My Thrive Experience

I have to share the most amazing thing. I am at home this morning watching my grand daughter and one of her second cousins while Fran is gone to a gym to workout. So what, you say. A month ago, she didn't want to get out of bed, much less exercise. What is the difference? Thrive, that's what.

For years Fran hasn't felt good. Almost everyday she woke up with a headache. Almost everyday she complained about some ache or other. I once asked her to tell me if she ever felt good, because I began to wonder if she ever felt good.

While visiting my sister on our way to Daytona Beach for vacation in early September, we noticed something different about her. She had more energy and seemed more excited about life. We insisted she tell us what she was doing. She provided Fran with a sample of Thrive from Le-Vel. She gave her enough to last until we returned the following week from vacation. Sure, we said. She will try it. I'm not sure what we expected. We even called it “Snake Oil”.We, I mean she, has tried many things over the years to try to feel better, with no success.

On the third day, Fran told me she felt good. We were able to swim and take long walks on the beach all week with no back pain. She has only had one headache since she started using the product. That, in itself makes it worth it to me, the husband, but there is so much more. She reports that her continual back pain is gone, she has more energy and wants to work out. That never happened before. She joined a gym last week. In three weeks, her clothes are no longer tight and I know the pounds and inches are going to continue to disappear as a result of her energy and determination to take better care of herself. I've begun my Thrive Experience and must say that I have more energy and don't find myself yawning every time I sit down.

Guys ask yourself if your wife would benefit from more energy and a new zest for life and while you're at it, what about yourself. I know our women are much more open with us and their friends about the way they feel than we men are, but think about it. Wouldn't you like to feel better. We don't have to come home from work, sit down in our favorite chair and sleep while we “watch” TV. The Thrive 8 Week experience might just be the thing to redirect your life. Check it out at EveryoneThrive.com

I'm Telling You

Has anyone besides me noticed that it seems that every human being on the planet doesn't want much. They just want what they want, and they want it like they want it when they want it. From birth to death it is a constant struggle to get what we want. As infants, we wail our cute little heads off for food, attention and hygienic services. Nothing much ever changes except that for most of our lives we can handle our own hygienic needs. 

As children we didn't really care who we inconvenienced when we thought we needed something critical to our well being, like candy, going outside to play, or the latest fill in the blank.

As teenagers, our right to listen to whatever purported itself to be music at the time greatly surpassed anyone else's right to peace and quiet. Our need for independence surpassed our parent's concern about our safety and well being when we were away from them. Our need to spend small fortunes on what turned out to be trivial trinkets and mostly junk was much more important than our parent's concern over us wasting our money. We knew more than those old people telling us what to do.

As young adults, we couldn't believe how disrespectful children and teenagers had become in a few short years, sometimes months. We began to complain about how expensive it was to buy all the things we took for granted while we were living with mom and dad. Maybe, if we hadn't bought all those packages of wacky racer bubble gum to get the cards, we might have a few more dollars in our pockets. We wondered what other junk we had to show for all the money we either earned from a job or were given as an allowance.

On the day we became parents, we suddenly became aware of those inconsiderate teenagers and young adults that didn't know that babies have to get their sleep and carried on with loud activities way past eight o'clock at night. Then we began that tenuous journey of child raising. We became the ones that had to do things for the good of the little angel entrusted to us. We asked ourselves why won't they just do what we tell them. They will never get in trouble that way. It made perfect sense. Why won't they just listen. Frightening things began to happen as parents. We began to hear voices, our parents voices, coming from our own mouths. At first it was scary, then enlightenment came and we laughed at ourselves.

Then we got to become grandparents. I was never an uncle before I had my own children, but from what I have observed, it might be close to being as much fun as being a grandparent, but I'll never know. Nothing beats being a grandparent, so far. So far she is almost always as glad to see me as my dog is. We get to love them, spoil them and then we get a good night's sleep. As a grandparent we get the privilege of watching our children raise our grandchild, seeing all the things they are doing the wrong way and biting our tongues to keep our thoughts to ourselves, at least most of the time. We bite our tongues because our children are going through what we went through when we were going through the phase in the previous paragraph.

