While hunched over a bowl of cereal this morning, I came to a few conclusions about my favorite breakfast, and life in general. There are more flakes than raisins. This is a sad truth of life. There’s no way to make this sound any better. Flakes are good for us. Face it. Without the ordinary flakes, we wouldn’t recognize a genuine raisin when we saw it. Sometimes when you’re looking for a raisin, you find a flake instead. Flakes are the regular guys, quietly doing their duty, day in, and day out. They keep things working smoothly without any fanfare. They’re the reliable delivery guys, the factory workers who keep the machinery working. Raisins are hard to find. The heroes of the cereal bowl are often hidden beneath the more plentiful flakes, and because raisins have more substance, they tend to congregate in places where they go unnoticed. They were uniforms and are often found in places flakes don’t want to go—like the bottom of the bowl. The reward is worth the effort. Raisins are the sweet bits that keep us interested. If we knew there were no more raisins, we’d dump the entire box of cereal in the trashcan…

Sometimes you never know where your inspiration might come from. As I began to put together this post, I ran across a blog that offered 105 ideas to blog. There were two that caught my attention. The first one, What 5 things would you buy if you won a million dollars; the second, leave a cliffhanger and answer on another post. Intriguing, but that seemed a little unfair. So as I was contemplating the five things I would buy if I had a million dollars. The list is fairly routine: 1. Pay off my only daughter’s school loans and provide her with a plane ticket any time she wanted to come home to visit. (She is an Integrated Services Coordinator, i.e., Special Education team leader in East Palo Alto County. I live in Oklahoma.) 2. I’d pay off my mother’s debt too. (I think by then 2/3 of my million may be obliterated) 3. Next I think I might build my dream house — and have my apartment downtown during NBA season. (I’m a season ticket holder, you know.) 4. Now I’m pretty sure I’m down to my last 200k. I’d better put half in savings. 5. The last 100k…