Our two dogs are getting older and struggle a bit more with the heat and humidity than they used to. They both can easily run 4+ miles when the weather is below 75 and the humidity is next to nothing. Hot stretches like this are tough for them. They want to get outside for their runs and walks but the weather just isn’t good for them.

We waited until it was a little later in the evening and the shadows had stretched across most of the road tonight. The temperature had dropped just enough that we were able to take them for a short walk. Becky still had to bring a water bottle for Skywalker due to the heat. It was almost empty by the time we got back to the house.

There were a couple of life lessons I was reminded of when we walked the girls tonight. Kind of funny how we can learn from so many different sources, isn’t it? Here’s what I picked up on from LuLu and Skywalker tonight:

• Live life in the present. At no point on the walk did the smiles ever leave their faces. They were happy, enjoying the moment and 100% present on the walk. No stress or nervousness, only joy in the present.
• Some of simplest things in life are the best. All we did was go for a walk and they were so excited you’d think they found out Christmas came 6 times this month! As soon as they knew what was going on they were bouncing and whining excitedly. Over what? A walk. No destination. No goal. Just simple physical activity outside. That’s it. Simple is amazing.
• We can learn to do almost anything. Does not having lips that can make an “O” stop Skywalker from drinking out of a water bottle? Nope! She and Becky found a way for her to get the water she needs to cool her down. It’s a little sloppy, but it works.
• Smile when it’s over because you enjoyed the time you had. Don’t worry about wanting more. Part of what I picked up on tonight was how they were positively glowing when we got home. They didn’t whine of beg for more. They enjoyed what they had, smiled, and seemed very grateful for the experience. Sometimes instead of looking ahead to what’s next I need to pause and remind myself to appreciate what I’ve just had. Savor it for a while before wanting more.

I’m so happy we took the girls for a walk tonight. I’m not sure who got more out of kit, me, them, or all of us. Regardless, I’m grateful for the life lessons in joy I was able to learn from them.

Thanks!!!

This past weekend a friend of mine mentioned that they would gladly sacrifice this summer if it helped get us through 2020. I laughed it off, but the more I thought about it I couldn’t help but realize how much I disagree with the comment. For clarity, I don’t blame them in the least for saying it, they put to words something I’ve caught myself thinking once in a while. Over the past few days I’ve had a chance to let it sink in and I’ve realized that when I catch myself thinking that way I’m very much off the path I want to be on.

Have you ever heard of the two containers of marbles some people keep in their closet? They start with one empty container and one filled with the number of marbles equal to number of days of the average lifespan minus the days they’ve already lived. Each day you move one marble from the full container to the empty one. It is a very clear representation of time. Is it perfect? Of course not, but the symbolism is incredibly powerful. That example to tracking time is what caught in my head as I thought of my friend’s comment.

2020 has been a chaotic year to say the least. Where do you even start with all of the ways our lives have been impacted? I’m still waiting for dinosaurs or Sasquatches in the fall followed by aliens in the winter. Just kidding, kinda. 😉 This year hasn’t been an easy one for anyone, has it? Who wouldn’t want to find a way to hit the reset button like on my old Nintendo and start it all over? If I’m not careful I can quickly find myself wishing 2020 away… and that’s the issue.

2020 is happening, period. There is nothing we can do to stop it. We can’t skip ahead, we can’t live our lives for the future. We must live right now in this very moment. Once the world gets back to normal there’s not suddenly going to be a fresh 365 marbles dumped into our containers. As each of these days fade into night that’s 24 less hours we will have on this Earth. Yes, I know it can sound morbid, but it’s something I remind myself often – each moment I life is one moment closer to my death. I must remember to live my life with that in mind and with the gratitude for the present constantly.