NOTE TO MY CHILDREN. I don't have to do much tongue biting. You're doing a great job. You make me proud daily as I watch you. I caution you that you may soon begin to hear voices too.

As we grow more experienced (older) in life, we begin to offer our opinions and insights to those individuals around us that sorely need our wisdom and guidance. This phase begins when we, as toddlers, try to convince infants that the red sippy cup is ours and no you can't have it. You need to get your bottle. By the time we are old, whenever that is, we are full of knowledge about just about everything. Just ask us. But you won't, so we have to tell you.

You see, from cradle to grave, we want things our way. Unfortunately life is not like Burger King and we don't always get it our way. With all that said, my premise is that throughout life we just want what we want. We want it done the right way, which is our way and can't understand why everyone doesn't just listen to us and have a better life because our way is, in fact, the best way.

If you have any questions about anything, ask somebody, anybody. They will be glad to tell you just what you need to do. I promise they know best.

The views expressed by the author of this piece are entirely my own and by my own definition above, are the only ones that matter. If you disagree, write your own. They will be right too.

Ron

Did you know?

As you may know, Alton Brit is my alter ego with a word processor. My second book, Stories from Morris Pointe Volume: 1, Just Good Friends, has been available from Smashwords.com since early March. The second volume of the series is nearly completed and I hope to upload it to Smashwords before the end of April. My series that has its focus on the inhabitants of the fictional community of Morris Pointe is expanding. As in real life, the people of Morris Pointe have connections to others, far beyond their community. Find out what happens next with the couple that would be Just Good Friends. Watch forStories from Morris Pointe Volume 2: A Wedding Surprise, coming in April, 2014.

My new book, Finding A New Normal, is now available online at https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/306187 Smashwords has the book in formats for your nook, kindle, and other popular ereaders. It should be available at Barnes & Noble, Amazon and other online outlets in the next few days.

Send an email to altonbrit@gmail.com and I'll send you a code for a free download. I just ask that you read my book and consider giving it a review at www.smashwords.com

I've wanted to write a book for years. I'm finally doing it. I invite you to follow my progress with this book and many more to follow. I plan to use Alton Brit for a pen name. I hope you decide to keep tabs on me as I follow my dream.  You will find me listed at your favorite ebook seller site soon.

-AB

Blog: http://altonbrit.blogspot.com
Facebook: Alton Britt
Twitter: @altonbrit

Google Maps

I had two interesting experiences with google maps in the past few days. On Saturday, I traveled to Fort Worth, Texas, to attend the Aledo Texas High School Graduation on Monday evening. My niece was an honor graduate on Monday night. Saturday, I was ready to put google maps in the dog house. Somehow, after I told my droid X where I wanted to go, the destination got changed and we arrived at our location which was about thirty miles from my brother’s house near Aledo. Today all was forgiven. At Gurdon, we had to leave I-30 due to an accident on the road ahead. Thanks to google maps, we were able to find an alternate route thru the country side and avoided waiting with all the slow moving traffic. Along the way, we happened upon an old iron bridge and a photo opportunity. I will be giving google maps another try later, but next time, I will double check my destination.

Isn't Arkansas Weather Great?

I love living in Arkansas. I was born here and have lived here for all but three years of my life that I lived in Anchorage, Alaska. I believe I appreciate life here more now than I did before Alaska because I made the decision to move back. After those three years in Anchorage, I vowed to wear shorts outside every month. This week, I haven’t been tempted to fulfill my vow for February 2011.

We live our lives at such a hectic pace, at least until the first snow flake falls. Then, in Arkansas, everything comes to a slippery, sliding halt. During three school years in Anchorage, our sons missed one day school due to snow. It was so different. Snow events like the one yesterday are mere inconveniences when your city is prepared. We, in the south, are not ready, so we have days like yesterday and today.

With any luck, by Tuesday it will all be gone and we can either look forward to the next snow or dread the same.

This is my first time to blog using my new BlackBerry.
I'm still trying to get used to the layout of my Pearl flip phone.
I typed much faster in high school.

There is a dog in my bed!

