To Save Gas

A friend of mine is trying to get me to buy a motorcycle. She has one and wants me to get one so we can go and ride together on the weekends. She also keeps telling me that I could use it to save gas this summer driving back and forth to work. Considering I am filling up the tank on the Mom Mobile every 4 days and it is costing me more than $60 per tank I am tempted. The only problem is because I live in the Pacific Northwest I would get only about 90 days a year where I could ride a motorcycle comfortable. Now for those of you that don’t know, my 1st paycheck as a college graduate was spent on a motorcycle, I was an avid rider, using my motorcycle any time the weather was above 40 degrees, including a tornado.

If I was going to spend money on something that I could only ride for a few months out of the year this would be the vehicle I would ride, a Segway.
I have had two different opportunities to ride a Segway and fell in love with it immediately. After my first ride at a trade show in Detroit, I called my husband and told him I knew what I wanted for Christmas but I am still waiting on that. This thing is so perfectly balanced it only takes a subtle change in body weight to make it change directions or speed. It is as if you only have to think about turning and you turn. I love Segways and they are cheaper than a motor cycle.

An End of an Era

As per our normal routine we went out to lunch/breakfast after church today. We went for the last time to Papa Mia’s in Monroe. Today they are closing their doors after more than 25 years. Papa Mia’s wasn’t the fanciest, defiantly wasn’t chic. Pushed aside by the larger chain restaurants, the ones with more glitz and noise, those where you are just a number. It was a place where we could meet with friends and spend an hour or a few it just didn’t matter. The food was more like something you would get at home and at times, depending on who was cooking, it wasn’t maybe anything special, but there was no other place like it in town. It was quiet and they treated you like family.

I have shed many a tear there discussing life with my friends or my pastor. I have laughed and rejoiced with those friends that are closer than my family while sitting in those booths. I have met friends and strangers alike just to enjoy the atmosphere where you weren’t rushed or where you weren’t just the next ‘tip’ for the wait staff.

So as we sat there today finishing up our meal, it was hard to say good bye, but we know it is best for the owners and we wish them well. Thanks Carla.

Reaching the World

For kicks every once in a while I check to see where the hits on my blog are coming from. This goes to show that we truly have the ability to get a message out to the world if we want to.

Aw, Shucks

Have you ever heard someone blush over the phone? Today I made a mistake when booking a flight so I called the service number at Alaska Airlines. I was prepared to be on-hold listening to Muzak for at least a few minutes when I was pleasantly surprised that a person answered almost immediately. The woman on the other end was really nice and got right to the issue and made the changes very quickly. She asked if there was anything else and I told her no thank you and then added that “you’re wonderful”. This totally caught her by surprise. She didn’t know what to say next and finally just said thank you.

You want to know the truth, her response made my day it is just a little reminder that I need to compliment people more often.

Juggling Priorities

A friend of mine sent me an email and asked how I was doing; work, church, life? My reply, “It is all juggling act right now trying to keep all the plates spinning at the same time and not let anything fall and break”. I’m sure I’m not the only one with a lot of things that we are trying to keep spinning in our lives. It is all about priorities. God, husband, family, church, friends, work are the priorities in my life. The problem is that under each one of these there are sub priorities.

Take work for example, I previously posted, we are short two people that do what I do and that means I have more responsibilities for a ‘short time’. With those responsibilities come many priorities and so many things that need to be done I don’t dare list them all. I am by nature a list maker and like to work from a list so I can see what is being accomplished. Right now I can’t even get myself to make a list, any list I make would be so long I would just shut down and not be able to accomplish anything. I usually have many tasks going on at once, multi-tasking. Not now, my mode of operation is to figure out what is the Top Priority and work on it until it is finished, ignoring the rest. When I am done with that priority, I figure out what the Top Priority is now and attach that. You see one of the problems is that the Top Priority can change from day to day and even hour to hour. This seems to be working, but I don’t dare to think about what isn’t getting done.

As long as I keep my priorities in order and in balance it will all workout and not too many dishes will get broken. Life is anything but dull right now.

I Promise

Promises, promises, promises – how many promises are made and never fulfilled? How many advertisers make promises; “Lose 20lbs in just 6 weeks” , “32 MPG”, “ lowest prices anywhere”. Often the words “I Promise” are used to convince someone of sincerity and yet there is no intention of following thru. Too often in our world a promise is meaningless.

