Once again, I missed posting my PCT's (Positive CJ Thoughts) for Friday. Lately, I've come to believe there is a reason I miss them on my appointed day. This morning, I got my affirmation.

I joke, on a regular basis, that I have fifteen seconds of brilliance a day. Some days, I use it to decide what we are having for dinner or on a witty line. Sometimes, it's just the answer to a random trivia fact. THESE are my slivers of brilliance.

On the other hand, my wife is blessed with hours and hours' worth of completely brilliant thoughts and actions. Our lives are busier than seems humanly possible. Somehow, she keeps it all straight. Our farm has settled into it's winter rest, but there are still seeds and equipment to order for next year, planting field maps to lay out, production planning to schedule, and calculations beyond my comprehension to do for what crops were profitable and which were not. There are taxes to consider, where the receipts are, where the mileage logs are, and where the heck is that pesky interest statement?

There is a Christmas gift list to fulfill, programs to attend, and general busy-ness of the season to deal with. All these things are the reality of life.

I'm working on my second novel and that requires hours of me just sitting in my chair with my laptop, earbuds in jamming to hard rock, and lost in a world that only exists in my mind. Life goes on around me and somehow beyond all reason, SHE keeps it all straight. My brain looks like an unsolved, 5000 piece jigsaw puzzle and hers looks like the theory on quantum physics, laid out in an excel spreadsheet, with 157 tabs-color coded.

I am always in awe of her organizational skills. We have more spreadsheets that explain our life than should be legal, but that's how her mind works. AND THANK GOD IT DOES! My loving wife is a left brainer-completely! Her mind is logical, statistical, linear in almost all things. There are charts and graphs, spreadsheets and tables, and FORMULAS for almost everything. SHE is a math person, I am NOT.

You see, I am a right brainer. I see things in colors and emotions, abstract thoughts…you know a hearts and flowers- happy ever after kind of girl. She wants things in order and functional. I want them picturesque and beautiful. I see things through a completely different lens than she does. This is why I can create a world that exists only in my mind with an array of characters, locations, plot lines and dialogue. On the other side and my wife can write an excel formula that can figure out precisely how much water a 500 foot row, containing 450 strawberry plants spread evenly a part, will need- given how much water our distribution grid can deliver in a fifteen minute period, at a given gallon per minute delivery system.

And no…I'm not kidding you. I married up folks, trust me.

By now, you may be asking yourself, or more importantly…me, what does any of this have to do with a Positive CJ Thought?

Gifts. My PCT's today are about gifts. Not the kind you buy in a store, but the ones you are born with or have developed. We are all in possession of some form of a gift.

I've been blessed with the gift to be able to use the romantic in me to write stories of triumph over tragedy, of happily ever after, and love against all odds. I've also been blessed to have the ability to connect with children to pass on a fire safety message that might save their life.

Others have gifts more deserving of admiration. I have family in the medical profession that use their gifts for sick, teachers that use their gifts to educate the next generation, and parents/grandparents who are using their gifts to raising amazing wee ones. I have friends who use their gifts to fight for those others have given up on or that some consider unworthy in their addiction or emotional distraught, friends who use their gifts to care for the elderly, and friends that use their gift to give hope to those who have lost their faith.

We are given gifts and it's up to us to use them in a way that benefits the world around us. I'm reminded of one of Jesus' parables about the 'talents'. Two took those talents and increased their fold while another hid his. We can go around and around about biblical things, but like in all stories with a message, this one is pretty clear. We can use these 'talents' or gifts or we can choose to hid them and do nothing with them. If you have a gift, use it. No matter what it is… USE IT! Don't hid it away. If you can sing, SING! If you can write, WRITE! If you can organize, ORGANIZE! If you can categorize, CATAGORIZE! The point is, no matter it is use it for good.

The world is a brighter place when we do. NOW, with all that being said, my brilliant wife spent the morning working out a riddle with about a million stanzas, pieces and parts, dogs and fish, beer and milk, red and white houses, Germans and Brits, cigars and Pall Malls. And YES… she figured out the riddle with an excel spreadsheet that had "A" through "AE" across the top and 1-26 down the side, y's and n's in appropriate responses, a second chart that listed out the entire riddle and a third chart that placed all the pieces in their respective boxes under the correct category. SHE IS BRILLIANT…and THEN figured out how to hide the "traveling Christmas gift" in spectacular fashion.

With all that, she somehow saw something in me that made her say yes to marrying me twice. In my life, she falls into the beautiful and picturesque part of my world and will forever be… the greatest gift I've ever received. She is why my mind creates the stories I do and my reason for all good things in my life.