In tough times, count your blessings

Sometimes life, even at its best, can push us to our limits.

This year has been difficult economically for many North State folks, including me. But sometimes it's the little things that create economic frustrations. Life can nickel and dime you to the max.

I look back on the year and realize, while it has been difficult, I still need to count my blessings for all that went well.

My year started with needing a new hip, a surgery that I thought would make me better instantly. After all, we prefer instant gratification most of the time, right?

Four months later, I am walking relatively well, with a bit of pain now and then, but I am walking.

What bothers me most is that I can't run. I have always been able to run. So, getting through those short cycled crosswalks up town can be a challenge.

Switching insurance companies can be a nightmare, too. I have experienced and endured a host of errors with the golden years' insurance to choke an elephant.

The government really does test our tolerance levels. I'm hoping the next auto withdrawal from my bank account will be for the prescribed one month and not three.

Then, in the middle of it all, one of the horses came down with a summer sore that required veterinary expertise. Now that I know what to do, I'm doctoring it myself.

It that wasn't enough, his niece, the filly, decided to leave her pasture for greener vegetation a couple fences away. She came back standing at the gate the next morning with legs scraped to the max and limping on a front leg.

I called my friend's veterinarian who walked me through the doctoring process over the phone — bless his heart.

She ultimately had stepped on a nail in a board and had a puncture wound in her hoof, but in a less dangerous spot of the hoof.

This required a drawing concoction of Betadine (iodine) solution mixed with sugar until it became a paste. I packed it on the bottom of the hoof and taped it with vet sticky tape and topped it with a disposable diaper.

The filly is already walking better after one day of this and was assured it would likely heal fine.

In between all these episodes, my foster kittens got sick, my cat got sick and my grandsons also became ill. All of these lifetime issues that occur every now and then must be addressed.

While patience is a virtue, so is tolerance. It all builds character in the long run. My niece tells me to "breathe in and breathe out." My other niece says, "Remember, this too will pass."

Before I was out of the woods with doctoring kids and animals, my sprinkler valve in the front yard went haywire and the water had to be shut off at the street. You know what that meant?

Every time we needed to wash our hands, brush our teeth, do laundry, flush the toilet we had to turn it back on and the sprinklers would run during that time. That lasted four days until I could get a sprinkler guy out to fix the problem that is now fixed.

In the long run, I must be developing a lot of character because everyone keeps reminding me that tough times build character. Will I emerge a better person?

I must have developed a lot of great character this past year.

I'm really looking forward to next year. It will be another one of those golden events that should give me a really nice boost economically speaking. But, one never knows what lurks around every corner we turn.

Actually, someone once told me, "No good deed goes unpunished."

So, the bottom line is keep your sense of humor, treat people around you the way you want to be treated and hope they reciprocate.

Life isn't always a bed of roses and the bottom line is: "Deal with it."