a blazing fire, happily enjoying the warmth provided by our neighbor’s dead tree.