Positive Spins

Everything gets compared to Katrina when you don’t have something that you take for granted. The water lines were turned off all day. Someone backed up into the fire hydrant that services our street. When the water department realized what happened, the first crew came out to do a repair. Only, the hydrant was built in the 1950’s and they couldn’t just fix it, they had to replace it. (Goes to show you that those hydrants were built right! It took someone backing into it to take it out of commission!)

The second crew came in with the new hydrant and of course, there’s the "it’s never an easy" fix type of situation with parts that didn’t quite go right and having to get another piece. The biggest factor in the 12 hour project was because the first crew didn’t tell the second crew that when the hydrant was backed into, it broke a water line.

Hence, when the second crew turned on the new hydrant, it blew up the service line that was cracked! During all this time, we had to remember that we couldn’t flush the toilets or take a shower or have water from the faucet or give water to the pets. Greg said, "It feels like Katrina." The things we take for granted.

Recently I read a post about positive thoughts and how negative thoughts can control our actions and the outcome of situations. I’ve noticed that Greg has positive thoughts more often than not. When he forgot to bring the leftover food into the house from when we went out to eat, he came back in from the vehicle the next morning and said, "Well, I saved us about 5,000 calories!" Now, that’s a positive spin. He could have become irritated that we wasted money with spoiled food, but instead ~ he looked not only for the positive, but for the funny.

I thought about this water issue and how it could make anyone fussy. Instead, I pondered on a positive, "Well, at least it’s not the electricity going out in the middle of summer!" and "At least we have Diet Coke in the refrigerator to drink and some cold water in the refrig to feed the pets."

Positive thoughts helped me to have a positive attitude and thereby, when I approached the water department supervisor who was on duty, to keep a calm demeanor and find out what was going on. It’s a lot easier to find out information when you’re nice to people. She didn’t sense any attitude from me and was polite in return. When the water finally came back on, I said, "I appreciate you being out here all this time and getting it taken care of." She smiled and replied, "That’s my job. I appreciate your patience."

And I appreciate that Greg’s natural tendency is to look for the good when it would be so much easier to see the bad. That’s one of the many reasons I love him!