<p align="center"><em> A Guest Blog by Chicken Wrangler Sara </em></p>
I have often heard people speak of “the power of positive thinking.”

<a href="http://judythewriter.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/hires.jpg"><img class="size-medium wp-image-2212 alignright" alt="HiRes" src="http://judythewriter.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/hires.jpg?w=185" width="185" height="300" /></a>However, I’ve become convinced lately that there is, at times, even greater power in “not thinking.”

For example, when my alarm goes off at 5:15 a.m., I get out of bed, put on my swimsuit, get in my car, drive to the outdoor pool, and jump in before my brain wakes up and realizes that it is January.

No thinking person would behave in such a manner, no matter how “positive” their thoughts.

As moms, I believe “not thinking” is a crucial skill.

For example, when a child (who sleeps on the bottom bunk) comes to your side of the bed in the middle of the night and says, “Rachel (who sleeps on the top bunk) is throwing up and it is dripping down the wall” a mom can get everything cleaned up without giving it a thought.

Most recently, I employed this “not thinking” skill when helping my husband butcher chickens.

I do not usually participate in this process. However, I called everyone I knew who had expressed an interest in observing or even learning this task (a surprisingly long list) and no one was available.

Hesitantly, I donned latex gloves and started plucking chickens. I must say, I felt a certain satisfaction since I was plucking the horrid roosters.

As long as I was “not thinking,” it was not a bad task.

People talked about how bad the chickens smelled, but my nose detected no foul (fowl) odor at all. It made me wonder if perhaps Rachel had secretly bathed the roosters.

I even carried on a pleasant conversation with my husband the entire time. Part of this conversation included, “Hey look what I found!”<a href="http://judythewriter.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/mm35reddevil1-1.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-2213" alt="mm35reddevil1-1" src="http://judythewriter.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/mm35reddevil1-1.jpg" width="150" height="150" /></a>I kid you not – it was a marble, which made me think of a song (of course):
<p align="center"><em>“I know an old rooster who swallowed a marble…”</em></p>
I’m so glad that when my brain goes into “not thinking” mode, it still allows songs to float in and out.

A silly song seems to make any task a little more pleasant – as long as you don’t think about it.