The weather may have been a little cold, wet, and dreary, but we still had fun as a family tonight as we ran (Dominic) / walked (Becky, Gavin, & I) the Glow In the Deke.
The event is held as a fund raiser and is one that we look forward to every year. In some years we run as a family, other years we walk, and sometimes a combination of both. Many people cover themselves in glow sticks for the race and others (specifically Gavin) spend most of the 3.1 miles picking them all up. After starting at UWL we run through the marsh where the entire trail is lit up with over 200 tiki torches. It is pretty spectacular!
While this year’s Glow In the Deke may have been a little more wet than normal, it was a great excuse to help out a good cause, enjoy some physical activity outside, and, best of all, spend some time with my family.
Today has been pretty much non-stop from its start until now as I sit on the couch and blog while watching a movie with Dominic & Becky.
After our morning run I got ready and kept thinking through the game plan for my day at work. Going into it I knew I was in for a while ride, I was going to need to stay focused.
The day started off with an 8am client call focused on large growth next year. Shortly afterwards my teammate and I were able to spend a few minutes discussing possible solutions and then I was off to back to back phone interviews at 9:00 and 10:00.
From there I had a short break in the action and was then off to lunch with a good friend I hadn’t talked with in a while. It felt awesome to re-connect and spend some time catching back up. I’m thinking I need to do this more often!
After lunch I was able to prep for my afternoon meetings and then it was time for another phone meeting. This one was pretty awesome – it was a coaching / mentoring call to discuss next steps from a recent leadership survey of my teammates. At times it was rough, having to face my faults that my teammates see that I don’t always see. That said, it was great to have someone helping to coach me through creating a plan to improve. It was intense, but very productive.
From there it was off to another coaching and planning meeting, followed by a call with my teammate to wrap up our thoughts on our client call that started out the morning. It was a cool way to bring the work day full circle.
After getting home we headed out for sushi, grabbed some movies, and now are chilling on the couch.
Today was non-stop. It was incredibly productive. There were many rewarding moments. All in all, it was crazy busy, but well worth it. I’m thankful for every moment of it!
On a gray day like this it’s nice to find things to warm a person up. Today there were a few things that did just that.
On my drive to Rice Lake today I was welcomed to the Northwoods by a stunning display of fall leaves. The colors were all shades of red, yellow, and orange, all looking more vibrant when contrasted with the steel gray sky. Cresting the hills and looking into the valleys provided some spectacular landscapes. I had to remind myself to keep looking at the road once in a while, my eyes continued to drift to autumnal awesomeness.
Once I got to the Rice Lake office I was pleasantly surprised to find a cup of coffee waiting for me on the desk I was going to use. Huge thank you to Nicole for both the caffeination and a wonderful cup of white coffee!
As I drove home and enjoyed the leaves I was amazed by the way the vibrance of the leaves dropped with each mile I drove. It was like I was driving back in time, a day or two every ten miles or so. While this almost pushed me towards a gloomy landscape a different thought popped into my head and warmed me right up…
Hawaii! The wonderful, amazing, perfect Big Island, the warm sun and cool breeze, the sound and smell of the ocean, the total feel of relaxation… ahh…
Whew!!! Where was I??? Oh, that’s right, I started thinking back to Hawaii. A friend of mine is going on vacation there in the not too distant future and I’ve been trying to help her out with hiking and travel ideas while she’s there. As I help her out I’m quickly reminded of all of the awesomeness of Hawaii and it warms me right up.
Today may have been cloudy, dreary and a little cool, but I was warm the whole day thanks to friends, memories, and Mother Nature.
While talking with a friend in the investment world I’d asked him how things were going. His response struck me as odd and it took a little while to register… “I’m throwing starfish into the ocean, one at a time.” In his voice I could hear his smile and his passion for helping people very clearly. As our conversation when on it finally donned on me where that phrase was from, a story I’d heard once or twice a long time ago.
Once upon a time, there was an old man who used to go to the ocean to do his writing. He had a habit of walking on the beach every morning before he began his work. Early one morning, he was walking along the shore after a big storm had passed and found the vast beach littered with starfish as far as the eye could see, stretching in both directions.
Off in the distance, the old man noticed a small boy approaching. As the boy walked, he paused every so often and as he grew closer, the man could see that he was occasionally bending down to pick up an object and throw it into the sea. The boy came closer still and the man called out, “Good morning! May I ask what it is that you are doing?”