We only get so much time, but thank goodness we have the ability to make a choice with how we live it. We can choose to be thankful for being alive. Even in 2020! How fortunate we are to be breathing fresh air? Things may not be as planned, but we’re still alive. We can choose gratitude for all that we have in our lives. We can choose to appreciate the gift of life in each and every moment. We can choose to live a live of love for our fellow human. We can choose to take the seemingly little actions to live into the way we wish the world would be. Regardless of anything going on around us we choose our attitude and our actions – what a gift that is! Each moment we are alive we can make a difference and improve the lives of others.

If I choose to spend my time living for “normal again” or for COVID to be over or for people to treat everyone as they would treat themselves I miss my opportunity to live in the present. I choose to succumb to frustration and a victim mentality versus living a live of gratitude and abundance.

At the end of the day 2020 is going to happen whether I want it to or not. 366 marbles will be gone that I’ll never get back. I’d rather live my life in a way in which I find ways to appreciate each and every single one of those marbles, even if they are cracked and maybe even cut my fingers. They are each beautiful and the opportunity they provide me to live into being the person I am meant to be is totally priceless. Whenever the thought of hitting fast forward on the rest of the year passes my brain I’ll think back to the jar of marbles and remember to appreciate each one of them.

Thanks!!!

This one seems pretty obvious doesn’t it? No tricks up my sleeve or crazy deep thoughts on this one, just the straightforward gratitude of having a bonus day.

It’s funny how much more productive we can be with a full day off. When I think about it of course I have the overwhelming majority of the day to myself on a work day, but the time doesn’t quite flow the same way before and afterwards. The off time isn’t quite as productive as when I have the full day off to focus.

Having a bonus day attached to the weekend is something I’m always thankful for. It’s a full extra day, and it often feels like two or more days depending on what I’m focused on.

This weekend that meant I had extra time to spend on the over with the family, to go for a long bike ride, to head to church, to work on the last few parts of the deck, to teach Gavin how to change a doorknob. All of those things AND then add an extra day! How awesome is that?

Today most of the day was spent driving, but even then I’m thankful for doing it in a three day weekend. I wouldn’t have been able to accomplish nearly half of what I wanted to while also enjoying more than my fair share of relaxing time had this been the normal two day weekend.

Ahh… bonus time. I’m always thankful for that!

Thanks!!!

The quote from a handful of days ago was “Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.” Maybe it should be this instead: “Gratitude leads to abundance. Abundance leads to giving. Giving leads to joy.” Thoughts?

Tonight was the first night I was able to head back to our regular church in a few months. It had opened a few weeks ago, but due to schedules and timing I wasn’t able to join the family for mass until today.

There was so much that was different – masks, sanitizer, being ushered to seats, sitting far away from others, no singing, and some more subtle changes. I still remember Father Mark telling us way back in the day how we need to sit closer together and slide to the middle of the pews instead of hugging the aisles – what a change today was!

While the changes were many the rest was exactly the same. It was a place to stop and think, to reflect, to pray, and to be thankful. Sitting in the pew listening to the start of church left my eyes watering a bit as it felt so right in spite fo being so different. I had the words of Father Dodge from a sermon a couple of weeks ago in my head talking about fear distracting us from God. There were changes all around, but the focus wasn’t on them, it was on the “why” we were all together in the building. It felt like home.

Throughout the service I kept thinking about all that I am grateful for. Seeing the guy who looks like and reminds me of Dad. Mary Ellen playing piano with her passionate gusto. Father Dodge cracking a joke or two while simultaneously making sure everything goes as planned. Hearing other people say the Lord’s Prayer and the Nicene Creed. Taking time to kneel and look up to the statue of Jesus. Being there with my family.

My mind also wandered to so many things outside of the four wall of church itself. My family and I are healthy. We live in a free society. We are able to meet at church. The time we’ve spent as a family together. The opportunity to find beauty in a challenge. The ability to find ways to be joyful and love others even during difficult situations.

As my mind wandered on these thoughts I was drawn more and more to the concept that’s been on my mind much of this week. Gratitude leads to an abundance mindset. When we take time to be thankful for all the blessings in our lives – even the challenges – we have the opportunity to choose our attitude and find a way to be thankful for even the most difficult times.