Don’t get the wrong idea. I’m talking about a real dog. She is seventy-six pounds of canine energy that has completely changed life around the old homestead. John got married. Jeff moved out. For a while, we were empty nesters. While Jeff was out of the house, he got Maggie. . Jeff came back. Maggie is somewhat Labrador Retriever and somewhat something else. She was so small and cute and adorable when we first saw her. By the time Jeff moved back home she wasn’t so small, but still cute and adorable. She has chewed up a couple couch pillows when she got bored, but by and large she has been a good dog.

When I met Fran, she was afraid of dogs, especially large dogs. During the first twenty years of our marriage, nothing changed. Then she met a little white dog named Sandy. For some reason, they developed a connection that continues today. Maggie was at least as big as Sandy when she and Fran met. By the time Jeff moved back in, Maggie was becoming a big dog. Jeff moved back home in March and it was too cold for Maggie to live outside in the house Jeff built for her. The weather warmed up, and so did Fran’s heart. During the summer it was too hot for Maggie to live outside. She is now a seventy-six pound lap dog. Maggie is most content when she is within your reach. If you are sitting on the couch, she is likely to jump up in the seat beside you so that you can pet her. Maggie eventually learned to jump up on the bed and she now thinks it is her bed.

Maggie is much calmer now than she was when she first came to live with us. There are times when I think she actually understands us when we talk to her. I know she likes us. She tries to lick us to death.

Some day Jeff and Maggie will move out again. We sure will miss them.

Happy New Year!

It is winter today. Saturday it felt like spring. Who knows what tomorrow will bring. From June 1993 until June 1996 our family lived in Anchorage, Alaska. It was a tremendous experience to live in “The Last Frontier” for three years. There, we experienced winter from early September to late April. The boys learned to ski, skate and play hockey. We lived through one winter with 120 inches of snowfall. I spent a month in Fairbanks where the temperature never got above minus 30 degrees. We enjoyed the winters after we adapted.

The summers were glorious with almost continuous daylight. We rode our bicycles along trails throughout the city and along the coast. The boys and I hiked the Resurrection Trail across the Chugach National Forest. We rode in a car loaded on a flat car of a train, past seven glaciers, through tunnels to a town that was served only by rail. We saw some beautiful sites. We walked across glaciers, skied past moose and fished for salmon in Resurrection Bay. It was awesome.

We saw the Aurora Borealis overhead when you could hear the electrons popping. We watched the start of the Iditarod Sled Dog Race. We watched Independence Day fireworks when it wasn’t even dark.

Looking back, we will always cherish our time in Alaska, but when we had the opportunity to return to Arkansas, we took advantage of it. During three years very close to the top of the world I saw more snow than I care to remember. When we returned, I resolved to take advantage of the occasional warm days of Arkansas winters. I resolved to wear shorts outside at least once every month, just because I can. Last Saturday should have been my day for this month. I missed it. As I looked outside today I saw icicles on everything and had no desire to venture outside in shorts. Thank goodness there will probably be another warm day before the end of the month, maybe even before the end of the week. Don’t you just love it? I do.

I moved back to Arkansas because I wanted to. The first thirty-five years of my life, I lived in Arkansas because I was born here. The past thirteen years I’ve been back in Arkansas by choice and that choice has made all the difference. Being away for a time as helped me to appreciate life here much more than I ever did before.

New Year’s Eve

Today is New Year’s Eve. 2008 is mostly in the rearview mirror at this point. I hope you were able to make good use of the year because we will not be able to get it back. Who would want to anyway? The opportunity to accomplish that all important, life changing task or objective is almost past.

It seems like just yesterday that the world was abuzz with Y2K. I’m sure you remember that. Can you believe that was nine years ago? This television conversion process from analog to digital sort of stirs my memories of the Y2K uproar. I don’t know about you, but I’m tired of being reminded that all my cable attached televisions will not have a problem on the “the day”. If the television stations are paid for all this air time to annoy the public, they are probably raking in a tidy sum. With that said, there will probably be someone with an antenna connected television that will not have any idea what is going on when their TV quits working. “The stupid thing was working fine yesterday.” Face it, some people don’t pay attention. Jeff, my son that used to work at Walmart, said that some people complained about those converters they bought. “I hooked it up to my new flat screen, HD TV and it doesn’t work.” He can tell stories you wouldn’t believe. I hope I can get him to write some of them down.

