Over the past handful of nights I’ve had dreams about past vacations.  Each has been fantastic in its own way, but in all cases they’ve led me to reviewing pictures from them.  When I’ve done looked through the pictures I can’t help but be drawn to other albums of other vacations as well.  A night or two later those albums appear in my dreams and the cycle repeats.

As far as dreams go I’m pretty sure this has been one of the best stretches I’ve had in a long time.  How could I be anything but thankful for dreams with views like these from Alaska, Olympic National Park, Isle Royale, and New Zealand?  I’ve got my fingers crossed that this will continue for a while, but regardless of it never happens again I’ve been thankful for some free mini-vacations while sleeping.

When I was driving him from Rochester today I had an urge for a split second that faded awfully quickly.  The impulse?  To call my dad.  Yup, there was a fleeting moment in which I realized it’d been a while since we talked and I should call him.  For a moment I sat there feeling empty and missing my dad tremendously.

I helped myself out a bit by taking time to think about some of the things I appreciate the most about my dad and the times I’m most thankful to have had with him.  It wasn’t the same as talking with him, but it did help to raise my spirits.  Throw in the fresh memories of dreams of vacations and I thought of the times in Alaska and Washington state when I felt the closest to Dad.  In a crazy kind of way it was a pretty peaceful drive from that point on.

In church this evening we sat a couple of pews behind the guy who looks like and reminds me of my dad.  It made me smile just seeing him and thinking of Dad.  They have so much in common, size, neck, ears, and many other facial features.  Even some of his mannerisms make me think of Dad.

As he walked back to his seat after communion I couldn’t help but smile at him.  He smiled back as he always does…  and then he gave me a wave just like my dad used to.  My smile widened, I felt even more at peace and closer to Dad.  It was a pretty incredible moment.

Thanks!!!

This morning started off in a great way.  The weather was nice enough that Becky and I headed out for a run with the girls.  It felt awesome to be outside and enjoying fresh air instead of being on a treadmill.  The thing that made it even better was spending time with Becky early in the morning to start the day.  With as crazy as our lives are it’s nice to have a little time to ourselves to kick off the day.

Over the past few days our Regional Developer has been in our Menomonie office helping with training.  This morning we touched base on the past couple of days and she had some excellent advice that will help us a lot.  The ideas are fantastic, the team will love them, and it will improve our business.  I always appreciate advice like this from someone who’s able to jump in from a 30,000 foot view and help me see from the same perspective.

I had a conversation with our insurance provider and after some insurance conversation we somehow slid into a conversation about investing and rental units.  I greatly appreciated the thoughts and ideas he had and how openly he shared his experiences.

Our basement stairs are now done!  One more thing on the checklist completed in the house, only a small handful of projects to go.  I would have enjoyed doing it myself, but based on how much available time I’ve had lately it was so nice to have someone do it while I was at work.  I’m so thankful for having a contractor help us on this project.

Over the past week I took Dominic’s book advice and picked up the book series he recommended to me.  I’ve been reading at night before bed and it’s been a great way to chill before calling it a night.  Last night I finished the first Magnus Chase book and it was AWESOME!!!  Whoever thought a book about Norse mythology could be so entertaining?  Dominic – great call on this book, I’m pumped to start the second one.

All in all, it’s been an awesome day and I’m thankful for all of these moments and so many more.

Thanks!!!

Argh!!! Today was one of those days when nothing quite seemed to click like I’d wanted it to. There was a steady grinding of things that just get slowing my progress on certain projects. At times I caught myself becoming increasingly frustrated and as I look back I can see that I let certain things dictate my attitude instead of me consciously choosing my attitude. Sure, some of the things were pretty infuriating (like check fraud), but most others were mild annoyances I should have just taken a deep breath on and moved on (all i ask is for my Wi-Fi to work with regularity, is that too much to ask? 😉). Instead I let each of those little things become tinder and I was pretty torched by the end of he work day.

At one point I realized how foolish I was being and decided to do something to make me smile. As luck would have it there was a small piece of one of my favorite things in the world that I’d been holding onto for a while for a moment just like this. Bubble wrap! And not just any bubble wrap, but the giant one inch round bubble kind of awesome bubble wrap.

I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, popped a bubble, and smiled. Ahh… remembering the therapeutic power of bubble wrap I continued to breathe deep, pop a bubble, and smile. Only one at a time, I was feeling tremendously better when I was done with the sheet.

Throughout the day the LEGO Movie 2 soundtrack has been stuck in my head. As Becky and I were trading stories of the frustration from the day (not often we are both stressed like that) one of the songs popped into my head and I couldn’t help be chuckle to myself. The song? “Everything’s Not Awesome.” 🤣

Yup, in hearing the overly depressed lyrics I just couldn’t stop smiling. Seriously, if you haven’t listened, check out the start of the song:

Right? The LEGO Movie writers just nailed my feelings during part of the day… and found a way to make me smile. Hearing Batman sing “love’s not real, I just wanna eat carbs, pass the ice cream” cracks me up every time.

