To Savor or To Run Ahead?

The Prize is TODAY!

Today is September 30th, the last day of the month, the last day of the weekend. Have you already started living for next week? Anticipating the workload? Planning and strategizing for getting "it" all done? Dreading the Monday commute? Looking forward to seeing your Monday people?

Have you given up on September and started in on October?

September has a whole 24 hours left. Why waste it looking forward to tomorrow? Why waste it dreading tomorrow?

Tomorrow might not come. Then what would you have done today.

Happy Birthday Nana

May you be in a very happy place today. Happy Birthday!

Remember when my child was late?

Remember when the mother child bond was tested? Last night at open house I got to see the poster she was working on -- the elephant side. GIANT Poster.

Learning about how our president is elected. Noted there is still more work to be done. Communication regarding expected leaving time will avoid tons of worry.

Payment in Kindness

Most of my conversations with clients focus on music, growing up in the 1920s, getting married 20 years later. We sit. We dance. We fold laundry and sometimes a tear is shed. And then sometimes there are moments of clarity where we are aware of present day and my client says, "We really appreciate everything you do for us."

And I reply, "And I appreciate all you give back to me."

Payment in Kindness. I am richly blessed.

New One

Name: Rosebud
Another beauty. Another blessing.

Anyone doing anything interesting today?

A Facebook friend, Donna Flanagin, asked this question this morning. I answered, "Taking care of  lovely cows."

Some of us are just lucky that way. But let me pass on her question to you: Anyone doing anything interesting today?

How do you define busy?

I define it by the number of outfits I wear in a day.
Take today for example:

1. Wake up in pjs; a given.
2. Dress for work.
3. Come home from work; dress to exercise.
4. Finish exercising; dress to paint the outside railings.
5. FInish painting; dress to take care of cows.
6. Return from the farm; clean up and dress for a religious ed. training seminar.
7. Get home from training; dress for bed.

Disney Cruise Line

To the cast of The Magic
Thanks for the memories

Little Love Affairs

Just about thirty years ago, when I was just about the same age as my daughter in this picture, I started jogging. (This picture was taken off her fb page. It's from yesterday's race when WPI won both men's and women's cross country. GO GOATS!) To settle my mind and my foot falls I would listen to Nanci Griffith's album Little Love Affairs. Keeping pace with the songs. Slowing when the tempo slowed and sprinting when the beat picked up.

Thirty years later, taking up jogging again, Nanci is the playlist. Old friend, my feet know you. Unpracticed and not able to kick out those 7 minute miles, they still pour out what they have when the beat kicks in. Thank you.

Sometimes it just takes a cup of tea

To turn your day around.

Want to test the parent child bond?

Have your child not return home from school when they are suppose to, and see how high your blood pressure rises as you race to school to find them.

All is well, but my body is still humming from the adrenalin spike. Yeah, I guess she is a vital part of my life.

A Conversation

Wife: We have a half acre of fenced in backyard. Can we summer pasture a cow?

Husband: (no thought required) No.

Wife: Bovine playdates for the sick calves?

Husband: (again no thought required) No.

Life is certainly interesting.

Midnight Haiku

Coyotes howl.
Yelping strains to Orion.
Here, in the city?

And how are the cows?

Thanks for asking. Some of the lovelies are still quite ill. Poor ladies. Yesterday in my best "client" Italian I said, "Get up. You die in bed." My lady friend, Victoria a cow, just looked at me.

I love when work adds to life and life adds to work. Victoria feel better soon.

Lemons - Lemonade

What? No Treadmill?

The long and the short is -- LEMONS: Our treadmill died. IF I chose to exercise I was being forced to run outdoors, outside my comfort zone. Gearing up, inclusive of spiffy shoes and lucky WYD 08 hat, I hit the sidewalk.


LEMONADE: I finished a 5K in 29 minutes. First 5K in over 20 years.

Was it difficult -- Oh Yeah! But I did it!

Priceless

In the eleven months I have been working with my client 5 times has she stood up from her spot on the couch and walked to the window to wave good bye to me with her husband. Yesterday was one of those days.

Payment in kindness. I'm a billionaire.

The Giant Slide

Life is like the giant slide. With all its bumps and slippery parts, and somehow, at the end it's all good.

A Sign of Our Times

Life Lesson

Careful what you ask for
A corn dog for the corn dog queen
For real?

This Band of Brothers

Brothers, sisters from church, work, neighborhoods, schools; we will walk together. Won't you walk with us?  Autism Speaks. Donations taken here. Prayers accepted anywhere.

The Ying and Yang

You can't get the sweet maple syrup without the sand.

Not every bad day is totally bad.
Not every good day is absolutely good.
The trick is in their successful separation.

Hidden Mickey?

Proving there is blessing and goodness every where. And sometimes you won't have to squint to see it.

Enjoy your day. Enjoy your life.