I just ran across my Christmas List from a few days ago. I didn’t get everything on my list. Now that was a surprise. I’m not sure anyone even saw it, but it doesn’t matter. It was all just stuff. You know that most, if not all of the stuff that we hold dear will eventually end up in a landfill somewhere. The truly important things in life are the memories. This Christmas has been unique. It won’t be remembered like we had thought, but it has been unique, none the less. We had great plans. We planned to spend the Christmas holiday in Northwest Arkansas visiting with relatives. We did that. We stayed at mom and dad’s house while they are vacationing. We painted their living room and dining room, like we planned. By the way, it looks great. Unfortunately, the flu bug arrived two days after Christmas as we were putting things back in place in the living room on Saturday night, and we are still here.

We had planned to be in Florida today, but those plans have been put on hold. Fran is getting better, but has no desire to travel that far after just emerging from the flu. New Year’s Day on the beach will have to wait for another time. I’m hoping she will feel better today so that we can still enjoy the New Year’s Day holiday.

After a long absence, it appears that perhaps Arkansas Razorback Basketball has returned to Bud Walton Arena. Last night’s game sold out before three o’clock yesterday, and judging from last night’s performance, Razorback Basketball tickets just got more valuable and hard to come by. Jeff and John got to see the Razorbacks defeat the fourth ranked Sooners last night as a part of that sell out crowd. I’m sure they will have exciting accounts of the game to tell, more of those memories.

Today is my mom’s birthday. I won’t disclose her age, but as the song says, “She is old enough to know better, but still too young to care.” She is enjoying one of my favorite places, the Gulf Coast of Florida. Our plans for a New Year’s Day on the beach started when I told her I was going to take off from work on her birthday and come to see her. She said she would be in Florida, but I was welcome to come. We still look forward to it, but it will have to be another time.

Happy Birthday Mom! I love you!

A look back at Christmas

Christmas 2008 was a wonderful day. It is remarkable how the world slows down on Christmas Eve. Traffic was almost non-existent. It is a shame that we stay so busy most of the time that we can't slow down to enjoy life and enjoy our families. All through the day on the 25th, most businesses were closed so there was little need to be out and about. By tomorrow morning, the business world will come back to life and by noon, the machine of life will be back up to speed.

Christmas is over now and we have a week to get anything done that we intended to accomplish during 2008. Many will start to consider and make "New Year's Resolutions" during the coming week. Not me. A few years ago I made a resolution to not make any more New Year's Resolutions. I have been fully successful in my efforts.

We are having an unusual Christmas weekend this year. After a great Christmas Lunch at Fran's Mom's house, where I ate way too much, Fran and I returned to my Parent's house where we are staying over the Holidays. We then began to paint their living room. You see, Mom and Dad are spending Christmas with my sister and her family in Georgia. They left us a paint chip. We got the paint and at this point we have the first coat on at least two thirds of the living room.

We have now quit painting for the night and are watching old Bogart movies. We will finish up tomorrow before returning home. When we get home, we will have to get ready to join Mom and Dad for the New Year Holiday on the beach in Panama City, Florida. I can't wait to walk on the beach on New Year's Day!

It is my hope that you and yours had a Merry Christmas.

What do you want for Christmas?

What a question. When I was younger, there was no limit to the number of items that would appear on such a list, but when I think seriously about it, I don’t ever remember putting pen or pencil or crayon to paper to create such a list. I was a good little kid. I wanted most everything. Throughout the years, I received several things that are rotting or have rotted in landfills from Arkansas to Alaska. On Christmas mornings, and sometimes an occasionally Christmas eve, I have carefully pulled the wrapping from toy trucks, trains, games, toys of every imaginable type and so many toy guns. As a kid, I have received the usual clothes and other things I needed from Mom and Dad. In the early years, a package containing clothes was sometimes met with a smile to hide my disappointment, but I’m really not sure why, because I never remember a Christmas without more toys than I now know I needed or deserved. As time has gone by, I’ve occasionally had to put the silent, head nodding smile back to work, providing cover while silently trying to figure out where I could ever wear a particular item in public. Then, there have been the times when I have been overcome with absolute joy as I unwrapped something I really wanted or needed.

