If blessings were dollar bills...

I would be a twenty-year old millionaire.

It was one of the ending dishes of the Birthday Set dinner at Imperial Herbal Restaurant. As the waitress served us the dry cooked Longevity Noodle, she told us, "Tradition has it that those who eat this noodles will be blessed with long life!"

Hummm.

Long life wouldn't be too bad an idea....

Except that.... who wants to spend a hundred more years in this crazily chaotic, upside-down world that is full of complications and troubles and stresses and tears and heartaches and disappointments and whatnots, this sometimes very cold and uninviting place that on one hand we call "Home" and at other times label as "Mad World"?

Perhaps then, it is not so much how long you live, but HOW you live.

It's not so much watching what foods you should or shouldn't eat for fear of cancer or high cholesterol....it's about eating everything in moderation.

It's not about worrying so much what other people might think or say about your actions, or being afraid of failure....it's about knowing what you want and setting about to reach that goal.

It's not about making sure you never break a limb or put yourself at risk, and reaching the grave all neat and demure, having never actually tried the things you wanted to....it's about sliding in sideways as if you'd just gotten off a roller coaster ride, with your hair all messed by the wind and your heart still pumping with adrenaline, and knowing that you are living life to the fullest and LOVING EVERY SINGLE MOMENT.

God has blessed me with so much, for which I am immensely grateful. A loving and supportive family, awesome friends, good health and energy, a stable job, and a comfortable house to live in are just the top of a long list. No, life may not be a bed of roses and there will always be a cloud - or two - or three, that endeavors to hide the sun; but while I have breath and the energy, I am not going to waste a minute of this short life that I have here regretting decisions or wanting things that I do not have.

Life is so full of ups and downs.

Life is so full of changes.

Life is so brief.

I'm going to do my best to make it count.

**She is shrugging off Disappointment and counting her blessings.**