Looking for the Humor In Daily Life

I completely agree with Carl Hurley, former EKU professor and fairly well-known comedian and lecturer, that you MUST look for the humor in life.

For the past several months- heck, for most of this year, I've not found much to laugh about between dental pain and lack of inspiration and motivation toward getting my revisions done on my manuscripts and my inability to get back into a writing frame of mind, BUT....

Now that my kids are back in school and routine is settling back in and I'm making strides in other areas of my life that needed looking after- i.e. my health- quit smoking and in the past week and a 1/2 taken up exercise and journaling to keep track of my eating habits to help myself lose weight- I'm starting to relax a little and take inventory of what going on in and around my life.

I did a little work on revisions the other day and that felt really good to see that I was able to find a place that needed some tweeking in the current project. I've been making efforts to do workouts- hard as they might be- but I'm hoping it will help me make progress toward shedding the pounds I need to get rid of.

I'm also starting to see the humor again and it's encouraging- when I see it and feel it again, I think it opens me up for my writing and revisions as well. I've been closed off for nearly 9 months. Distracted and otherwise disheveled by what was going on around me. My concentration was shot in the foot and hobbling around here, cursing and refusing to pick up the slack. Sometimes you don't have to look too hard for the humor though. Sometimes it just presents itself.

A couple of examples- Earlier this summer my daughter insisted she had an imaginary sister named Katy (my daughter is Koty). This was all right. Using the imagination and not hurting a thing. Eventually that imaginary sister story petered out when something more interesting caught her attention.

Then a couple of days ago- "Katy" came home from living with Grandma and PopPop and Aunt Shannon. Katy is, after all, Koty's twin, so she needed to go to school now that Koty's back in school. And yesterday morning, I tried not to let it gnaw at me that Koty made me say bye to her and Katy as "they" got on the bus. Dread set in my stomach...I just KNEW what was going to come of THAT....Sure enough, Koty came home from school that afternoon with work she had done in class..

The blank for the student's name?

Yep, you guessed it...She had filled it out as "Koty & Katy."

Oh, Lordy! I couldn't help but laugh, except that 6 or 7 pages were ALL filled out that way and you know good and well the teachers are bound to be scratching their heads over that.

I explained to Koty as nicely as I could that pretending she has a twin sister is one thing here at home and even on the playground at recess, BUT she does not need to fill out actual work as though she and her "sister" have worked on it together. There's a line that needs to be drawn between pretend play and when it's time to get down to business and do her school work. She nodded and seems to understand. Thank goodness! LOL

Moving on- My stepson decided it was time to ask Daddy about body hair last night while I was in the other room giving Koty her bath. I hear the entire story as we lay down to go to sleep since I wasn't in the room at the time the conversation started and my husband didn't want to embarrass his son while he was still up.

As I entered the living room, I hear my husband, laughing and telling his son, "Well you go right ahead and grow that mustache out."

Chris runs over to me and shows me that he's got "fuzz" on his upper lip and claims it's his "mustache." I nearly fall in the floor laughing and tried to explain peach fuzz. That didn't do any good.

Okay- see, first Chris asked Dave if boys shave their legs. Of course, Dave tells him no and that eventually he'll grow hair in a LOT of different places, but the only part he'll shave will be his facial hair.

And thus comes the humor.

Dave said Chris reached up and ran his finger over his upper lip and said, "Hey, I think my mustache is starting to grow. I can feel it." Of course, Chris said it with all seriousness. My husband, on the other hand, nearly died laughing.

Dave asked him, "Is that a fact? Is your goatee growing out, too?" But Chris felt his chin and said no. That's when I entered the room only to hear the end of the conversation.

Under any other circumstances, that probably wouldn't be too funny, but well, my stepson is 10...not quite old enough to grow facial hair just yet and he doesn't get the concept of peach fuzz.

Ahh...youth....Comic relief- just when you need it! And now I'm off to work on my revisions. Have a great day!