Christmas is easy, but Christmas can be hard. Christmas should be when we take time to ponder, consider and celebrate the most extravagant, loving gift ever given. It is understandable that Christmas has become the mega commercialized event that it has become, even though, sadly, many have not figured it out. God gave us the ultimate gift of Jesus because he loves us. God was the example. Jesus gave his life for us, because he loves us. Is it any wonder that we want to give to those we love? Notice, I didn’t say give things. The love you have for someone is your best gift. Your time, your smile, your visit, your kind word and your listening ear are some of your best, most appreciated gifts.

In the very beginning in Bethlehem, the Wise Men came with gifts for the child. Modern society has taken the ball, so to speak, and run with it. Countless millions and even perhaps billions are spent to convince us that the gifts each of us should expect on Christmas should be purchased from them. Following the hints provided on TV, everyone should expect cars, jewelry, vacations, cell phones, huge flat screen televisions with satellite or cable HD service in your home theater (that won’t need those digital converter boxes constantly hawked by televisions stations a hundred times a day), and a million other “things” at every conceivable price point. NO ONE, in my circle of friends, can actually afford this kind of Christmas. If we start to believe all these helpful commercials on TV, we can become quite depressed. SURPRISE!

Be very careful. There is a danger of spending more on Christmas than you can afford. The song says, “I’m dreaming of a white Christmas.” BEWARE of the plastic Christmas. That one day of extravagance has the potential to cause long lasting financial hardship. Society exerts great pressure to overbuy at this time of year. RESIST. It is hard, but RESIST. By all means, give gifts, but try not to over do it.

Alas, I digress. My Christmas list:

• A brimmed, cloth hat (to keep my head warm this winter),
• A small, two blade pocket knife (to open boxes and clean my fingernails),
• A gray hoodie (because my old one is ratty),
• A Bluetooth headset.
• I always like books, so a gift card from a bookstore would be nice.
• I would like to have software to edit video and a camera to provide the video (that one is just pie in the sky).
  

These are all nice things, but what I would most enjoy would be for Jeff to find a satisfying job in the new year, John and Allison to be honeymooners forever and for my beautiful Fran to feel great.

We can all have a very Merry Christmas and a joyous holiday season if we remember what is important. If you can, spend time with your family. Let them know you are there for them and you love them. If you have a friend that isn’t fortunate enough to have family they can visit, reach out to them. Do something nice for someone, just because.

Most importantly of all, take time to thank God for the Greatest Christmas Gift ever.

It is a Problem

Has this ever happened to you? You are enjoying a meal at your favorite restaurant. The atmosphere is wonderful. The food is excellent. The service is top notch. Everything about the evening is perfect. You ask the server to bring some extra napkins. The server responds, “No problem,” she turns and disappears around the corner.

Suddenly all the atmosphere drains out of the moment. “What is this ‘no problem’ stuff?” You ask your companion. In mere moments, the server returns with the napkins, at which time you say “Thank You.” Then, for the second time of the evening, the server responds, “No problem”.

When I was but a wee little lad on my mother’s knee, she taught me to say “You’re Welcome.” when someone said, “Thank You.” I can’t image that at some point in the recent past, mothers began teaching their toddlers to say, “No problem.”

At times like this I start to feel like an old codger. For some reason, this phrase has climbed to the top of the heap of things that bother me. It seems that “no problem” has become an all purpose phrase for any occasion. I have heard it used as a response to “thank you” as noted above. It seems to be just the response to requests made between friends and acquaintances.

When I ask a service person for something that is clearly within their scope of responsibility, I would rather hear words to the effect that the person will be taking care of my request than a “no problem”. When I ask for more tea or more napkins, I really don’t care if it is a problem or not. I just want to be taken care of.

