It’s February 2016 so let’s recap what grabbed my/our attention so far. First, the groundhog didn’t see its shadow, which means spring is coming sooner rather than later. Unfortunately, someone forgot to tell Mother Nature about the rodent meteorologist’s prediction.

Despite the cold, the political trail is a hot place to walk these days as Democrats keep trying to figure out how to bad-mouth each other in a nice way. Meanwhile, Trump insults Cruz while Cruz sings show tunes to his wife over the phone. Christie almost makes Rubio cry. Carson tries to figure out how to get onto the debate stage, and at a rally Bush begs supporters to clap their hands for world peace. Oh the wheels on the campaign bus go round and round.

In the sports arena, the “big” game is over. Forget who won or lost, that’s not what grabbed the headlines. What we paid attention to was a young quarterback who was so upset about losing he didn’t want to discuss it with the media after the game. This got a rise out of folks. I mean we all want to discuss our defeats and disappointments in public don’t we.

On the other hand, the triumphant quarterback (the old one) was so happy about winning he announced plans to drink lots of beer after the game. This also got a rise out of folks. Afterall, a grown man drinking beer after the Super Bowl; that is unheard of, right.

Sometimes, well a lot of the time, I think the inhabitants of this planet are just plain nutty. The stuff we choose to focus our attention upon boggles the mind.

That brings me to Martha Stewart, who I learned watching her PBS show, is bringing order to the universe one recipe at a time. Yep, she is showing humanity how to sprinkle the bottom of its tart and gets its puff to rise perfectly. From this icon of perfection, I discovered some dates (the food kind not the two people going out thing) are bejeweled. (I suppose the other kind of dates are bejeweled too).

Again, why are we deeply concerned about how long we should fondle a lump of dough in order to get perfect bread? Surely, there are more pressing issues.

Shouldn’t we be more interested in news that an entire city’s water supply is poison and drinking it has caused problems that will stay with people for years? Oh, and the mosquitoes are at it again. This time they are coming after us with a virus that affects babies before they are even born. Of course, they think folks might get it through sex with someone who has it, so we will probably be a little more interested. By the way, an earthquake killed people and left many others homeless.

If I let myself think too much about how crazy this place I call home seems sometimes, I can settle into what I call a blue funk. I almost let myself go there this weekend.

In the midst of the Super Bowl hype and political prognosticating, keeping it “real” felt really hard. I wanted to burrow under a blanket in the recliner and call a retreat from life for a while.

Just as I was about to sink into the sea of “ain’t it awful,” I got a message from my cousin. It was just a little cartoon, but it grabbed me and pulled me right out of that ocean of hopelessness.

It was the picture of a woman holding a nice cup of what I imagined was hot coffee. The caption read, “Today, take a few minutes to sit quietly and just be thankful for all that you have.”

Therefore, that is what I’m going to do for the rest of February 2016. After all, it’s a leap year, which means we get an extra day.

Oh, and I think Hillary saw Bernie’s shadow so the end of the political season is not coming early this year.

 

Nancy Blackmon is a former newspaper editor and a yoga teacher.