My friend and blogging mentor {and a frequent "you won't believe how amazing she is!" topic on this blog and my other blog}, Ann Deakers, gave me some advice this morning that I found quite good: "You can avoid the speed bumps ..."
Let me tell you the context: we were leaving our morning workout at the YMCA and as we got into our cars, Ann said "you know, if you go out the north exit of the parking lot, you can avoid the speed bumps."
It was that simple.
But as I got in the car, I was struck with the wisdom of her simple advice.
"you can avoid the speed bumps."
Wouldn't we all like to avoid the speed bumps? Literally and figuratively? Life is beautiful, yes, but it can be a challenge, we can endure plenty of pain and suffering, there will always be hiccups along the way. SPEED BUMPS, if you will.
I know that I am not the first person {and I'd venture to say, I won't be the last} to compare actual speed bumps with figurative / life-occurences-related speed bumps. But I just had to share that with you all today.
Listen to your friends. ALWAYS listen to your friends. For the most part, our friendships survive and thrive precisely because ... they help us work through or avoid ... life's speed bumps.
There. I've got that out of my system for today!
Oh, and speaking of cars and bumps ... I want to say that I had the most excellent key karma lately ... not just once, but twice. In one month. Here's how that went for me:
The first incident was that I parked outside a Michael's (arts and crafts supplies) a few weeks ago, on a drizzly morning, and as I got out of the car, I noticed I had parked next to a storm drain. You know the kind with the stencilled dolphin that says "I live downstream" ??? As I shut the car door, my keys fell to the ground. One single inch away from that drain. On a slanted surface. I bent down very carefully, very slowly ... and got the keys. What a relief!
The second incident was even more unbelievable. Last week, my daughter came over to run an errand with me. We parked both our cars (at home, in the driveway) at the same time and ran into the house to do a couple of things (like, say, going to the bathroom!). When we went back outside, I couldn't find my car keys, and I was driving. I quick grabbed the spare keys and off we went. 40 miles and 40 minutes later, we pulled back into my driveway. She got out, went inside ... as I got out of the car, something caught my eye. Yes, I had driven all that way, for all that time, up hill and down dale ... with those keys ON THE TOP OF MY VOLVO. Thank God, there is a slender channel that runs the length of the top of the car. One key had wedged itself into that; otherwise, they would have been oh-so-long-gone. If you don't believe me, I think I took a picture of it.
so looking at it again, I see that it wasn't really a key that held them all in place ...
rather, it was the little bone-shaped Harrod's "charm" on the keychain, a memento from our 2008 trip to London ... that saved my bacon !!!
And that's all I have to say today about SPEED BUMPS and GREAT KEY KARMA ...
--- Davi