OF PUBLIC SERVANTS AND HOLIDAYS:

Today I want to talk about the people who make life worth living.
I know the title is a little misleading in this but what it means is our police officers, firefighters, paramedics, ambulance techs and EMTs, the doctors and nurses, the security officers and the power workers… in short all the people who work every day of the year so that you can be warm and safe and have the nicer things.

See I think we don’t think about them often enough. Remember I said they work every day, that is the crux of the whole thing here… EVERY day.
When you’re kids are out trick or treating, and you are at your party/ies, they are standing by to keep the predators away, while you are sitting around your thanksgiving feast they are waiting for the call to come rscue you from the food you are choking on or to save you from your stupidity in trying to deep fry your turkey, when you are around your Christmas tree opening presents they are ready and willing to come out to save your home from burglars or fire.
And while all these things are going on they are also out there making sure you have the electricity to see by in your house or to light your ornaments, they are guarding your place of employment so you have somewhere to go back to work at after you are done with your frivolity. Often they are sacrificing time with their own families and friends in order to do this.

The thing is, we never really think of them. We don’t think about what they are doing until they drop the bell for a few minutes or we have to rush a loved one to the ER or we need someone to come and save us from our folly. Then they see US when we are in the worst circumstances possible, in the midst of crisis and fear.

And we seldom appreciate them for what they do. We rail at the policeman who in stopping the crook knocked over our snowman.
We scream at the doctor or nurse in the ER because we HAVE to know what is going on with the loved one who was brought in with third degree burns because of the stupid deep fryer. We berate the firefighter/s who took too long to get to our house to save our favorite Christmas ornaments.

So this holiday season I am asking you to go out of yourself. Think about the “public servants” around you in your life.
And not just the ones I listed here, all of them have thankless jobs where we are to ready to gripe and complain about them and we seldom offer any encouragement.
Think of your child’s school interactions, get a present for the teacher for Christmas yes, but don’t forget the bus driver who got your child to and from school safely all this time.
Think about the school nurse the classroom aid and the principle.
What about your mail carrier? Maybe he or she could use a lift of encouragement with a Christmas card just for them, and a small gift would be nice too. (please check if there are any restrictions against gifting first though.)

If you see a police officer regularly (or even better the security officer at your work) bring him or her a thank you note for the safety they provide in your everyday life.

Let these people know they are valued for the service they give. Let them know that they are not laboring in vain.
I am sure if you think of it you can come up with ideas too for things you can do to let them know how you feel.

IT’S MY PARTY I CAN CRY IF I WANT TO

So last week we celebrated Megan’s birthday. (for just about the whole week.) Her Grandpa came to visit (for the whole week) we planned a big party, and we (she) opened presents.
After all you only turn 5 once right?

I was struck by this song and it’s lyrics during her party though, when she lost the second game of musical chairs and had a meltdown. Tears flowing freely and unashamedly down her face, she decided she didn’t want to play musical chairs anymore.
This caused me to think. I have had a few bad birthdays in my life; some of them I would dearly love to change. Is this a trend that she has inherited from me? Is this just a natural issue with birthday parties (so stressful they cause us to break down when we are young) or what?

Now I could attribute it to selfishness; But I am more inclined to believe that this is a stressful situation which a younger person hasn’t got the skill sets to deal with, and so an emotional overload happens.

Of course THAT causes me to wonder; Does this mean that she will be less able to cope with stressful changes than a peer who handles a party like this more calmly? I certainly hope not.

I know there are moments in my life when I have not been as calm as I ought to have been, I have overreacted, and gone ballistic and I have broken down in tears too a time or two.

Of course part of my problem is that I tend to dwell! And I could still tell you in detail most of my bad birthdays and what made them bad. It would be harder for me to tell you what birthdays I have enjoyed.

Well I guess that means I hope that she doesn’t take after my negativity, but I do come by it naturally. I am human and most humans seem to have that streak in them.

Oh well, maybe the next party will be better. She has a new skill set now. She’ll know what is coming up next time an event like this happens.
Until then I hope you all have a great day.

THE CLIMB:

This is the first in my series of musically inspired blogging.

This song (performed by Miley Cyrus) is one that inspires hope. An acknowledgement of trials and strife to be dealt with while also noting the dream that drives [us].
For me I like the tune, some of the lyrics are a little… odd, but they are ok. (“I may not know it but these are the moments I’m going to remember most…”) uuuummmmm yeah if I don’t know it then how am I going to acknowledge it?

But really this song does speak to me. It gives me hope. I like that.

Life today has so little to hope for it seems. The threat of terrorism, the diseases, which while not what my grandparents had to endure they still exist, the tough times ahead and the recession we are in now.
But this song helps us to remember that life IS struggle. The bird, in order to live, has to struggle it’s way out of the egg first. This struggle makes the bird stronger and enables it to survive later.
The butterfly has to struggle out of the cocoon, that struggle gives it’s wings the strength so that it can fly. All of life has to struggle to be.
And “that which does not kill us only serves to make us stronger.”

