Skip to main content

Lemonade out of lemons???

When life gives you lemons, make lemonade.




Have you ever made lemonade from fresh lemons? I haven't but I've got to believe it's a lot of work. I mean first you have to buy a LOT of lemons. One recipe I found said that you'd need five pounds at an average cost of $2/lb means your lemons would set you back $10. I'm not a mathematician, as my friends, family and coworkers can attest, so I used a calculator so you can trust my math. And then you'll need 2 cups of sugar - at a cost of about $1.70 for 32 oz. that equates to (again, I used a calculator so you can trust my math) 85 cents for your pitcher of lemonade. So, for your pitcher of lemonade it would cost $10.85 (again,  the calculator was used). According to my research and the recipes I read, it will take approximately 15 minutes to make your pitcher, because you have to boil the water with the sugar, squeeze the lemons, remove the seeds, stir and I'm guessing sweat and swear at why the hell you're making fresh lemonade when for less than $2 and little effort you could be making it from fresh/frozen concentrate, and then finally chill the damn lemonade before you can drink it. And it better taste really good or ... or ... or ... {insert something really awful here}

So, I don't get the how turning lemons into lemonade is a good. I know that Dale Carnegie used the metaphor and many use it to this day. It seems arcane. Though, according to Wikipedia: "When life gives you lemons, make lemonade is a proverbial phrase used to encourage optimism and a positive can-do attitude in the face of adversity or misfortune. Lemons suggest sourness or difficulty in life; making lemonade is turning them into something positive or desirable" So according to that simple interpretation, this Pollyanna should be all over the phrase. I should be the poster child for lemonade. I should be the very picture of lemonade in your mind. I shouldn't be dissecting the phrase and running a cost or time analysis that any economist would admire. (Okay that might be a stretch for simply using Google search and a calculator, but I'm giving myself cred for going the extra mile to assure my readers have all the facts, no fake news here!)

Here's the rub, I thought having MS WAS my lemon. Now, I've been given a whole huge new gigantic bag of lemons- breast cancer. Geez, right? I mean I should be hurling my lemons and being as sour and puckered as a lemon tastes, before you add the 2 cups of sugar. I should be scowling, swearing (I do, do my fair share actually) and bitter. Want to know the truth, the Scarlett O'Hare turnip clenching, fist raised to the sky "As God is my witness" truth? I'm not bitter. Because, though it is indeed a bitter pill to swallow and chemo is not for the weak, cancer (unlike MS) is curable. Mic drop! Bam! Yes! It's curable so I refuse to get all sour. After all, my pitcher or glass are half-full.

It doesn't mean I don't get sad at times, I am human. And God and I have had some interesting conversations lately. I get sad because the chemo can absolutely wipe me out for a couple days. I slept most of Sunday and a good part of Monday and Tuesday this past week. That's 3 days where I could have been out Pollyanna-ing the heck out of this breast cancer and making all I encounter think "Hey what's the bald woman in the wheelchair all smiling and happy about?". Instead, I was at home on the couch or in bed resting up for my Wednesday and Thursday WW Workshops. I was warned about the chemo fatigue and thought I'd be alright since I've experienced MS fatigue for years, but it has me horizontal. 

My lemonade is sweet because I have the luxury of being able to take those days to rest with the support of many including a patient hubby, family and friends and understanding coworkers. And my lemonade is sweet because I didn't have to make it from scratch - God gave me my disposition knowing I'd have sour times ahead, he armed me from birth to make good out of bad and to find the pitcher or glass is always half full.




Comments

  1. Inspired! Yes, Carl describes the chemo fatigue as being a very sick 80-90 year old...just can’t get up. He went into it “healthy” and would be down at least 3 days. You are as Always Inspiring and a Beautiful Light to us all!��

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

It's not a popularity contest, but ...

Parenting

I just read a post on Facebook regarding the dearth of parenting. The poster was describing a scene where two young girls were pelting rocks at some ducks in our little town and how he observed no parents around telling these girls that it was wrong to torture little innocent animals. Within hours, there were 15 responses - all alluding to a lack of parenting that is evident nearly everywhere today. Stick with me here - because that conversation reminded me of one I'd had recently that might not seem related to parenting at all. It was with my oldest son about his concern about the selfishness of our culture - most recently evident in the Wall Street meltdown. He believes that we are too focused on "Me" and not enough on "We" and if we had a little more focus on the total and just not our part, we would be in a much better place. Still there? Okay, here's the cement that will hold this together - those girls pelting little ducks with rocks weren't likely...

Tough time to be a Pollyanna

Remember when 9/11 was just a date or a number you called in an emergency? Our lives changed dramatically post 9/11. For weeks after that September day, we seemed to walk around in a fog, like the haze that loomed over the now-fallen twin towers. I remember trying to minimize my obsession with the news, trying to keep the three little Piggins away from the enormity of the disaster. Remember when corona was simply a beer best served with a lime wedge? It now and forever will be instead associated with this virus that has upended our world in ways we could never have imagined. This tiny little, microscopic virus has brought the mighty to their knees. It has us quarantined and distancing socially (though I believe we've been doing this emotionally for years) and working from home. As anxiety peaks, our economy tanks. As toilet paper and hand sanitizer flies off the shelves, we are looking for new ways to stock our pantries. A good friend observed, "I never thought I'd...

When a small town is huge

  In the movie "it's a Wonderful Life", the protagonist George Bailey has longed nearly his whole life to 'shake off the dust of this crummy little town off my feet," to see the world. But Bedford Falls, that crummy little town, felt differently about George. And with the help of a quirky guardian angel, George eventually sees that his life and his town were pretty wonderful. Good lord, but I love that movie and it's characters and it's moral and that small town. I watch it every year at least twice and still cry every time. And I wonder too about the man that pushes the devious Mr. Potter's wheelchair and stands by his side- you know the man, he looks a little like Lurch from "The Addams Family". I wonder, what was he thinking as he listened and watched his boss ruin the lives of everyone he could. What kind of an Non-disclosure agreement did he sign, to keep him silent as he stood by and watched Potter pocket the money Uncle Billy was depo...