When we consciously choose gratitude we start to see everything around us as it should be, a blessing. We’re fortunate to still be alive. We’re fortunate to be going through this challenge. We’re fortunate to be able to have the ability to choose gratitude. We’re fortunate to have existed.

When we see everything as a blessing we see only opportunity. Some blessings may be very easy to see, others may take some time. Regardless, we know that with the right mindset even the most difficult of challenges will ultimately make us stronger and we can learn from them. Hence, there are only positive opportunities. There is only abundance.

Earlier this week I quoted Yoda: “Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.” This quote is spot on, but it points in a direction opposite of where I prefer to focus.

Try this one on for size: “Gratitude leads to abundance. Abundance leads to giving. Giving leads to joy.”

I almost started to change it because I started to think out love for others should be listed in that thought process. After thinking about it, that is very much what is at the core of all of it. Love is another example of something to be thankful for, find abundance of, and to ultimately give. Thoughts?

Thanks!!!

Sometimes writing in the morning just seems to fit the day. One of the parts of blogging about gratitude daily is that it causes me to spend much of my day with a different level of awareness, rather a hypersensitivity, of all the blessings around me. When I wait until the end of the day I’ve had the opportunity to review almost the entire day and have more material to work with.

Writing in the morning is different. There’s a danger in doing so as I may miss something or not pay as much attention with an eye to gratitude. I’m hedging my bet when I write early, what if something really awesome happens afterwards? What if I have some crazy insight I want to save? Hello Mr. Scarcity Mindset, please exit my brain. Of course I could always write a second post for the day, there’s no rule that says I can’t. That’s choosing the right mindset, abundance.

What’s interesting is that when I write in the morning I often make a little extra space for my thoughts to ferment. There’s no pressure, no deadline; self imposed or otherwise. Sometimes when I write at night I have to force it a bit which also doesn’t quite seem right. If you’ve read my blog often you’ve most likely developed an eye for those posts. They’re just not quite the same as the others. When I write in the morning my mind is writing when it feels ready, not because it has to. The thoughts are fresh in my head and are ready to appear right away. Something about that even feels a little more honest at times as there’s zero opportunity to filter the thought. Regardless, it’s liberating and my brain is free to play with thoughts the rest of the day.

One of the things that hit me this morning is how thankful I am to be a morning person. Today was by far the latest I’ve slept in all week (5:55am). Becky and I already got in a bike ride AND a run. Quick side note, this was the first time we ever tried a little bit of the feel of going from a bike ride to transitioning into a run. That was WILD!!! We were all packed up and on our way out to our boat by 9:05. I love having the opportunity to head out and get moving while much of the world sleeps.

What got my brain rolling with gratitude this morning was getting out on the water early this morning. As of this moment we still have our beach to ourselves. There are few boats on the water. It’s totally peaceful. Ahh… chill time. I’m always thankful for that, for opening space to think, read, chill, and spend time with family. Feels amazing!

Thanks!!!

My work day today was AWESOME!!! I had the opportunity to spend much of the day with an incredible commute and work buddy. Dominic decided he wanted some time out of the house and asked to join me on a road trip to our Eau Claire office and I was glad he did.

The entire hour and a half drive there and hour and a half drive back home was filled with conversation. We shot the bull the whole time we were in the car and covered everything form careers to jokes. Spending time with him explaining what our business does was pretty cool. Having some bonus time in the day with him was even cooler.

Once we got to the office he put on his handyman hat and went to town. Dominic helped move an old desk out of the office and into storage. He proceeded to take apart the outside of a couple of our AC units and cleaned out all the pollen, leaves, and cottonwood. Heck, he even put them back together afterwards, something that would be a solid 50/50 bet at best if I did it 😉 Was he done there? Nope, he proceeded to help me out some other stuff including programming the garage door opener for the office.

We grabbed some lunch on the way home and jumped right back into conversation. At one point my heart was overfilled with joy when he randomly stopped the conversation and thanked me for taking him up with me today. How awesome is that??? Thinking of that puts a huge smile on my face.

