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Please keep reading. This advice might make your life better! Seriously!

No gimmick, no scheme, no quick fix, I just found some common sense that was not common to me.

I’m not working today because I’m on a furlough. I’m not being paid to not work. The economic challenges hit TreeHouse.

At the risk of sounding like a martyr, Amy and I still struggle with the financial impact of my choice to work at TreeHouse. In 1990 during my first month at TreeHouse I made $30. As the months went by I had several paychecks of less than $200.

Our Pandemic

“While the H1N1 virus has sickened tens of thousands of people and closed summer camps in a season when there should be little flu activity, it has killed far fewer than the 36,000 Americans who die from seasonal influenza each year. ”

I had not idea — no idea — that the “flu” was so deadly. I was blind to the pain and suffering that people experience.

In order to protect themselves many people defensively protect themselves with masks.

While H1N1 dominates the media’s attention and ours, there is a far more devastating pandemic that never makes the nightly news: loneliness.

Every day I read texts, Facebook updates and listen while people express the pain of their loneliness.

Loneliness takes many forms. Longing to dress up for a party Jeanette sits alone on Halloween. Wishing and hoping that her phone would ring Debbie keeps her cell phone volume on “Outdoor” fearing that she might miss the one call that she might receive. While his lunch table mates laugh about the fun they had the night before David suffers in silence wishing that they would finally invite him to join them.

Darkness surrounded our thirty-eight degree October morning. School buses filled the streets with their diesel roar.

Damp, drizzly, dark and dreary. This morning was not ideal for much, but I was looking forward to a day to write. Nearing the coffee shop I reached my left turn lane.

Across from me awaited a school bus. Like me the driver was longing to turn. Traffic was heavy; we both waited to turn.

The bus blocked my immediate view, but I watched for all the cars to pass.