Category Holidays

Sneak non-peek, ‘Tis the Season

Michael 3 Comments

Are you feeling holiday stress now Ethan we deep into the Winter Holiday Stress Zone? I bet is not the same stress I’m feeling.


Stress. We were reminded of that when we were talking about how quickly the year has gone, bringing us to the annual Winter Holiday Stress Zone. That is how we describe the days that begin at Halloween and end with January 2. And that’s not meant in a bad way.

Stress is a funny thing. Ask most people what they think of when they hear the word stress and you may hear things like stress management and stress relief, stress hives and stress headaches or maybe stress test or stress fracture.

The dictionary stresses a different side of stress.

I’m going to stop there. I don’t want to give away all of it!  It’s another sneak peek but that’s all you’re getting today. That’s part of a post we published to ROAMcare last November. ‘Tis the Season talked about the good stress of the holidays and every other day. We’re featuring it in tomorrow’s Flashback Friday.

You can read it all of tomorrow, by subscribing to Uplift today.Join the ROAMcare community and subscribe to have Uplift delivered to your email as soon as it hits the website. In addition to an Uplift release every Wednesday, you will also receive weekly our Monday Moment of Motivation and the email exclusive Flashback Friday repost of one of our most loved publications every Friday. All free and available now at ROAMcare.org.

I know. I’m getting mean in my old age.

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Watchful Waiting

Michael 7 Comments

Throughout the western Christian world, Advent begins this week. A season often lost among the secular preps for the Christmas holidays. Advent is a time of watchful waiting with its own traditions and music, not unlike all the religions that I can think of that incorporate some sort of waiting for or ramping up to the “big” holiday. And like Advent, most often those periods are met with somewhat tepid responses.

Like most Americans, we’re probably waiting for Santa. And let’s face it, we’re not exactly great at waiting. Christmas decorations already are up everywhere, including office lobbies, restaurants, and airports. And I bet most of you reading this have your houses decked out too. Granted, there are only 25 days until Christmas, but I’d say over half of those decorations were put up more than a week ago.

We really don’t like to wait. I was out for Thanksgiving dinner. After the meal, our hostess asked if anyone wanting coffee. “I’ll warn you,” she said, “it’s from a Keurig so you’re going to have to wait for it.” Last time I checked, my Keurig spits out a cup of coffee in abut 30 seconds. Quelle horreur!

We complain about waiting in line and we complain about waiting on hold (but companies who insist on using robo-answerers instead of human operators deserve all the complaints you can throw at them). We look for the fastest route to wherever were driving and the shortest lines at the local mega-mart.

We can use a period like Advent to slow down and appreciate all the season has to offer. Imagine the calm you might experience if for each day in December you spend a quiet moment in meditation, solitude, prayer, or just staring out the window and enjoy a moment not spent in cleaning, decorating, baking, writing and mailing cards and packages, and complaining about where all the time goes. Doesn’t matter where, it just goes.

I think I’d take some of those moments for yourself before someone else gets to them.

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Time again for a shameless plug for the latest Uplift blog post. Even though Thanksgiving is over, it’s still a good read about how it’s a good time to celebrate our love and dysfunction. Yep, they really do go together. Despite life’s imperfections, it’s still a celebration worth being thankful for.

But before you go look, have you still not thought about joining the ROAMcare community and have the weekly Uplift blog delivered to your email as soon as it hits the website? In addition to an Uplift release every Wednesday, you will also receive weekly a Monday Moment of Motivation, and our email exclusive Friday Flashback repost of one of our most loved publications. All free and available now at  ROAMcare.org.

A Thanksgiving Prayer and then some

Michael 1 Comment

Today is Thanksgiving in the United States. Others’ Thanksgivings was or will be likewise celebrated around the world. It doesn’t always seem that way, but really everybody is or at least should be thankful for something and most nations have managed to work in a holiday to legitimize the feeling.

I’m not sure when I first wrote the worlds in bold below. Something tells me 2011. That sounds right because pre-2013 I took more for granted that cause for gratitude.

At the time I said, “Sometime today while I think of all that I am thankful for I’ll manage to miss most of them. So will everyone else. Mostly we’re not bad people as much as clueless ones.” And then I offered this prayer that I since have found useful even on days that aren’t called Thanksgiving.