The thing that annoys me the most is that despite my aversion to this phrase, I have caught myself repeating it. Am I the only one that has a problem with “no problem”? If it bothers you too, join me in my effort to eradicate it from my corner of the world.

Stamp out “no problem”.

I love Arkansas weather. We get to experience all four seasons. I enjoy each season for a little while and then I’m ready for a change. Today, we have a little dose of winter. I plan to watch it mostly from the side lines. I won’t be a part of the morning commute. I’m sure bread and milk will be gone from grocery store shelves soon as Arkansans attempt to cope with this little shot of winter.

On Sunday we saw seventy degree temperatures. Today we are dealing with almost an inch of sleet. The great thing about a dose of winter weather in Arkansas is that in four or five days it is likely to be seventy degrees again.

I look at winter differently now than I once did. In the nineties, I lived in Anchorage, Alaska, for three years. While in the Last Frontier, I met people that said they wouldn’t want to live in Arkansas because of all the tornados. I told them I would rather deal with tornados, which can be accurately forecasted, than with Earthquakes which appear with no warning.

In those three years, I developed a deeper appreciation for all things Arkansas, including the weather. After three years in Anchorage, we chose to return to Arkansas in 1996, and I’m glad we did. I think I appreciate the state more, now that I’m here by choice.

The good thing about these little shots of inclement weather that appear in Arkansas each
Winter is that they don’t last very long. We will back to mild weather in a few days.

Christmas is only nine days away! I hope to have my shopping completed in the next three or four days.

Here comes Santa Claus!

I finally found my way back to my blog.

It has been too long since I took time to update my little spot on the net. Over a year has passed since my last entry. I must do better.

This past year we picked up two new residents at our house. Jeff moved back in with us and he brought his dog with him, of course. It was late winter and Fran determined that it was too cold for Maggie, the dog, to sleep outside in her house. By the way, Maggie’s house is a 5 x 7 monstrosity in the back yard. Now, several months later, Maggie has spent only a hand full of nights outside the house since coming to live with us. It was too cold at first, then too hot and now it is too cold again. Maggie is some kind of spoiled at this point. If we are at home, she believes that we should all be able to see each other at all times.

It is truly the most amazing relationship, Fran and the dog, her dog. Maggie was Jeff’s dog originally, but I think she is more loyal to Fran now than Jeff. Fran says, “She is not a dog. She is my little buddy.” This is from a woman that used to be deathly afraid of dogs.

Maggie is a seventy plus pound lap dog. She believes that Fran and I only exist to pet and play with her. If she didn’t shed, she would be just about perfect. She has learned to ring the bell on the back door when she wants to go outside. She doesn’t talk back. You don’t expect her to pick up after herself, so you aren’t disappointed. She is always glad to see you. What more could you ask for?

Pork

I am a Hog Fan and have been, almost as long as I can remember anything. In the mid sixties, I remember my neighbors building a large Razorback on a trailer in their carport. The 1969 shoot out between the Arkansas Razorbacks and Texas Longhorns in Fayetteville is a vivid memory. I am a graduate of the University of Arkansas. Today, the Razorbacks pulled off perhaps the greatest road upset victory in the history of the program when they beat the LSU Tigers in triple overtime by a score of 50 to 48.

The world is so different now than it was just a few years ago. When I was growing up in Little Rock, the only news of the Razorbacks came from two daily papers and three television stations. In those days, it might take all week for some juicy tidbit of news to cross the state. Today, with the internet, news of some player’s legal transgression can be broadcast across the internet within minutes. In the old days, the media outlets had to stand behind their reports. Today, anyone with an opinion and an internet connection can be an information outlet.

Currently there is a vocal segment of Razorback Fans that wants Houston Nutt to move on. There is another segment of the fan base that says he should stay. I don’t know who is right. I’ll leave it to those that actually can make the decision.

I am concerned that many lose sight of the most important business taking place “on the hill”. For many, sports is the main business of the U of A, but in actuality, the main business of the University of Arkansas takes place in the classrooms and laboratories. Thousands of men and women enroll in the University of Arkansas to pursue a college degree. The research and education that is conducted at the University of Arkansas is the important business conducted at the University.