I’m so thankful he had the opportunity to get his hands dirty and get some work done for our business. Spending time with him in the car talking with him one on one like that was priceless. I hope he remembers some of these moments as I do, both as a father and son, for the rest of his life. Dominic singlehandedly made it an incredibly rewarding and memorable day for me today.

Thanks Bud! So glad you enjoy spending time with your old man. Love you Dude!!!

Thanks!!!

How’s that for a long title??? LOL – I love when I am going to blog about a couple of relatively simple topics and the title ends up being huge! Heck, I’m going to go a little crazy and go in reverse order even. If this post is already starting off the rails I may as well keep it that way.

When I was a kid and would head down to Union Grove to hang out with my grandparents for a week there were certain activities that were just a given. One of my favorite groups of memories include eating butter pecan ice cream on the deck while listening to the Brewers game. Quite often when I experience even just one of those ingredients I think back to those awesome times with my grandparents. Talk about memories that I’ll treasure forever.

Tonight Becky was going to run to the grocery store quick and asked if I wanted anything. Gavin was going with to pick up ice cream for himself. When those two thoughts collided I immediately thought of Grandma and Grandpa and asked Becky to pick up butter pecan ice cream. We ate it on the deck just because we could. I smiled just like I did so many times with my grandparents before.

Last night I got caught up on the past couple of sermons from our church as I’ve been out of town the past two weekends. One of Father Dodge’s sermons was focused on fear. He shared a very interesting story from CS Lewis in which two devils are talking with each other and one says, “keep them afraid so they don’t think of God.” This was the first time I’d heard the quote and it really hit home. Over the past 24 hours that thought has been fermenting and bubbling in my head. More on that in a minute.

This afternoon our teams got together to review our most recent chapter of Mindset by Carolyn Dweck. The concept was focused a lot on when we are in a growth (abundance) mindset versus a fixed (limited) mindset. In a growth mindset we see limitless opportunity and see failure as learning. With a fixed mindset we see only the path directly in front of us and see failures as proof of our low personal value.

What hit me today is how closely fear is related to a fixed mindset. When I think of the CS Lewis quote it makes me think of how fear shifts us into a fixed mindset if we are not diligent. When we are afraid we tend to hold on very tightly to what we have (see the recent toilet paper shortage as evidence). When we are happy and confident we’re more apt to share and help others.

As these thoughts combined I looked at it from both the mindset of instead of fear hold on to The Big Dude Upstairs and He will provide. If we choose fear we become selfish and live a fixed mindset. Look to the positive and be thankful instead of being afraid. When in a stressful moment / situation choose the way of the optimist and find how you can grow through the situation. If we choose fear instead in that moment we will miss opportunities to grow and hold on to what we already have – in the darkness.

The more and more these two thoughts swirled in my brain the more and more I thought about our current societal challenges. How many of our current challenges have come from fear? How many could be solved with love instead?

And then I caught myself thinking… “Hmm… I’m pretty sure I’ve heard this before.” All night I’ve been trying to recall what quote summarized my thought so clearly. It’s been driving me bonkers because it was so much more clear and concise than my stumbling words.

And then it hit me…

Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.”

– Master Yoda

And there it is, the little green wise dude hits another home run! For reals, I couldn’t have put it any more perfectly.

Thanks!!!

Quick bonus, one of my other favorite Yoda quotes:

We are what they grow beyond. That is the true burden of all masters.

– Master Yoda

Perspective is a beautiful and frustrating thing, isn’t it? To be clear, I mean “perspective” from the definition of having experienced something in life before and being able to apply that experience and memory to a different situation. I’m sure there’s a more appropriate word than perspective, but that’s the one stuck in my head.

Being able to look back with past experience we can see how important challenging times were for the formation of who we have become. Without those difficult times we wouldn’t have grown into the people we are meant to be. Once we have that perspective it should be easy to know the right way to handle a situation. It should be easier to realize the right answer and take action… but… I’ll come back to this in a moment.