The young boy paused, looked up, and replied “Throwing starfish into the ocean. The tide has washed them up onto the beach and they can’t return to the sea by themselves,” the youth replied. “When the sun gets high, they will die, unless I throw them back into the water.”
The old man replied, “But there must be tens of thousands of starfish on this beach. I’m afraid you won’t really be able to make much of a difference.”
The boy bent down, picked up yet another starfish and threw it as far as he could into the ocean. Then he turned, smiled and said, “It made a difference to that one!”
adapted by Peter Straube from The Star Thrower, by Loren Eiseley (1907 – 1977)
How awesome is that story? There are couple of ways that this stories hits me hard, right between the eyes.
So many times in life I find myself coming up with crazy huge ideas that I want to be totally ginormous in scope, as grand as possible. When that happens I usually end up putting a lot of thought into it, but not a lot actually happens. Had I spent more time taking the small initial actions there would have been progress, maybe the results wouldn’t have been as grand, but there would have been results.
When presenting I sometimes get disappointed when I can’t seem to get someone in the room engaged. Try as I might to get them involved I just can’t quite seem to bring them along and into the conversation. When this happens I mentally get frustrated and try to think of ways to involve them, while I’m presenting. As I think while presenting the quality of my presentation goes down. In those moments I need to remember to focus on the ones that I can make an impact on.
Both ways hit me hard today and I chuckled to myself as I saw them happen. What a beautifully simple story to help keep me on track and pointed in the right direction.
As I talked with Steve he shared that he kept a starfish at his desk to remind him of this story on a daily basis. Don’t be too surprised if you see something similar on my desk in the not too distant future.
Yesterday’s blog was pretty deep and heavy, today’s is much more light hearted.
Long story short, I love my family. Tonight we enjoyed something as a family that is a little dorky, but all types of awesome in my book… We watched the new Star Wars trailer together and followed it up with a short video breaking down the trailer!
The fact that all of us were sitting mesmerized and staring at my laptop as the preview played makes me love my family all the more! I am thankful to be a part of a nerdy (and proud of it) family!
Grief is a pretty messed up thing. Even its definition is crazy complex:
Grief is a multifaceted response to loss, particularly to the loss of someone or something that has died, to which a bond or affection was formed. Although conventionally focused on the emotional response to loss, it also has physical, cognitive, behavioral, social, cultural, and philosophical dimensions.
Seriously? Could it be more complex? Pretty sure that when the word “multifaceted” is thrown into a definition it is there only because the definition is really too complex or difficult to really understand. Some writer at Webster’s probably had a go at defining it for a few days and and finally said, “screw it, there’s no clear way to define it… I’m just going to say it’s ‘multifaceted’ and call it a day.”
So you’re probably wondering where this is all coming from and why I’m thankful for it today. I know, kind of a weird rabbit trail today, isn’t it?
While driving home today I fired up some music and just took some time to chill and think. The song that started once I plugged in my phone was the very sad, yet hopeful, theme song to Gattacca – The Departure by Michael Nyman. It is hauntingly beautiful, flowing with obvious sadness, but even though there are no words, you can hear the hope in it, the optimism of something better. As I listened I thought of my dad and remembered the movie. There were themes crossing paths as I thought of his passing and the end of the movie that were sad, yet loving and positive.
After that song I went for another that seemed to fit the mood – a song that is a combination of This Bitter Earth by Dinah Washington and On the Nature of Daylight by Max Richter. This song fits a similar bill, sad yet hopeful. Once you start to listen you can’t help but start to get sucked into it. I don’t know that I’ve ever listened to it just once, it’s always better twice in a row. If you are having a tough time picturing where you’ve heard it before – it’s in the movie Shutter Island.
From there I stumbled into 7 Years by Lukas Graham – a song that Dominic had on a playlist and I recently listened to a couple of times when hanging out with Gavin in the workshop. I know, totally pop music-ish, but the concept of the song just felt right, especially the lyrics, “Soon I’ll be sixty years old, my daddy got sixty-one – Remember life and then your life becomes a better one.”