Even as I write this I find myself in a much better mood. Yup, the day wasn’t perfect, not by a long shot, but nothing I’ve encountered today is insurmountable. Heck, almost all of it isn’t worth spending any emotional energy on. Thanks to a couple of ways to put a smile on my face and pull me out of my funk I know that the rest of the night will be better and tomorrow will be amazing. Not because of any specific thing or action, but because I choose for them to be and will find the positives in them.

Thanks!!!

This picture popped up from eight years ago yesterday…

I had taken a couple of days off of work and my dad came down to help us install our cabinets and remodel our kitchen.  We spent a few days putting in cabinets, installing the countertop and sink, and hooked up the dishwasher.  Left on my own it would have been an epic disaster.  With my dad here taking the lead it was instead a great father and son time that I’ll never forget.

It’s funny, but I still remember some pretty random details like the long conversation we had about his demolition experience in Milwaukee as he showed me how to use a crowbar “the right way” instead of just “muscling it around.”  He then proceeded to make the removal of an old piece of cabinetry seem incredibly easy after I’d been fighting with it for a while.  There were so many little moments of joking, learning, and just working together.  Just yesterday I wrote about a time like that with my boys from the perspective of a father and here I am today on the other side remembering a similar moment (on a much smaller scale project) as a son.  How crazily awesome is life sometimes?

As I look through our small house I almost can’t help but run into a project Dad helped me with here.  I’m pretty sure I’m going to miss something but he helped me with the garage, kitchen remodel, bathroom floor remodel, living room floor, and countless other projects along the way.  If I add in all of the projects he provided advice on I’d be hard pressed to find a room he hasn’t had an impact on.

Looking through the house I’m remembered of so many great times we had working with each other.  After seeing the reminder of working on the kitchen from eight years ago I caught myself just standing in the kitchen looking around at the cabinets and thinking about when we put them in. There’ve been so many smiles on my face over the past 24 hours as I’ve gone in and out of that room and had reminders of Dad.  Even in typing this a couple of other memories from that project have slowly reappeared and I’m smiling even bigger.

Dad may be gone but there’s something so therapeutic and joy inspiring about being surrounded by projects we worked on together.  Sure, it’s just stuff and someday we’re bound to move on to a new home, but for now I’ll continue to enjoy memories of my dad all around our house.  How awesome of a gift did he leave me in the memory of those moments?

Thanks!!!

First things first…  this pick is certainly not from today, but it’s one that made me smile and think of our time together today.

Our Winona office is adding a new teammate next week and we’re getting the office moved around to prep for her arrival.  One of the steps in doing that is installing a new cubicle into our office.  Last time around we hired someone to build them as there were five being installed at once.  This time I thought we’d do it ourselves as there is only one.

My dad and I used to work on projects and I would have so much fun just shooting the bull with him while we worked.  Sometimes we just focused on the project and I learned new skills.  Almost every time he’d thank me afterwards and say what a help it was having me there.  He often commented on how much faster it went when there was an extra set of hands to help him out.

With some of those memories in mind I talked with the boys and they were willing to help me out in putting it together.  While we didn’t get it all done we did make some pretty serious headway…  and had a lot of fun doing it.  I really enjoyed helping the boys learn some new skills.  It was pretty cool seeing how well they were able to do some parts of it completely on their own.  At one point each of us had a separate small project we were working on and it went great.

We were productive together, learned together, had fun together, and made some memories together.  Heck, we were even smiling while we cleaned up together afterwards!

My old man was right, it was so much nicer having an extra set of hands (or two).  That said, I’m most thankful for an excuse to have some great time with my boys working on a project together.

Thanks!!!

I’ve been pumped to watch this movie since I’d first heard of it.  Tonight we watched it as a family and it was pretty wild!

The stunning beauty of El Capitan and the surrounding Yosemite Park was breathtaking and may have helped it move further up the future vacation list.  I have no idea how they were able to capture all of the angles they did, but it was truly beautiful to watch.

Along with majestic beauty of the 3,000′ wall of granite the story of the climber left me deep in thought.  It was an interesting mix of seeing how much grit was required to reach a crazy huge dream.  There was an odd balance of where do we truly LIVE – the place where we feel safe and secure, the place where we’re always straining and pushing beyond the lines of what we initially felt is possible, or a delicate balance of both?  Additionally I caught myself wondering if at some point I should realize I may be chasing the wrong dream or maybe I’m chasing something that I should look internally to find instead of looking outwardly for.  Throw in a handful of other deep thoughts and there was very rarely a moment in the movie in which the gears of my brain weren’t hurtling at full speed down the tracks.

Long story short, this is definitely one that I’ll come back to often…  probably while on a treadmill.  There’s just so much to thing about and take in, so much to watch and then turn to inner reflection.  I’m still amazed that this movie had that big of an impact.

Thanks!!!