The question today was “Do I do a serious post or lighten it up?” .  We have all been affected by the shooting at the school in Newtown, CT and quite frankly I have had to limit my viewing of television that is focusing on the coverage.  I was just getting overwhelmed with sadness as I am sure many of you are.  So instead I offer a couple of things—first this link to a blog that is so well written and is about mental illness and the writer’s connection to the shooter’s mom.  If you have a minute to read it I would recommend clicking this link-–don’t worry–it will open in a new tab and you can come right back here to finish reading.

The second thing that I would suggest is that we all do something.  Of course many are praying but Huffington Post had a great article on ways that people can help. Most involve making donations to organizations already in place in the town that do counseling and treatment of folks in need of a little extra help.  Click here to read the article and find out a tangible way that you can get plugged in.

For most of us life goes on.  For my friend Hilary who writes over at Feeling Beachie life after Hurricane Sandy has continued to go on.  She is still in the throes of the aftermath after  2 months and an incredible opportunity to live blog and tweet from Katie Couric’s show came up and she jumped at the chance.  She will also have a blog post on Katie’s website so stay tuned . I had a preview and it is fabulous.  Out of bad comes something good.

Christmas is still coming for most of us.  Time with family and friends will still go as planned and we will celebrate whatever the holidays mean to us.

Drat it all—I wanted this post to be one of a happier tone!!!  What can I write that will leave you with a smile instead of the sad heart???  Oh I know!!! Last week I was watching the local news in the morning. One of the news guys looks like he is about 14.  He is always smiling and does a fairly good job for a young pup.  Until that day. He was talking about movies that were opening soon in the theaters and referred to “Les Miserables” but instead of saying it correctly he said  “less miserables” like I “feel less miserable today than I did yesterday”.   I was dumbstruck.  He had no clue. When they cut back to the anchor desk one of the older guys commented on it and said he was going to make sure he would go see “less miserables” and the kid was still clueless.  I suspect they “counseled” him after they went off air.

So please, whatever your day brings, enjoy your day and I hope it is “less miserable” than you thought it might be.

And one parting photo of a ladylike cat position….