One of my staff asked me today if there was any good news at all.  Our budget at work is bleak, and so was the economic forecast on the news today.  My own morning writing pages had me wondering if the people in the 30’s felt the fall into the Great Depression like we are feeling this – which to me, is a bit surreal.  It’s hard to imagine a cliff so deep came up so fast.

But then think of cliffhanger endings in chapters and books.  Things are changing fast under us right now, and there is good news out there that could bring us up rather quickly.  So we should focus a bit on the things that make us feel better.  Whether we end with a recession, a long recession, or a depression may depend as much on our attitude (the over-hyped twins of consumer-confidence and American ingenuity) as stimulus and mortgage plans.

A few things I’ve noticed in the last week:

Someone mentioned that near the anniversary Lincoln’s birth, Sasha or Malia might be doing homework on the White House desk where Lincoln signed the emancipation proclamation.  That might have been in the Seattle Times today, or a quite from Tananarive Due – I don’t remember.  But I did notice Tananarive (a recent Image award winner) mentioning on Facebook that she likes the news lately.  Go girl – me too!

After thinking about it some, the mortgage rescue package sounds like it could be very good for us, and the stimulus package – while not perfect in some ways – also may do a lot of good.  And if Obama follows through on some of his other ideas, like to encourage Americans into service to the community ,that will help even more.  It should be enough.  I once had a teacher tell me that when you’re down, you do something for someone else, which is what the idea of service can help with.

I noticed some stock analysis on CNN that sounded downright good – not yet calling a bottom, but mentioning strength in the health and technology sectors.

So hey – it’s not all bad.  I’m sticking with my earlier forecast that the first part of this year will be bad, but we’ll level off in the summer, and start a long slow climb up economically.  In the meantime, we can help that – and ourselves – by being in a good mood.