Sometimes finding an answer to a problem can seem complicated at first, but the solution may only be one simple out-of-the-box thinking away:

A man went to cancel a doctor's appointment and the receptionist said it was a $200 charge without a week's notice. He asked how much it was to reschedule and the receptionist said it was free.

Man: "Okay, so I need to reschedule for two weeks out."

Receptionist: "Is three weeks okay?"

Man: "Yep."

Receptionist: "Alright, you're all set for three weeks from now. Anything else I can do for you?"

Man: "Yes, I need to cancel my appointment."

Receptionist: "We need a week's notice."

Man: "My appointment is three weeks away."

Receptionist: "Oh. Okay. Sure."

Man: "Thank you."

While in DC recently, I visited the Smithsonian museums for the first time. My favorite was the Natural History Museum (You may remember this one from the Ben Stiller movie “Night at the Museum,” which was shot both at this location and the New York Natural History Museum)

Anyways, my absolute favorite exhibit* was the gem and precious minerals section. Now, part of this was 8-yr old me that used to collect rocks (mostly a box full of quartz) that came out and started running from window to window excitedly to examine every rock and gem formation in detail. But adult-Courtney had a different take on it. I was SO amazed that these formations occurred naturally. Some of them honestly looked like carefully crafted art pieces. From the colors and the shapes to the combination of both, I was left dumbfounded that someone had just found these somewhere at one point - that they hadn’t been created in a lab under crazy conditions or manipulated or dyed.

While it left me feeling a little feeble about any attempt I’d ever made to be creative, it did also inspire me to look no further than outside when I do need creative inspiration. 

** When I say favorite I mean a tie with the replica model of the USS Enterprise used for filming the 1960s Star Trek series at the Air and Space Museum  

     Back when I was in 10th grade, I was introduced to Kim Casali's Love Is comic strips. (If you've never seen one before, they're single-frame cartoon strips that originated from a series of love notes that New Zealand cartoonist Kim Casali drew for her future husband, Robert Casali.) I was introduced to her comic strips through the Los Angeles Times. Back in high school, I was an avid newspaper Sudoku player and one day, while playing, I decided to explore a section of the newspaper that I hardly ever touched - the Classified section. It was in that section that I met Kim's Love Is comic strips. From that day forward, I did my best to get my hands on a newspaper and when I did, I would eagerly make my way to the Classified section. There, usually on page 2, I would tear away that day's Love Is comic strip and add it to my collection. For about three years, I was able to obtain her comic strip almost each day. It wasn't until after high school that my collective habit began to fade as I didn't have much time to hunt down a newspaper in between my college courses. 

     Anyways, I mention this because this past weekend, while at my parent's house, I ran into my mini chest of Love Is. I was so glad I hadn't lost them and that they were still in fairly good condition. I think I must have sat in front of that chest for at least 30 minutes just looking at them all. And sitting there, looking at them, I realized why I enjoyed collecting them so much. Back in high school, if you were to ask me why I collected them, I would have probably said because I thought they were adorable. But now, after really thinking about the question, I would tell you that I collected them because they were (and still are) reminders of the many different faces and forms of love, that they're reminders of how simple acts of love can have enormous  effects on us, and that they're reminders of how love (in one form or another) is always around us.