If you ever see cashiers waiting for you like this, run because you are in the Twilight Zone.

1.      The shortest line at any major store means the cashier has a problem with the current transaction. This goes for the express line too. The cashier has called the manager for help, but you won’t get out of there until you’re 104. The manager doesn’t hear her employee’s call for assistance. She’s somewhere upstairs wearing ear plugs, munching on donuts, and reading People magazine.

This Arizona home doesn’t have gravel or lawn. They have chosen the paver-stone yard, which is definitely a step up from colorful gravel.

2.      The grass is not always greener on the other side. At least not in Arizona. That’s because everyone has gravel for lawns. For Arizonans, the gravel is pinker on the other side. Or whiter, or redder, or rainbow, jewel-like. But it doesn’t matter what color someone’s gravel might be because like you, the people with prettier gravel on the other side deal with the same problems you deal with –it’s just they deal with it while standing in their lovely yard viewing your less-than colorful, eye-popping gravel.

3.       Never live with regrets. Whatever you did in the past and wish you didn’t do, or whatever didn’t do and wish you did, let it go Didn’t Elsa sing about this? Please, don’t tell me you don’t know who Elsa is. The next thing you’ll say is you don’t know who Olaf is. Remember, you can’t change the past and it’s wasted energy. It helps immensely to move through this process by ordering beautiful gravel for your yard so you can gaze out your window and concentrate on its sparkly beauty rather than your sad regrets.

4.      Beware of anything advertised as “free.” If you look at the word free, the truth hits you when you remove the letter r and see the word “fee.” Once you realize that free means fee, you might be savvy enough to avoid the email that reads, “Sign-up for your free webinar and learn how to make the big bucks writing children’s books.” You say to yourself as you click on to the link to the free webinar, “Wow, a free class and I didn’t have to pay a cent.” The children’s author goes on and on about himself and how he makes five-figures, almost six-figures, penning children’s stories for Amazon Kindle. He even shows you his bank statement so you can see that this is a legit author making money with hundreds of book sales deposited in his account. He offers some of his secrets of how he hit the big time as a successful children’s book author. He shows a PowerPoint and speaks in a complex manner so his secrets can only be understood if you speak “technical software.” Finally, he reveals your need for his training program whereby he vows to explain in a more coherent language to the non-techies. He then tells you of what a deal you will get, a $9,000 value for only $999 if you sign up by Tuesday. After that, you have no other choice but to pay the $9,000 if you decide to sign up after the Tuesday deadline. And don’t forget. In order to sign up for his free webinar, you were asked to give your email address. Expect hundreds of emails for the infinite future from this author who wants to make you rich, for free, I mean for a fee.

Works for me.

5.      No means no and yes means yes. Never say yes when you mean no. Just say no, as Nancy Reagan always said. I think she was talking about drugs and I’m not. I’m referring to people who say yes to something when they really want to say no but say yes to please the person who asked them. I’m here to tell you that you will never please them, so say no. Like Ricky Nelson said, “You can’t please everybody, so ya got to please yourself.”

6.      Never apologize for being unique and different. A stranger once stopped me and told me my hair stuck up in the back as if she were the hairstyle police. I’m sure she meant well, hoping to save me the embarrassment of a very bad hair day. At the time, I thanked her for pointing this out and I tried to straighten my hair to an acceptable-looking style. But later I wished I had said, “I like it sticking up like an exploded bird’s nest.” Why should I try to please other people’s ideas of how my hair should be?

Be You!

7.      Never watch your toaster while toast cooks inside it. A watched toaster never pops. Go do other things while waiting on the toast. Then, before you know it, the toast is up and you have two socks folded …time efficiency is always best.

A watched toaster never pops.

7 ½    Last of all, remember that “Into each life some rain must fall.” Except if you live in Arizona. Then it’s “into each life some dirt must blow.”

All the patio furniture, all the cars parked outside, everything in Phoenix, Arizona is about to be hit with dirt.

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