If Life Gives Someone Lemons, Get That Person To Make You Lemonade

I can't breathe. Well, not literally or I'd have higher priorities than blogging. But, I was feeling so anxious earlier that I had a glass of wine. I actually intentionally opened the bottle for the very purpose of drinking it. That never happens - on very special occasions there might be a leftover open bottle and I might have a sip. But, to go out of my way to have a drink - Whew!

But, you see, I have good reason to be stressed. We just met with a financial planner and started the painful (though necessary and helpful) process of getting the "big picture" on our finances. He's a friend of ours and we won his services in an auction at our son's school and his assistant he brought with him used to work at the school, so it was all very friendly. And I have been looking forward to taking care of all the things I know are a mess, but it is so much easier to not get upset when you don't look at it all at once.

But it's good. And they are going to help us come up with a plan. And eventually my ribcage will once again expand - or I'll develop a drinking problem.

The good news is that E. seems very attuned to our financial woes.

On Monday he asked for pizza and I explained that I would be happy to make one, but it was too expensive to order one when I had all of the ingredients in the refrigerator. This got him thinking.

"How can we have enough money," he asked.

Ah, if I only the knew the answer..."Well, you could have a lemonade stand and sell lemonade..."

"Oh, yes, great, Mommy! Do we have any lemons?"

"Er, um...no...not at this exact moment. And actually you would have to sell an awful lot of lemonade..." I started feeling bad for suggesting this. I had no idea he would want to do it - it seemed like the kind of thing he'd nix immediately.

Not to be deterred, he started coming up with his own ideas. We could sell vegetables (Sorry, we don't grow vegetables)... We can sell chocolate candy (not a bad idea, but I don't know how to make chocolate candy)...

Eventually he started getting frustrated and I told him the best way we could make some extra money was if we could convince his Dad to cook his wonderful food for other people.

That's when E. came up with his really big idea. (By the way, one of E.'s favorite TV channels is The Food Network) -

"I know! Let's get Rachel Ray to make food for other people and then give us the money! And then Emeril could also make food for people and he could give us money for it too!"

Problem solved. I'll get right on that.