I'm sure you can think of a time when you heard a piece of news that would normally have caused a negative emotion, but you were in such a good mood that it didn't throw you off balance. You were able to look at situation in perspective (the place you usually get to anyway) because you were feeling, and 'thinking', good. In fact, you've used this knowledge. How many times have you picked 'right' time to tell someone bad news, knowing that bad news isn't so bad if you're in a good mood?

And when your thoughts are positive, when you're happy, aren't you at your best? Don't you find that you're more productive and creative? Don't you find every aspect of life to be exciting and you look forward to what else it has to offer? I suspect these are days you enjoy most.

These are two facts that we all know. But most of us have stopped there and haven't made connection between two. What if we took it to next logical step, which is to control our thoughts, so that we're always (or almost always) in a positive place? Instead of just observing what you're thinking and effect it has on you, if you don't like what you're thinking, consciously choose to change your thoughts to something that makes you happy. This is secret to en-joying your life, to put -- and keep -- joy in your life: constantly monitor your thoughts and when a thought isn't bringing you joy, change it to a thought that does or start enjoying thought you're having.

Many years ago when I was a little girl growing up on our dairy farm in west central Wisconsin, Paulsons had lived next door to us. The two farms were only residences located on our mile-long stretch of isolated country road, and during summer, I journeyed down hill a couple of times a week to visit Hannah. With her hair arranged in waves swept back from her forehead and kindly blue eyes twinkling from behind wire-rimmed spectacles, she wore cotton shirtwaist dresses in summer and a blue-and-white or pink-and-white checkered apron.

Going to see Hannah was highlight of my summer vacations. There was just something about Mrs. Paulson that drew me to her like bees that were drawn to wild roses growing around her big, old-fashioned farmhouse. I never considered that it might be rather unusual for me to enjoy visiting our elderly neighbor, even though there were no other neighbors with children for me to play with, and no other children in my family (my brother is twenty-one years older than me and my sister is nineteen years older).

During summer, Hannah and I would cut and arrange flowers because Mrs. Paulson loved to have flowers in her house. At other times I would find her working on a project, like cleaning out old chicken coop, or painting barn, or weeding her garden. No matter what Hannah was doing, she always let me “help.”

On days when it was too hot to be outside, we sat in Mrs. Paulson's kitchen and ate homemade oatmeal cookies. Hannah would ask me about books I was reading (I loved to read), and she would tell me about books she had liked to read when she was a little girl.