My home is quiet,cool,and relatively tidy. I blasted off at 8:00 this morning just in time for ground school. The group of guys I do ground with are really great guys. Today they gave me a song - they said it should be my theme song, but I haven't heard it yet. It should be funny - we'll see.

Oprah - not a huge fan of Oprah the machine, but I do respect what Oprah the person has been able to do with her life. Somebody gifted me with a subscription to O the magazine and I don't get around to reading it as much as I apparently should! July 2010has an article - "How to Solve a Thorny Problem" I quote:

"We're used to living in an either-or world---but when it comes to yes-or-no dilemmas,says MARTHA BECK, the most powerful thing you can ask is:What if both answers are true? "

Genius! Exactly! She goes on to say,"This is the problem with either-or thinking: It leads to an answer that is only half-right."

That is what I am talking about. It's not always, and probably never, that simple.

My private ground guys and the CFI candidates have all recently taken the FAAs Hazardous attitudes profile (AC 60-22 - if you go looking for it, there are two PDFs and both are needed to make sense of it). I took it and was surprised by my results. Well, a little surprised - the not at all surprised part is I score very low on the "resigned" aspects ... I always think there is something I can to to affect a better outcome. Good for a pilot because it means I'm not going to become a passenger when a pilot is called for. Not so great for the average day in a life. By that I mean when something (almost anything important or my business kind of thing), is not right I will try to make it right. Or I have in previous days. An example: I am the fortunate mother of the coolest 15 year old girl on the planet. I mean that. She rocks. Unless she is tired or unhappy. On those days she would like to invite me to make her happy. She does that, because I have (unintentionally) taught her that I will try and try and try until we pull the smile out of my bag of tricks. That is not the message I want to send to her, or anyone I care enough about to want to tend to. I read a little research recently that suggested that Americans are dissatisfied, jaded, blaise, because we have too many choices. Even our pets have too many choices as evidenced by the whole aisle of pet food at the grocery store. Here's the choice I am now offering: Chose to be happy. Chose to not blame ... blaming others is a victims game ... you can only fix the problems you own. Big girls don't need their mommas to coddle them towards a happy place.

I'm rambling! Back to July O Healthwise by Tara Parker-Pope ...

"The State of Your Union" ... As strange as it might sound, one of the clearest signs of marital trouble is a simple and common facial expression: eye rolling."

Eye rolling. I think eye rolling is a little like rolling your RRRRRRsss. I think there may be a genetic predisposition towards it. I am unable to roll my eyes. Well, I can, but it takes conscious effort. My daughter, the 15 year old one, does it all the time ... with me. Wonder what that means! The researchers cited in this article say eye rolling is a sarcastic nonverbal gesture that doesn't clearly state the person's disagreement - making it difficult for the recipient to respond.

I think fifteen year olds are notoriously unhappy (sometimes). This is the forth one I've parented - I'm seeing that more life coaching now. She is at the age where she makes most of her own choices ... many of ... she's choosing well. If being upset with me is part of the pecking out of the shell or flapping out of the nest process I can go there.