Yesterday we fulfilled a financial promise we made about 3 years ago, a commitment that required some sacrifice on our part and a lot of trust in the Lord. This promise was not easy to keep and we were even released from that promise. Along the journey many obstacles arose to hinder us from keeping that promise. My mother needed help to get the care she needs with her disabilities, I was laid off and out of work for 4 months, when I did start work our house hold income was 18% less than before the layoff, and our son was married and we supported that financially.

We had every reason to give up on our commitment and yet it is not in our nature to go back on our word. So what did it mean? We don’t drive new cars, I have basically the same wardrobe I had three years ago and a number of ‘nice to haves’ were not had. It is now that we have overcome all the obstacles that we see how staying focused on the end, being true to our word and trusting in God made it all the more sweet to overcome and be victorious in the end.

Soap Bubbles

There is an espresso stand on the outskirts of town that has a bubble machine as an attention getter. When they first start using it I thought I was seeing things as I would see these bubble swirl around the car in front of me but now that we have daylight savings and some sunshine it is refreshing to see that there really are soap bubbles in the road.

Nearly everyone has enjoyed playing with soap bubbles and as long as you have a bottle for each kid they sure make for great fun when babysitting. These fragile spheres of soap film are both beautiful and captivating; the slightest breeze will carry them on a journey.

Did you know that in their simplicity, soap bubbles are used to solve complex mathematical problems of space because they will always become round making the smallest surface area. When one bubble meets with another, the resulting union is always one of total sharing and compromise. Since bubbles always try to minimize surface area two bubbles will merge and share a common wall.

Too bad we can’t all be more like bubbles, wouldn’t it be nice if we would all minimize ourselves and share or compromise when interacting with each other. I think I am going to go home and get out the bottle of bubbles that I keep under the kitchen sink and just enjoy the afternoon.

Its All About Form

Last night one of the women I work out with was commenting on how a certain exercise we have been doing just wasn’t giving her quite the burn it used to. So we watched her and noticed that her knees were bent when they were supposed to be straight.

Proper form, there is proper form in just about every activity, golf, tennis and equestrian events. There is proper form for the various types of writing; letters, resumes, and short stories. And then there is the “proper form” necessary to get anything out of the government.

The same is true about how we form our words. We can use the same word and with the right about of emphasis that group of word can come to mean many different things.

Let’s look at an example:
Are you kidding me?
Are you kidding me? –expressing shock and awe
Are you kidding me? – challenging the other person
Are you kidding me? – questioning if the other person is jesting
Are you kidding me? – how dare you.

So the next time you are in a conversation pay attention to how you form you words, you may not be so easily understood.

Back to last night, she straightened out her legs and this time the burn was back to the point that her eyeballs almost popped out.

A House Fly on Steroids

I am here in Cincinnati, Ohio at one of our other locations to do some training. It has been nice, sunny and warm. Yesterday I finished up my day at the office about 6:30pm so I was one of the last people to leave the building. I walk outside and hear this noise that sounds like a giant electronic transformer humming. If you have ever been near a very large, high voltage, power line, you know the sound. Only thing is that you need to amplify that about 10 times to be at the volume of this sound. As I walk out onto the sidewalk the noise continues to grow and I notice that there are all of these bugs flying around the trees.

I keep walking across the parking lot to get to my car. These bugs are in every tree and the noise is incredible. The parking lot runs along the freeway with traffic passing only about 50 ft away, only a hedge of trees separates the parking lot from all the evening traffic but tonight all you hear is the bugs. I look down to see one of these things laying on the pavement and it is “A House Fly On Steroids”.

Some call them loud, ugly, smelly and annoying; but regardless of how people feel about cicadas, they have returned in force. Each brood usually emerges every 17 years when the ground temperature reaches about 65 degrees and usually only last 4-6 weeks until they return to hibernation and return 17 years later.

I guess in some cultures they eat these things. Anyone want me to bring you some in a baggie?

At Least I Can Read

This past weekend I made a run to the used book store to sell back some of the books my mom has read in the 18 months, there were two boxes full. While I was there I went through the mystery section trying to find more books for her to read.

My mom has been an avid reader since she retired over 15 years ago, but now it is different. With my mom’s disabilities reading is one of the few tasks that she can do by herself as long as the book isn’t too large or heavy. More and more my mom’s body is not able to perform as it once did. More and more she is dependent upon others to help her.

We don’t talk about what she is losing; we talk about what she still has. She can no longer hold a pencil so she isn’t able to do crossword puzzles that once captivated her mind, she is having more and more trouble doing jigsaw puzzles unless the pieces are larger enough for her arthritic hands to hold. She enjoys watching Wheel of Fortune and usually solves each puzzle easily. And then there are the books.