Razorback Sports is a series of games. Education is real life. Whether the current Razorback sports team wins or loses, at the end of the day, those of us that were persistent and earned our degrees will still have them.

Woo Pig Sooie Go Hogs!

Looking back

My Grandpa was born in 1892. In the summer 1969, when I was twelve years old, I had the pleasure of spending more time than usual with him and my grandma at their house in Northwest Arkansas. In July, when the Eagle landed on the moon, we gathered in their living room that would never know air conditioning, to watch a snowy, poor quality picture on a black and white television, linked to the world by an antenna on a pole outside the house. More than once, I remember someone being dispatched to the antenna to try to get a better picture from a particular station by turning it in the direction of the broadcast point. In those days, cable was something attached to a winch.

Grandpa and I had many conversations that summer, sitting in rocking chairs, on his front porch. I remember when he recounted his move to Arkansas from Oklahoma in a wagon. We talked about how things had changed during his lifetime. At seventy-six, he had lived in a world where families moved in horse drawn wagons and now the United States had put a man on the moon. He remembered the first automobile he had ever seen and how it scared the horses. He was amazed at changes he had witnessed first hand, and wondered what would change in my lifetime. Grandpa died that fall, and I am so glad I got to spend that time with him.

I don’t ever remember Grandpa getting in a hurry. My fondest memories of him are sitting at his side eating fresh apples and peaches, as fast as he could peel them. He was patient with us when he showed us things he thought we should know. He could sit for hours at the edge of a farm pond, fishing with a cane pole. He plowed his garden with an old horse that all that grandkids wanted to ride. I only remember being on the poor animal’s back, a handful of times. He raised sorghum cane that he and the family cooked down to make Sorghum Molasses in a wood fired cooker.

He was a recycler and ran his own home based business before it was the thing to do. He manufactured hickory bark bottomed chairs for a living, in a shop across the yard from the house, its power tools powered by a recycled old Ford Model “A” engine. He made stools, rocking chairs and straight back chairs. He learned to make chairs from my great-grandfather. He taught his children, my mom, aunt and uncle to make chairs, and he showed me and my brother how to lace chair bottoms. By the time he showed us his trade, we used hay string instead of hickory bark. A few of his chairs still survive today. I am fortunate to have two of them that I plan to pass down to my sons some day. He sold three hundred chairs to Roy Ritter for his restaurant, The AQ Chicken House, in Springdale, AR, and a hand full of them were still in use when I was there last.

Oh, how things have changed since 1969. Grandpa never had a telephone in his house and didn’t have any idea what a computer was. Cell phones, PDAs, ipods, GPS systems, microwave ovens, digital cameras, automatic dishwashers, digital recorders, cruise controls, high definition flat screen televisions and refrigerators with ice in the door all contribute to our fast paced life today.

I have one question. With all our stuff and our super fast paced life, are we as happy as a guy that had the time to sit in a rocking chair and peel peaches and apples for his grandkids?
Just a thought

Today's stuff de jour

The best thing about the name of my new blog is that it doesn’t lock me into a particular type of content. My interpretation is that stuff de jour will be whatever is on my mind for the day of a particular post. I can expound on anything I want. In future installments, I’ll explore commuting to work, home improvement projects, catering, weddings, hunting, college sports, my church, family, travel, and all the stuff I haven’t thought of yet.

My faith is important to me. It has shaped many of my views of life. Many of my activities and pursuits are in and around my church. My family is important to me. I love my wife and sons and like to spend as much time as I can with them. I look forward to retirement, but realize that I will need something to occupy my time after I clean out my desk and take all my stuff home. I hope to retire at 55 and experience a vocational refocusing for ten or fifteen years. There are a lot of things I would like to explore, but I haven't had the time yet.

I have decided that when I retire, lunch with my wife will be my priority. For almost thirty years, I have made the journey to work each morning and on too very few of those days I have had the pleasure of her company over lunch. I plan for that all to change.

This is probably enough for today. I can hardly wait to see where this ride goes. You can tag along. We may not always agree, but then, who does?