Lesson: Start your own business. Flat broke and blue about the direction her life has taken, single mother Rose Lorkowski (Amy Adams), above left, decides to transform her part-time maid job into something bigger and better: "Sunshine Cleaning," a crime-scene cleanup service. Granted, she runs into a few glitches along the way, but by movie's end our plucky heroine has reinvented her skill set into a service that's satisfying, beneficial and considerably more lucrative.

A pink slip can be just the kick in the pants a would-be entrepreneur needs. And starting a business in a recession means you can take advantage of both a huge pool of talent (often at affordable rates) and cheaper supplies, many of which you can buy at auction.

More are seeing this silver lining: Each month last year, 320 of every 100,000 adults created a business, up from 300 in 2007, according to an April report by the Kauffman Foundation. That's 530,000 new businesses a month.

The timing is good: Eleven of the 30 corporations that make up the Dow Jones Industrial Average were started during recessions, including AT&T, General Electric, 3M, Merck, Walt Disney and Microsoft.

The states with the largest number of people who've set up lemonade stands after being handed those proverbial baskets of lemons? Alaska, Arizona, California, Georgia, Montana and New Mexico.

Continued: "Tootsie"