What exactly makes you smile?

Family, friends, faith, photography...
Just to name a few.

No Option But to Pray

Life as a Praying Mantis.

Cows = Flies

In most of life's situations there is a bad (flies) that accompanies a good (cows).

I'm not a lover of flies.

At home, one fly in the house, and a magazine pursuit ensues. Death to the Insecta!

But at the barn, untold number of flies, and life moves forward effortlessly with a casual brush towards the face. Not a fly maimed.

9 - 11

"He has done all things well."

On this solemn of days may we never forget that we are the deaf, the mute, the blind, the lame.

Two Hours Old

The local farmer still could use some help bottle feeding sick calves. Today's opportunity we visited with this beautiful baby girl just two hours old.

When you help others, doors open. Some are more precious than others.

What are you shooting for?

I'm shooting for the silvery moon. Sometimes it's so close you almost feel as if you can touch it. Or at least drive/fly to it. Other times it's an impossibility.

This Thanksgiving I hope to finish the local Turkey Trot 5K.

Perfect Reflection

What was your yesterday's opportunity?

Ours was bottle feeding calves. How lucky we were to be able to help.

Love Letters

For fun, my client and I, read through a draw full of cards, handmade by her grandchildren. By the time we enjoyed each and every card, elementary school spelling was replaced by confident high school cursive. Happy birthday wishes, Mother's Day, Father's Day, get well cards, and thank you cards for helping them with everything from school work to having them over for sleepovers, complete with friends.

Then yesterday, while filing some personal papers, I came across an elementary school note from my own little one.

Never under estimate the power of words, especially when they are written in crayon or colored pencil.

Payment in Kind(ness)

Tammy, over at Happenings on the Hill, commented on yesterday's post that we are led to where we are suppose to be. To where we are to serve. To our place in life.

It's said the money makes the world go round. It's true, we all need it to live. But what I find interesting is monetarily some friends make what I gross in a year for one day's work.

Do I mind that I walked away from that much earning potential? I always knew I wouldn't line my pockets with this job. But seeing a cleared breakfast plate, and hearing the words, "It's just like New York. You better be careful or you will spoil us." is payment in kindness.

One if these things is not like the others...

Like the old song from Sesame Street, "One of these things isn't the same..."

Over the past 6 months I've been fortunate to meet up with many graduate school and post doc friends. People with whom I'd shared the best and the worst of times in the research trenches. We will forever share the educational distinction of, PhD. But after that it changes, for they all go by Dr., professionally. And then they all take it a bit further by having even more letters after their name such as CEO, CSO, VP, Pres, Director.

Still, I ponder the road not taken.

Irene, Not Quite Goodnight

Last year, roughly, hurricane Irene tore up the state of Vermont. Washing away roads, homes, stores, and fields like this one at a CSA in Cuttingsville.

The headlines have moved on. Stores dug out and reopened. It appears as life is back to normal. But this field not repaired, not planted, not ready for harvest is a solemn reminder that after the storm, even a year after, their are those still affected and unmended.

When life is up close

Up close, life is experienced on a very personal level.

The Games People Play

while camping. Pirate Bones, Phase Ten, Cribbage, Boochie, MovieTrivia

Happiness is...

True Confession

While away on vacation I actually thought about quitting my job. Being a caregiver is not hard work, but it's constant, repetitive. It's variations on the same, every weekday of every week. Same tasks, same meals to prepare, same questions to answer, same, same, same... With no hope for change or recovery. My clients are well into their 90's. One could compare caregiving  to watching the movie Titanic. We all knew the outcome before we stepped foot into the theatre: The boat sank. No surprise there.

So what is going to happen at work? Eventually at life's cold close I will be left without my clients. And there have been signs of the downward slipping for months now. Why go back? Why not find a jollier job?

Still pondering I returned for Day 1. YES! They remembered me. The stories of their last week and my vacation get swapped. They were happy to see me. Smiling, and loving my job, I was happy to see them, happy to speak my limited Italian that gets a smile or a laugh, but still on the fence.

Day 2. Another great day; highlighted by dancing with a 96 year old. Under the direction of his wife, all smiles, she taught me to dance to Dean Martin singing the Italian song on the Lizzie Maguire movie soundtrack. A good day.

Day 3. Turmoil struck and things went amiss, but we all survived, ending my shift with Benny Goodman and Sing, Sing, Sing. Goodness was plucked from the bowels of bad. The days events forgotten never to be remembered due to Short Term Memory Loss. A blessing.

And then there was Day 4, which sealed the deal. Dean Martin again singing that Italian song, on repeat, for probably the 20+ time. We were singing along and swaying to the melody when he asked her to dance and they did. Married 70 years and still there was such warmth in their embrace. Such unbridled smiles upon their faces.

A few slow turns around the room, they invited me to join them. And I did. And I will, until there is no more dancing to be done.