When someone else has a challenge in front of them we’re able to see it very differently as we’re not the one in it. We don’t know all the detail, nor do we need to. The theme is quite often similar to one we’ve faced before. Fear. Guilt. Doubt. Disappointment. Loneliness. Envy. Frustration. Maybe, most likely, a combination of several of those. From the outside looking in and with the beauty of perspective we can see that the situation is only temporary. The person can choose to grow through the challenge. This could be an incredible tipping point in their life. We know this because we’ve been in their shoes (to be clear, I know not all challenges are the same, however there are often more commonalities than we each care to admit when we strip the issues down to their core). We’ve been in that spot. We’ve found a way. We’ve persevered. We’ve become closer to who we are called to be specifically because those battles made us stronger. Again, the beauty of perspective is that we know that the person can be successful in taking on their challenge. Why is it so difficult for them to see that? Hmm… that sounds a lot like how the last paragraph ended, doesn’t it?

Perspective is beautiful as it helps us know that we and others can be successful and find a way to turn almost any challenge into a life defining moment that shapes us for the better… if we choose the right mindset.

Perspective is frustrating as it is easy for us to heed from afar, yet so tough to focus on when we’re too close to it. When we’re the one with the challenge we have to fight twice as hard to remember we’ve been successful in difficult times in the past. It’s so easy to focus on when we apply it to others, but we can’t push them to see it, they have to see it for themselves.

Today I’m thankful for this dichotomy of perspective as I’ve seen both sides of it so clearly. If I remember to apply what I’ve learned and experienced in the past I know I can accomplish anything. When I hear someone struggling I can not only attempt to help them see the big picture, but it reminds me to pause and examine my life from a third person perspective. What challenges am I facing? How could I better use my own past experiences to find the right answer or the strength to solve the challenge? What a beautiful opportunity to improve!

Thanks!!!

I’m feeling pretty exhausted tonight. In a very good way. It’s been 11 days since I was last at work. Thinking back on it now I am kind of in shock. How exactly did we fit that much life into that period of time? Over one thousand miles of driving. Activities of some sort or another with family each and every single day. Finding ways to work some alone time in as well. In many ways it seems like the week and a half off has been more like a month or two! How awesome is that? Bonus time without having to take bonus time!

When I put it all together my head is spinning a bit. Not out of being tired or over exertion or anything, rather trying to figure out how we broke the time space continuum. For reals, when I put it all together I’m not sure how this all worked out so well:

• Friday night: Pack up for camping / dollar store challenge
• Saturday: Dollar Store Challenge – wilderness survival with the boys and Steve
• Sunday: Come home from camping, go out on the boat, pack up to leave on Monday
• Monday: Drive up to the UP, spend time on Lake Superior, go for a long walk
• Tuesday: Walk the Lake of the Clouds area – 8+ mile hike, go for a walk after supper
• Wednesday: Hike the Mirror Lake trail 8+ miles, long family bike ride
• Thursday: Drive to waterfalls, go to top of Copper Peak, chill on the beach of Lake Superior
• Friday: Long bike ride on way home, drive to Union Grove, have a wonderful time hanging out with family
• Saturday: Uncle Frank’s funeral, drive back to La Crosse, family walk, chill for a movie on the couch
• Sunday (today): Early AM bike ride with Becky, out on the boat with the boys, read in the sun on the beach, games with the boys, family walk, chill time

Dang, I’m even more exhausted after I read the list again! That said, it’s a wonderful kind of exhausted. I’m not stressed, worried or dreading going back to work, nothing like that. I’ve got that same deep state of chill I’ve had all week long.

The funny thing is that this all happened off an idea Becky had not too long ago. We were supposed to have a couple of other vacations this year but COVID had other plans for us. I’m so glad she talked me into taking a week off to do a mini vacation like this, it was exactly what the doctor ordered.

Time to head off to bed, I’ll take all the sleep I can get tonight (and probably tomorrow night too!).

Thanks!!!