Once I got home and started firing up the grill I had another song pop into my head and had to play it right away – Good Grief by Bastille. While the lyrics are focused on grief and the pain of loss, the song is incredibly upbeat. As they wrote it that was the entire focus and meaning behind the song (think of the title, kind of an interesting play on words): “Smith wanted the song to encapsulate, ‘the stages of denial, shock, depression and complete euphoria’ that come with feelings of grief, and the alien feeling of being at a funeral. ‘It could be a massive celebration of someone, or hugely sad. There could be moments of euphoria and people getting pissed and collapsing on the floor.’ As Smith explains, grief is a ‘complicated reality’.” Pretty much nails the feeling of grief, doesn’t it?
As we started wrapping up the night I was blogging on the couch and played a couple of music videos for the boys right before they went to bed. After the one I said would be the last I made the mistake of looking to the right column of YouTube and I saw one that I HAD to click on with the boys… after starting it Becky put down what she was doing and took it in with us. The song/video? The Nights by Avicii… a song that always makes me think of Dad and of being a dad.
There are just some blogs in which the picture just screams out that it’s the right one for the day – this was one of those days 🙂
As I look back at it, today I’ve felt “a multifaceted response to loss, particularly to the loss of someone or something that has died, to which a bond or affection was formed,” – I have felt grief. I’ve been sad, I’ve cried. The funny thing is that while I’ve had those two feelings, they’re in the overwhelming minority.
Most of what I’ve felt has been the following:
Happiness – so many incredible memories that I’m so thankful to have.
Love – my family has surrounded me most of the night and we’ve enjoyed each other’s company.
Laughter – thinking back to memories we’ve had together, the jokes we shared, seeing the world through the eyes of a dad and thinking of how he must’ve felt at various time.
Gratitude – as I’m a father I’m so thankful to have had a dad who was an incredible role model for me to follow in the footsteps in.
Today I’ve felt grief for the loss of my father… and it felt really good. I miss Dad, but even in his passing he’s helping to bring me joy. If grief can bring joy as much or more as it can bring sorrow, I am very thankful for it.
Dad, this was an interesting day. Mom had warned me that there was just something about Fall and missing parents and loved ones, she was totally right. It’s funny though, I started off sad and missing you. You probably saw some of the tears and gave me some shit (as much as you are allowed to in Heaven anyways). That feeling of sadness didn’t last very long, it was quickly replaced with joy, love, happiness, laughter, and gratitude. I miss you tons, please know that you are still bringing me joy even though you’re gone. I love you Dude!
Ahh… The feeling of success… and then more success… Throw in a chaser of an exciting Packer victory and there’s nothing but an after taste of success!
Becky and I finished our half marathon this morning and we did way better than either of us expected. It was pretty awesome to spend time running with Becky as we completed a goal we’d set together. Not going to lie, it was kind of funny thinking back to our first half marathon when I was all bubbly and excited, helping to keep her going when she wasn’t feeling the strongest. Here we were today in completely flipped roles. She was bubbly, encouraging and cheering everyone on and I just wanted to find a ditch to die in! She kept me going and we finished. It was a sweet and sweaty success!
After cleaning up Becky headed up north to pick up Dominic, the Deer Slayer! Dominic hunted in the Youth hunt with his Grandpa Ken and shot his first deer. He was pretty pumped and excited, I’m so happy they had a successful hunt. If you’d like to hear an awesome story be sure to ask him how he shot it. I can guarantee he’ll be smiling the whole time.
While they were driving back to La Crosse Dominic called to let me know that I wasn’t supposed to pick anything up to grill for supper, we were going to grill up some of his venison steaks… They were AWESOME!!! Delicious success!
Life is always full of ups and downs, this was a day that ended with pretty much all ups. Sweet and sweaty successes. Delicious success. Did I mention a Green & Gold success?
There are some smells and sounds that trigger happy memories. As I spent time working on insulating my workshop today there was one smell that was constant, and I’m thankful for that smell… the smell of construction.
The smell of freshly cut wood reminds me of spending time with my dad on one of many different projects. I thought of him often as I worked today, and every time I walked back into the garage from the house that smell hit me and I thought of Dad.
It’s rough working on this project, the first big one since he passed away. He’s not a phone call away like before. He’s not answering carpentry questions for me. He’s not there to send pictures to and to brag to when I do something better than expected. He’s not here helping as he normally would. That said, as I smelled that new construction scent I knew he was there with me. And for that I’m thankful.