So today’s song choice is The Climb. I hope that you will remember to keep on struggling… the alternative might not be so nice.

SONG TITLES:

I have recently thought of something, a little experiment I want to try. I am going to use some of my favorite song titles to try to come up with themes for future blogs here.
Maybe that will help me to come up with the blog postings I want to put in here.
We will see huh...

maybe it will cause me to open myself a little more.
Anyway keep watching here for the first installment.

BIRTHDAY SURPRISE:

Well this past week we celebrated our birthdays (my wife and I) and here are the gifts the girls chose to give us.
For Christina’s birthday Faith went ALL out and broke her little toe. This resulted in a trip to the ER on a Saturday and a visit to the pediatrician for the Monday following.
But for My birthday the girls decided to tone it down a little and so they just had Holly choke on a piece of trash carelessly left on the floor. Which prompted me to delve into my CPR training and have to administer real live anti choke techniques on her.

I am glad by the way to have that training to be able to use it. At least that meant we could avoid the ER again.
So on we go swinging onto a new year for each of us. I really hope that this is NOT the trend for the entirety of our year/s at this age. If it is I am going to have to be committed for my next birthday, well if we survive it that is.

WHAT IS MATURITY ANYWAY?:

So I just finished reading the catcher in the rye. My first impression was "wow there sure is a LOT of bad language in that book, and I would sure not want my children to see all of that language."
My second thought was "gee I remember going through all that 'angst' and being a teenager". I really understood the jaded perception/s of Caufield. but then I came across the line that made me think the most.
"the mark of an immature man is the desire to die nobly for a cause; the mark of the a mature man is to live humbly for one.

I pondered the meaning of that statement and I ended up finding myself in disagreement. I would instead say the mark of the Immature is to want to be a hero the mark of the mature is to be quietly heroic.
I think that is actually what the author was getting at.
See I think that when you believe in something (a cause) to the point that you are willing to sacrifice your life is a very mature thing. The United States of America wouldn't exist if not for this drive, Slavery would not be abolished, and no one would be safe to sleep at night because there would be no police officers to keep us safe. (I mean do you really want the immature to carry guns?)

Our country was founded by men and women who felt that to die nobly for the cause of freedom was the greatest thing possible (Nathan Hale and his " I regret that I have but one life to give..." statement leap to mind.) and it has continued thanks to that sense of sacrifice. Slavery was abolished in our country and in England by the same kind of sentiment.

Even the Christian faith, which has done so much for the world though the world would deny the good done, was comprised of people who were willing to die for their belief/s.
In fact when I think of Rome and Christianity and I think of the many Christians who were sacrificed to lions as entertainment for the general populace of Rome I have to say that I find those who were entertained by the violent death to be MUCH more immature than the way that those Christians died, NOBLY FOR A CAUSE.

So I will stick with the idea that it is the desire to be a hero, because you don't realize the sacrifice involved, that is the mark of immaturity. And it is the man quietly, HEROICALLY going to work daily to feed his kids, the mother who goes without a new dress so her daughter can have dance classes, the son who fights the war, the daughter who helps her family, these people are going around quietly being heroes and I think that is the most noble AND the most mature thing there is.

To Wii, or not to Wii...

Lately my wife and I have decided that we are going to splurge for our birthdays and buy a Wii.
We were very excited at the prospect of this purchase though we thought it to be an expensive one. The problem is that the games themselves are VERY cost prohibitive.

I suppose I can understand paying a couple of hundred for the game system, but why do the games themselves have to be so expensive?
I remember owning a Sega Genesis. That was a cool machine! It cost me about $150.00 but once I bought that game system I was able to play a lot of my favorite old arcade games including Altered Beast, Shinobi, And Sonic the hedgehog. The games themselves only ran me about 15 to 20 bucks each.
I also had one of the old Nintendo boxes for a while, same deal only the games there were top gun, Mario brothers and such…
I got rid of them way back when because I thought they were becoming too much of a problem in my budget, in that they were getting obsolete and I wanted the next big thing(that is why they were a budget problem because I couldn‘t afford the next big thing without divesting myself of the old).
Now I am wishing though that I had kept those old systems. The games were good, (at least they were good enough) they were entertaining and they cost a heck of a lot less.
Games for the Wii can easily run 50 or 60 bucks a pop. To me that is ridiculous. But that is what I am going to have to put up with now because of the folly of selling off the old systems. Ah well. That is life.

So we all try to “keep up with the Joneses“, but I still wonder… What reason is there for this kind of expense? I don’t see it. But there you are. Anyway hopefully at the end of the week we will have a new way for our family to “bond” and with any luck we will have the games that we can all enjoy together. I will tell you one thing, the girls are going to have a tough time convincing Daddy that we “NEED” that particular game. Particularly in the middle of a recession.

I wish game companies would learn to think that way too. Maybe, as parents, we ought to be more inclined to say “no that is an unreasonable expense for us.”
Then when the kids CAN’T buy the system by begging, cajoling or threatening their parents, the makers of these systems would wake up and make things a little easier on the pocket book.

Well that is my thought for today.
Hope you all have a great day (week).