1.Rename things. I’ve found that giving new names to ordinary things provides a positive outlook. It also gives new meaning and joy to your everyday world. This is how it works. Jerry and I have a den in our home. Den sounds crass to me. It’s where animals hide. Therefore, I renamed our den the Entertainment Room. Never mind it doesn’t have a popcorn machine. The Entertainment Room is a more enjoyable space to view my 32-inch TV than when we called it the den. We have a spare bedroom at our house, but we never call it a spare bedroom. It is my Writing Studio. We have an enclosed patio with floor to ceiling glass, but enclosed patio is not what we call it. It’s our Atrium, of course. We have a garbage can enclosure on the side of our house. I prefer to call it the Hideaway Retreat for Used Throwaways and Slightly Rotting Produce. You see what I mean? Renaming things gives you a new perspective on your life. By renaming things, you can upgrade your world into an amazing Shangri-la.

Our Atrium, (built by Jerry) is really a cat room.

2. Buy buttermilk. First off, before you buy buttermilk—check the label on the milk bottle. Regular milk here in Arizona has a yellow label just like buttermilk. Jerry likes Ranch dressing made with the package mix that calls for buttermilk. He brought home a bottle of regular milk thinking it was buttermilk because it had the yellow label. After realizing the error, he said, “I’ll just make the dressing with regular milk.” After he made it, I asked him how it tasted. “Horrid,” he said. Don’t be deceived by yellow labels. Don’t hate your salad. Buy buttermilk.

3. Get all your books from the library. If the library doesn’t carry the book you want to read and you decide to shell out $7.99 and download it on your Kindle, you might be sorry. If a book from the library doesn’t hold your attention, you slam it shut. But if the Kindle book you thought might be a good read and turns out not to be, you’re stuck with the $7.99 charge on your credit card bill. If you’re like me, you’ll feel obligated to read the Kindle book (in between long naps) so you get some of your money’s worth. This does not promote a sense of well-being. However, library books can be as dull and uninteresting as ever and you feel happy because you didn’t spend any money to get it. I like to give library books a 20-page chance. If on page 21 I’m still not enjoying the story, I slam it shut. The slamming part provides me with much satisfaction, in addition to the realization I won’t have a charge on my credit card bill.

“Aren’t you happy we came out here to the woods to get away from the chattering coffee drinkers? I brought V-8 Juice in my thermos. Mmmm.”

4. Only have friends who love coffee. If you meet someone and they say to you, “We should get together and have V-8 Juice,” –that is not a potential friend. If you meet someone and discover they like tea, but not coffee, you might offer them the opportunity to join you and your coffee-loving friends. You may be able to convert a tea-drinker. But, here’s the problem. Tea-drinkers get much less caffeine from their tea-sipping while you and your friends get much more caffeine from coffee-gulping. For example, as the caffeine kicks in, you and your friends begin to speed up the conversation. You say, “Oh yes, yes, yes, That’s good, good, good. Tell me more, more, more!” The tea-drinker thinks, “Huh, what?” You and your friends chatter away in high-speed caffeinated communication. The tea-drinkers can’t catch up as they don’t have the proper amount of caffeine. Please take my advice. Tea-drinkers will not understand you and you certainly won’t understand the V-8 people. It just doesn’t work. Stick with coffee-loving friends for a truly happy life.

5. Have something to nurture aside from your family. For your nurturing project, get a cat, a dog, a plant, or a parakeet. You could get a car and name it Blueberry and that will work too. I’ve read that having something to nurture, such as pets or plants, lengthens your life. The main reason for this, I believe, is that we don’t often expect gratitude from parakeets and petunias and dogs and cats. No one that I know expects their potted plant to say, “Thank you for watering me,” or “I appreciate you moving me out of the direct light.” Cats and dogs actually have their way of showing appreciation. They bring us a mouse, chewed-up toy, or Q-tip from the bathroom. We say to our pet, “Oh! For me? You Sweet Girl. You Good Boy.” Yes, pets express appreciation in their own cold-nose, nuzzling way. But we don’t expect it from them. We do expect gratitude from our family. When this doesn’t happen…when we don’t hear, “Thank you for washing my socks,” we don’t feel appreciated. Jerry and I try to remember to thank each other for doing tasks around the house, but we’re not perfect and we sometimes forget. That’s why everyone needs a nurturing project so we can care for something without any expectations for thankfulness. When you don’t have expectations for gratefulness, you live a much better life.

That’s all for now from my Writing Palace. (I decided Writing Studio sounds too common.)  And by the way, I think I’ll rename my car Blueberry. Or Strawberry. Or maybe Peach.

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