It all started this morning when I walked into Kwik Trip and heard an awesome ‘80’s tune. Colin Hay belted our “Who Can It Be Now?” as I grabbed a soda. Before I knew it I was singing it in my head while shopping. And the rest, as they say, is history.
After work it was just Gavin and I, Becky was taking Dominic up north to hunt with his grandpa this weekend. We decided on an old school dad feel kinda meal… Bacon ranch grilled cheese sandwiches. Dee-lish!!!
While driving to the grocery store we talked about “old school” video games including Donkey Kong. I shared my memories of watching Dad play Donkey Kong at Skyline way back when we were kids. I loved watching him play and I used to love playing that game. It was awesome to hear about Gavin’s interest in it.
As I cooked supper Gavin played with a couple of games. I blasted several Men At Work songs before diving into my ‘80’s Pandora station. Chilling and listening to the songs of 30 years ago felt pretty damn awesome.
To keep the old school feeling going we fired up Godzilla while eating supper… and not the new one. Now we’re chilling on the couch and enjoying the movie.
It feels pretty awesome to kick it old school with my best-eat buddy on a dreary night like this.
Quick disclaimer, the picture attached is not from this morning. It is meant to help describe what I saw this morning. As the title of today’s blog reads there was no good spot to pull over for a picture today.
As I walked out of the house to my car this morning the sunrise really caught my attention. The outlines of the many layers of clouds were all highlighted with a very deep reddish pink, they appeared to be glowing. I smiled, made a comment to Becky and started looking forward to my drive to work.
Stopping at the end of the street I was greeted by another incredible sight. Looking past the airport and into the Mississippi River valley there were purplish pink clouds letting loose purplish pink rain in wide streaks across the sky. It was amazing! The sky seemed a watercolor painter’s canvas, all pastels and blending.
At this point I started thinking to myself that I need to find a spot to pullover so I can get a picture of the beautiful sunrise. Mentally running through the checklist of places I’ve stopped before there wasn’t one that would have the right elevation or angle for what I wanted to get. Another thought popped into my head and I decided to take my chances and drive, it was a ways away, but the only spot that I could think of that was on the way and that met my criteria.
Crossing the river and turning north I was welcomed to Minnesota by another scenic view. Further up the valley was a bright pink rainbow. It had the normal rainbow colors buried in it, but it was so vibrantly pink that it almost looked like a purely pink rainbow. Due to the sun being just below the horizon the angle of rainbow was not normal. The rainbow seemed to go almost straight up into the heavens, a beacon from Earth to The Big Man Upstairs. As I observed the landscape I was eventually able to find where it came back down – another pillar of pink rainbow that seemed to go completely vertical. The other part of the rainbow that was so awesome was that the lighting east of it was a soft purple and pink, but the light to the west was a stark contrast, blindingly pink. The rainbow the line of delineation between one beautiful and muted purplish pink sky and a dazzling pink one. Wishing I could take a picture I just smiled and realized that there was no way for me to do it justice in a picture.
Driving further up river and turning onto 61 the sky took on that eerily beautiful golden hue that I only see a couple of times a year at either dusk or dawn when the conditions are just right. The colors of the leaves became more vibrant, everything else shifted color slightly, and it played tricks on my eyes. It was gorgeous, seeing the world through a cloud of gold.
By now I’m getting closer to the spot I wanted to stop and I’m realizing that there are a few problems with my choice. The sun is coming up higher and the colors are dampening. The clouds are rolling in, the rain is starting to fall, and the colors are being muted by gray. The angle is a little different than I’d remembered and there’s not a good way to capture the entire sky like I thought.
Instead of getting disappointed, I’m smiling. In my head I’m hearing the line from The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, “If I like a moment, for me, personally, I don’t like to have the distraction of the camera. I just want to stay in it.” I’m realizing that I’ve been burning this series of beautiful views of the sunrise into my memory for the long haul, I’ve deep down known that I might not be able to capture it in a picture, but I know I can hold it forever in my brain. There’s also a thought in my head helping me realize that maybe The Big Dude Above wants me to remember this lesson – there’s a time and a place for a picture, but there’s also a time to be in the moment. So many thoughts, but not one of them is focused on disappointment, just gratitude for having experience this series of moments.
What an awesome start to the day? Beautiful sunrise and views, life lessons, and gratitude.
Thankful for Forty 