Daily Affirmations (by Riley)

I'm good enough. I'm smart enough. And doggone it, people like me.

(If you don't know what this means, then you didn't watch enough Stuart Smalley on Saturday Night Live in the 90's.)

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When I saw this photo of Riley, I obviously thought of Stuart Smalley, but it also totally made me think of my friend Katie. We were best friends in high school, rode the bus together since kindergarten and then went to college together at UNI. I love her to pieces and so when I tell you this, it is meant in the nicest, most loving way.

She's obnoxious.

And she made me laugh a lot. Growing up she was a total girl and a total tomboy all at the same time, and her family ...  they were not quiet people. When I would eat at their house and we would say the table prayer, by the time "Amen" was uttered you had better have your hand on the dish and the spoon to your plate or you'd wind up with a piece of bread and nothing else. In my family we each took a dish and then passed to the left. It was a culture shock... and a whole lot of fun.

There isn't a big long story as to why this photo reminds me of Katie. It's just that she didn't lack in self-esteem and didn't need to remind herself she was good enough. Actually, she often referred to herself as a "Pretty, Pretty Princess."

I'm so not kidding.

We lived together off campus (in a small house... before the Big House) but in different rooms. Some nights when we were all in bed she would shout for me to tell her a story so she could go to sleep. I always made her give me a sentence to start and I would take it from there. Nine times out of ten the first sentence would be, "Once upon a time there was a Pretty, Pretty Princess named Katie, and everybody loved her."

And after I stopped laughing, I would weave a tale and turn her into the wicked witch by the ending.

Sometimes it pays to be the one telling the story.

:)