Modern education seems to think itself of upmost importance, life generally shows us that this isn’t the case. This is a story that inclines one to believe that the greatest life lessons aren’t learned in a classroom. I used to live near and be land-lorded over by a rather interesting woman. Her name was Dot, and at ninety-three years old she was still actively pursuing a career as an author. When I came into her life, she already had four fairly popular books to her credit and was working on a fifth. I had moved up to the small wilderness cabin she was renting to heal up from several heart-attacks and a few heart surgeries. For reasons beyond understanding, she took an instant liking to me and I soon became her hired hand around the farm. Even with my new found task, I spent most of my time resting and pondering what to do with my new life now that my old one was over. It was on one of these warm, sunny days, that Ms. Dot called me to her house. It was on that seemingly normal day that I learned what I am trying to share now: If you are paying attention, life lessons can lead to life changes. 

I remember it succinctly, I was sitting in a rocking-chair overlooking the thousands of acres of wilderness and pondering life. With the suddenness of a shoelace breaking, my cell-phone blasted, breaking my peacefulness. I looked at the screen and groaned. It was Ms. Dot calling me. She asked me to come over and check the computer for her. Without waiting for my response, she hung up, knowing that I would be over there soon. She found some reason for me to come over every day.  I hiked up my boots and started the quarter-mile trek through the woods, I was grumbling the entire time that it was probably just an excuse to get me over to her house to “chat”. I was correct in my prediction. After a brief check to see if there had been any recent reviews of her book, she began to talk my ears off. Four hours later I was struggling with finding an excuse to go home. My boredom wasn’t because that I didn’t find the lady amazing. She had led an amazing life! She was a tiny woman, less than five feet tall. She had divorced her husband in her early forties in a time in which this part of the country really frowned on divorce. From that point on it was truly impressive what she accomplished as a single woman, especially in a period of time where women weren’t supposed to be able to accomplish much. She had managed her money, bought a massive tract of land, built rental cabins all over it. All while working a full time job, completely managing the full health care of herself and others, and providing constant supervision of an extremely mentally disabled brother. During all of which, she was constantly putting pen to paper. This led to many newspaper articles, guest post in books, and eventually, her own series of books. 
