"Things rarely turn out as we expect."

This is probably the absolute best advice anyone should believe.  Things rarely turn out as we expect. I expected to post my Mondays with Mandy or Mira on...Monday. I expected that turning another year older wouldn't bother me. I expected that having a child would completely stop me from being me and instead turn me into some weird mom creature sporting classic "mom jeans" and a neon fanny-pack. Well, things rarely turn out as we expect. And as you can see from the above examples, this sentence and idea holds both hope and fear.  Fear that something good we expected to happen doesn't. And hope because something we dreaded didn't end up happening. 

I expected to be published by the time I was thirty. I turned thirty....(five years ago.) While I did get published in magazines by the time I was thirty, that wasn't my goal. Why did I expect this? Because, I was under the belief that if I visualized my goals, said them out loud, and wrote them down, they would happen. (Along with being persistent and making plans and taking action toward those goals.) Well as it turns out, I wasn't ready to be published five years ago. There was so much I didn't know that I didn't know. So I can take this unexpected circumstance and view it as a good thing rather than a bad thing. 

"Things rarely turn out as we expect."

Why am I rambling on about this sentence? Besides that fact that it's a great concept to hang on to because it is filled with hope and fear, but also because it's wrapped up in a new book I've been dying to read. HOOK'S REVENGE by Heidi Schulz.
And today on twitter, I discovered a fantastic blog that Heidi wrote about strategies and tips for reluctant readers...one of my favorite topics. I really loved her post because she had a few new ideas I hadn't thought of before. 


Check out Heidi's post here.

Be sure to check out Heidi's book (plus, there is a sequel coming out this fall.)
Here's more info about her book, HOOK'S REVENGE: 
(From Amazon)


Twelve-year-old Jocelyn dreams of becoming every bit as daring as her infamous father, Captain James Hook. Her grandfather, on the other hand, intends to see her starched and pressed into a fine society lady. When she's sent to Miss Eliza Crumb-Biddlecomb's Finishing School for Young Ladies, Jocelyn's hopes of following in her father's fearsome footsteps are lost in a heap of dance lessons, white gloves, and way too much pink.

So when Jocelyn receives a letter from her father challenging her to avenge his untimely demise at the jaws of the Neverland crocodile, she doesn't hesitate-here at last is the adventure she has been waiting for. But Jocelyn finds that being a pirate is a bit more difficult than she'd bargained for. As if attempting to defeat the Neverland's most fearsome beast isn't enough to deal with, she's tasked with captaining a crew of woefully untrained pirates, outwitting cannibals wild for English cuisine, and rescuing her best friend from a certain pack of lost children, not to mention that pesky Peter Pan who keeps barging in uninvited. 

The crocodile's clock is always ticking in Heidi Schulz's debut novel, a story told by an irascible narrator who is both dazzlingly witty and sharp as a sword. Will Jocelyn find the courage to beat the incessant monster before time runs out?





What's something in life that you expected to turn out a certain way that didn't? Was it a bad thing or a good thing?