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.