I showed her the 25 books I got for her this weekend and it was only God that she hadn’t read any of them. She was so excited and all she said was, “at least I can read”, and then we went on with what we were doing.

Why So Important

As we have just completed the Hockey Season with the Red Wings wining it all and are the current Stanley Cup Champions I’m sure some of you are wondering what the big deal is. It is more than a game, it is more than a sport and if you have never lived where hockey is truly respected for the amount of skill involved you just wouldn’t understand.

Ice hockey is played on a large flat area of ice, using a three inch (76.2 mm) diameter vulcanized rubber disc called a puck. This puck is often frozen before high-level games to decrease the amount of bouncing and friction on the ice. The game is contested between two teams of skaters. The game is played all over North America, Europe and in many other countries around the world to varying extent.

The game of hockey is more like a tradition. I know for myself some of the earliest memories of my step dad are when I was about 10 and we sat in front of a TV in our living room and we watched the Red Wings Play on Hockey Night In Canada. Even though the picture was small grainy and black and white, it was the best time ever. Hockey is about the working stiff, the blue collar guy. Professional Hockey players are not in the news much even though they are very skilled and most of them are family men and take pride in that.

Today was the parade in the city of Detroit celebrating the team and their accomplishment this year and for spectator Corinne Gordon, the parade was bridge building. The Red Wings' six-game series win over the Penguins gave fans the chance to temporarily put aside the economic doldrums and the mayoral saga that have dominated the news for months. "There's been so much doom and gloom and separation between the city and suburbs because of what the mayor has done," Gordon said. "This brings people together."

Hockey is about family, tradition and hope for if only three 20 minutes periods.

Straight Rows

The other day on my way home from work I noticed a farmer out in the field plowing. It reminded me of the years I lived in Illinois and would drive through farm land at this time of the year and you would see perfectly straight rows. On many of the fields they would be so large that you couldn’t see where the field started and where it ended. So how do they keep the rows straight?

To keep the rows straight the farmer sets up markers on the edge of the field and points the front of the tractor at that mark and just makes sure that they don’t drift off of that mark. The farmer keeps going forward, never looking back or taking their eyes off of that point out in front of them. They have a target and if they take their eyes off that target they start to drift and the rows will not be straight. It is important that the rows are straight so that as the crop grows other equipment that is used in the field will not run over the plant and cause damage.

In life we need to set our eyes on the target and keep our focus or we drift. Our past is behind us and it has shaped us, but unless we look forward we cause problems that may not appear right away but later in our growth process we can get run over because we drifted from our target. Phil 3:13-14

A Sign for My Office

Over the years at a number of different companies I have noticed an interesting phenomenon. My desk seems to be where the executives in the company come when they just need someone to listen. Now it is not usually real heavy stuff and wouldn’t be considered insider trading – unless of course I told someone what I knew.

Just last Friday I had the President, one of the VPs and a Director all feel the need to either come into my office or call me out onto the sun deck to vent a few things that were troubling them.

At one of my jobs it used to freak out some of my co-workers when the CEO of the company would come to my desk that was located in the middle of a cubicle maze and sit and just chat for a few. My desk was on the way to nothing and was hard to find, he had to come looking for me, and he wasn’t just in the neighborhood.

Today I had some one call and as we were talking about some issues we were working on he asked how I could stay so calm. I told him I just prayed, “Jesus I know you are in charge here because I can’t do anything about any of this stuff.” He replied, “no really, unless you don’t want to tell me.” I said, “No really I just pray.”

So I guess that is what draws them in, the peace of God amidst all the chaos.

Kyle's Gift To Me

Have faith in yourself

Believe in the miracle of love

And keep alive the promise of hope.

A Ships Bell

The strength of a marriage bond is represented by the traditional gift of bronze on this our 8th anniversary. Our union is best represented by a Bronze Ships Bell.

A ships bell remains a powerful and tangible reminder of the history, heritage, and accomplishments of the naval service today. They serve to inspire and to remind our naval forces and personnel of their honor, courage, and commitment to the defense of our nation.

Our unique qualities are perfectly blended just as copper and tin are blended to make Bronze. Bell Bronze is the purest type of bronze, there is no contamination from other metals in the alloy. A bronze bell gives you such perfect tone and clarity, the weight and the mixture of the alloy used the most important factors that determine the “voice” of the bell.

As we keep our marriage free of contamination it will endure for a life time and ring true and clear for years to come.

Happy anniversary dear, I love you.