I tackled a leaky sink other day. I'd been tolerating drip for months. It took me so long because I didn't know how to go about starting. I'd made halfhearted attempts to ask at various hardware stores but I didn't provide enough information for them to help me so they were useless. I took this to mean that they were rotten sob's and vowed never to shop there again.

I don't know what changed to make task suddenly seem doable and essential. It was almost like catching a wave of energy. All I know is that I woke up one morning ready to fix leak.

So I turned to wonderful internet-- source of all knowledge, and searched on "How to fix a leaky faucet." I got exactly what I needed and thus my philosophical adventure began. Here's what I learned:

1. The source of problem is generally not where it appears to be. Did you know that when a faucet is leaking leak isn't coming from faucet but from handles? It makes perfect sense. It's where work is done. I would have started trying to apply a solution to symptom instead of getting to heart of matter. Learn something new every day.

2. Even when at first it looks as though you can't go any further you have to keep at something to find resolution. I only partially understood my internet instructions, and it's not my style to comprehend something fully before I start messing with it, so I started unscrewing whatever looked unscrewable without any idea what a packing nut, valve stem, or stem spindle was. I got to a point without obvious moving parts and figured okay this is it. That thing there might be a washer. Let's go with that. First trip to hardware store.

As told by my mother, my dolls began going to Business College and having Big Church Weddings at time I was about 3 years of age.

You may not find that so strange, but let me finish story . . . I grew up in a very poor family. My father was a share cropper on a cotton farm in Southeast Missouri.

No one in my family - - not a brother, sister, cousin, aunt, uncle - - nobody - - had ever gone to school past High school, and nobody had ever even attended a Big Church Wedding. Nobody had any idea where these terms came from! I don't know either.

My mother supported me in my dreams. My father objected intensely. It was just unheard of for a young lady to leave those cotton fields and go to big city.

Those dreams dominated my life. Everything I did even as a child was directed by my dream. There was no money to pay tuition for Business College and my father knew that, BUT . . . I did not accept it. When not working in cotton fields due to weather conditions, I worked in a department store in town. That money went into my bank account which I had for as long as I can remember.

Every penny I could earn went into my bank account to save towards paying school tuition. I helped my mother with her sale of fresh eggs and we quietly placed that money into my bank account.

My Senior class went on a Trip to St. Louis. That cost money which would be needed for tuition. I was only Senior that did not make that trip. Just one example of what priorities can do.