"Life is like a Box of Chocolates ..."
Here's a story that says that Life is a Bag of Frozen Peas!

Life is a Bag of Frozen Peas

A few weeks after my first wife, Georgia, was called to heaven, I was cooking dinner for my son and myself. For a vegetable, I decided on frozen peas. As I was cutting open the bag, it slipped from my hands and crashed to the floor. The peas, like marbles, rolled everywhere. I tried to use a broom, but with each swipe the peas rolled across the kitchen, bounced off the wall on the other side and rolled in another direction.

My mental state at the time was fragile. Losing a spouse is an unbearable pain. I got on my hands and knees and pulled them into a pile to dispose of, I was half laughing and half crying as I collected them. I could see the humor in what happened, but it doesn't take much for a person dealing with grief to break down.

For the next week, every time I was in the kitchen, I would find a pea that had escaped my first cleanup. In a corner, behind a table leg, in the frays at the end of a mat, or hidden under a heater, they kept turning up. Eight months later I pulled out the refrigerator to clean, and found a dozen or so petrified peas hidden underneath.

At the time I found those few remaining peas, I was in a new relationship with a wonderful woman I met in a widow/widower support group. After we married, I was reminded of those peas under the refrigerator. I realized my life had been like that bag of frozen peas. It had shattered. My wife was gone. I was in a new city with a busy job and a son having trouble adjusting to his new surroundings and the loss of his mother. I was a wreck. I was a bag of spilled, frozen peas. My life had come apart and scattered.

When life gets you down; when everything you know comes apart; when you think you can never get through the tough times, remember, it is just a bag of scattered, frozen peas. The peas can be collected and life will move on. You will find all the peas. First the easy peas come together in a pile. You pick them up and start to move on. Later you will find the bigger and harder peas. When you pull it all together, life will be whole again.

The life you know can be scattered at any time. You will move on, but how fast you collect your peas depends on you. Will you keep scattering them around with a broom, or will you pick them up one-by-one and put your life back together?

Michael T. Smith

If you would like to email Michael, he can be reached at: mtsmith@qwestonline.com or find more of his writings and bio by going to http://heartsandhumor.com/blog/

Stumble It!

For the uninformed (ahem), a foldable is a folding kayak.
Had just bought mine - a yellow Folbot Cooper after months of mulling over which one to get. Was attracted to the design when it first came out but the adverse comments about loose longeron tubings and a fragile skin puts me off until recently. Velcro cinch straps to keep the long tubings in place, a switch back to the proven hypalon skin instead of the TPU and the Folbot August Sale finally broke my resistance! Had been thinking of the Fujita 480 (too expensive) and the Feathercraft Java (a SOT) as well.
Was impressed that it only took a couple of days for them to send it from the US to small town Kuching by DHL. Assembly was pretty easy (but it still took me a good part of an hour on my 1st assembly) and I left it assembled in office. Why in the office and not at home? Thats another story. Had to put on the longeron padding - only did it for the bottom keel piece; and the self-adhesive keel strips to the hull - bottom and the 2 chins.
Took her (its a she?) out on a maiden paddle at a nearby beach resort - as luck would have it; the seas were rough with breaking waves on the beach. It was a different experience to be riding over on top of the waves instead of crashing through it in a hardshell. The Cooper felt tippy initially but feels stable when moving.
At my second outing, during the assembly I found to my horror that 2 screws had come off from the crossribs. The pounding surf must have loosened them. Manage to find the nuts in the bag and hand-srewed them back. That must have distressed me to the extent that I didnt quite assemble it correctly. The frame must have been out of alignment as the Cooper was veering off to one side! Overall I am happy with it and I look forward to many future adventures in the Cooper. Yahoo! Stumble It!