Maggie hasn't learned social distancing and probably your dogs haven't either. Her joy and fun-loving spirit haven't changed at all in the weeks we've been staying at home. This selfie of Maggie and me was taken to share with all my dog-loving friends. If you're a dog-lover I hope this inspired you to love on your dog. Let's aspire to find fun through this challenge.

Even though we’re staying away from each other, we have so much in common separately. When we look for positive thoughts, we align with positive people. When we find things to be joyful about, we align with people who are also doing that. When we have faith that this is temporary we align with the faithful, and when we meet on the other side of this we will all be better for what we’ve learned through this.

Since my husband Terry and I are senior citizens and we’re supposed to stay in our homes, our next door neighbor goes to the grocery store for us. I’m grateful for the help, but there’s something intrusive about giving someone my grocery list. I want my choices to look really healthy and organic so there’s no way I’ll put down chips and dip or chocolate ice cream when I really would like to have some. The pandemic has forced us to eat healthier if only for show. Being locked down has had an effect on Nelly (my inner child). She’s been sneaking carbs into our meals in the name of a reward for not getting to get out.

                                                                     This is Maggie's new trick. When I                                                            say, "Be a lady," she crosses her front paws.

Yesterday I told Terry I had a burning desire to go to Costco (really a burning desire for carbohydrates). He was thrilled to bust out and we had a grand time! (Of course shopping at Costco was one of the highlights of my life way before COVID 19 reared its ugly spokes.) We wore our masks and latex gloves, but were surprised at how many people didn’t.

I was thinking about some of the delights I’ve experienced through this quarantine. Here are just a few:

A First Aid Kit for your spirit. 

With all the virus news...here's a Happiness Solution you can call on anytime to lift your spirit when you think it isn't possible. 

Watch this free video and then create your own personalized First Aid Kit.

Then you can use it when you catch yourself in a chronic worry mode or when you're angry or sad.

It'll work like magic.

Our pets are here to teach us about love. They don’t worry about the future and they can help us with that too. I was out this morning walking Maggie our dog and always included in her walk is a raucous rendezvous with Sadie our next door neighbor dog. The two girls love to play with each other and as I watched them greet with such joy and love, it hit me they don’t know about distancing. I’m not saying we shouldn’t distance, but as these good friends smelled each other’s butts, then ran and tumbled and shared slobber I thought about how free they are. They are pure positive love energy and we need that more than anything right now.

Dear Friends,

A text from my granddaughter, McKenzie, sparked me into thinking about you all. Her text was laced with fear because of all the negative news. I wondered how many of you have been tempted to be afraid. Those of you whom I’ve had the honor to meet (and some get to know) makes me know most of you have put this challenge in perspective. When I told McKenzie to focus on the fact that 70,000 people, worldwide have recovered from the virus, she was shocked. She said she hadn’t heard anything about recovery. That’s because the news notoriously thrives on bad news. We need to be terrified when the headline reads “Family in Brooklyn Found Healthy.”

Let’s, together look at the blessings of this experience. First and foremost, the precautions have sent us home! Mark Cubin was interviewed the other morning because the NBA closed its season and he owns a team. He said, “Spring break is going to be different this year…instead of trips and parties, it’s going to be a time of forced family fun.

Forced family fun! I love that. This virus is causing millions to prioritize the importance of family and home. Just remember all the work we do for our money (if our priorities are right) is for our families. We love our homes, but gradually we’ve replaced being at home creating a peaceful loving place for our families, with more and more time spent outside our homes.

All the cancellations of meetings, work, classes and entertainment venues are testimony to the volume of outside activities we have committed to these days. “Damn the concert was cancelled.” Damn the birthday party was cancelled.” “Damn Darn no church service.” Depending on the level of your disappointment, let this be a wake-up call. There’s no place like home. You can play music at home. You can call the birthday guy and wish him a happy birthday and you can pray and commune with God privately. God is everywhere not just at church.

Especially through the winter months, living in the Pacific Northwest tests its residence to find delight every day. That’s because of the rain. If we’re not careful, rain can be dreary, depressing and gloomy. We have to find cheer within our own minds and in the happy people we know and love. We create cozy atmospheres in our homes. We light candles, bring in flowers, build fires and take hot bathes. We rendezvous with happy people, children and animals.

With Valentines Day just around the corner, here are two marital spats that can disturb your peace and the romance of this special celebration of love. If you’ve been married very long, you’ve probably had a form of both of them. Fortunately there is a solution to both common spats: GPS and hors d'oeuvres.

IN THE CAR

GPS, eliminates a common marital fight: “the map fight.” Most husbands expect their wives to be natural navigators. Most wives are not. The map fight most commonly occurs when the husband is driving on an unfamiliar freeway at 70 mph and he tosses the map to the wife and says, “Where are we?” If she’s like me, she can only read the map when the car and the map are going in the same direction and that’d be north. South is out of the question, because it’s just too hard to read a map upside-down.      

I wasn’t prepared for the real world of marriage. My parents had three four fights in their entire marriage of 60+ years. It was always over the same issue. Dad would lose track of time fishing and as it started getting dark, Mom would get worried. The fight looked something like this. He’d come in the door wearing his waders and holding his fly rod in one hand and a couple trout on a string in the other. He’d hang his head with a beseeching, I’m-sorry look and Mom would shake her head, tighten her lips and sigh with a mix of disgust and relief that he hadn’t drown. My sister and I would run to our room, sure this would end our happy home because they were going to divorce and we’d be put in foster care.

In my first marriage, I learned quickly I was in for some advanced education.

It's New Year's Day. Looking back at this last Christmas, how would you rate yours on a scale of one to ten? Many of you would give this Christmas a ten. We all want ten Christmases, but sometimes it doesn't happened. Our Christmas hung around a two this year, because of me. Ordinarily I wouldn't share negative news with you, because God doesn't look back so we shouldn't either. The only reason I'm sharing this with you is because I've learned, once again, some valuable lessons through the negative experience.

The main lesson is I'm not good at allowing people to help me. I love to give, but receiving doesn't come naturally. It's probably because women are innate caregivers. It's in our DNA so that we'll take care of our babies 24/7. But we can learn to receive care too and that's what I had to do (and am still working on).

The Cheddar Family is the mouse family that lives in Pam & Terry’s home.)

We celebrated Thanksgiving with a small part of my family and an interesting thing happened to me. I had to make a big choice, and it wasn't between having turkey or ham .

The feast was held in a spectacular home of a person who shall remain nameless, because of his fame. There were four adult women, including me, three adult men and two lovely teenagers present for the holiday.

I’m so used to cooking, and I love to do it, I just assumed I’d be part of the creation of the meal, but the woman of the house was so organized and had such command of her kitchen that I was rendered useless. It made me realize for the first time that when I “do it all” in my kitchen, which I tend to do, I’m rendering my guests “useless.” I vowed to change that when I got home. Maybe “useless” is too harsh a word, but I chose it, because the other two women did get assigned jobs as I sat on the sidelines like an old, benched athlete.