 

Heavenly Father, this is the day set aside to give thanks for Your surpassing goodness to human beings. Let me give proper thanks for my blessings  –  those I am aware of as well as those that I habitually take for granted. And let me use them according to Your will.

 

Happy Thanksgiving today and every day you think to be thankful.

Now I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention there’s another heartfelt Thanksgiving greeting on the Internet this week at the Uplift blog on ROAMcare. All you need to know to entice you to check it out is the title. Thanksgiving Love and Dysfunction.

That is all. Now go eat a turkey.

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The silly side of serious

Michael 6 Comments

If you read yesterday’s Uplift post, you might have been wondering where we were going with our opening sentence. By the time you got to the second paragraph, you may had doubted that you were even on the right website. How often do you find a post digging into how we improve our lots in life by comparing it to a stereotypical American Thanksgiving dinner (less the pumpkin pie)?

We knew we wanted something relating to Thanksgiving but not necessarily about Thanksgiving. (We’ll do that next week.) We both have been busy working on improvements. Not the self-improvements you might think based on our string of self-helper posts. Physical improvements to things, Diem to her house, me to my little hobby car. It made us wonder, why do people bother to try new things. We like the idea of new ideas but what gives people the idea to try making those ideas ideals. We hit upon one unassailable fact. The old stuff wasn’t very good.

Nobody cares about a better mousetrap no matter how many get built. But come up with a mouse repellant that works and now it’s a different story. A whole different way to do something that nobody thought of before. Or was able to accomplish before. Those things that so changed the way we conduct life deserve at least a passing remark of thanks.

I remembered a post I wrote for Thanksgiving in 2014. I was only interested in one part of it. The part about the turkey, the stuffing, and the cranberry sauce. It turned out, It was a pretty good preface to yesterday’s sentiment, Give thanks for what is broken. Go ahead, give them a look.

While you are there, consider joining the ROAMcare community and have Uplift delivered to your email as soon as it hits the website. In addition to an Uplift release every Wednesday, you will also receive weekly our Monday Moment of Motivation and the email exclusive Blast from the Past repost of one of our most loved publications every Friday. All free and available now at ROAMcare.org.

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Jingle all the way

Michael 5 Comments

Jingle all the way and other random notes from the depths of my cobwebbed brain.

Happy Veterans Day dear fellow veterans. You would think in 14 years I’d have published 14 Veterans Day posts. A search for “Veterans Day” turned up three. I don’t believe it. I am sure I wrote more than three. I am also sure I’m not to go looking for them all. I think I’ve earned a year off the seemingly required uttering of the, pardon my frankness, trite “Thank you for your service.” What started as a beautiful sentiment is now a mere platitude of the sort as “have a nice day.” Yes, some people are sincere, very sincere. Most are not. As a veteran I’d rather you return the favor and start serving those who served. You surely know someone who served. Look to them as examples. Phone calls, meals, random cards, offers to cut grass, shovel snow, rake leaves made to the older vets. In today’s Moment of Motivation at the ROAMcare site we will just the millions who pay tribute today. Our thought for the day, “They came from all over for all different reasons. They served for only one. Look to their example. Find your reason to be of service.”

Now for some positive news from Jingle’s dog house. Actually, he doesn’t have a house. He has his own room at my daughter’s house. I figured it was time you had an update to how the little tri-pawed is doing. When we last left our hero, he was adapting nicely to life on three legs. You will recall due to an osteosarcoma he had his left front leg and shoulder amputated. That was just over a month ago. Since then he has started chemotherapy. He goes once every 3 weeks for 6 treatments. His first was 2 weeks ago and after being a little groggy from the sedatives, the very next day he bounced back to normal in all his Jingle-ness. He even is back to 1&1/2 to 2 mile morning walks every day. Their regular route takes them past my house and occasionally he stops in for water and to have his ears scratched. Daughter is doing well also. He has impressed us all so much over this month that he will be featured in this week’s Uplift when we talk about resilience. Mark your calendar to read that one.

Thanksgiving is still on, right? I notice all of last last week’s food centered supermarkets had ads that featured turkeys and fall foliage to highlight their ample supplies of frozen turkeys, fresh cranberries, and the sweetest sweet potatoes this side of Marshmallow Fluff. But walk into the store and you are greeted with 8 foot tall candy canes, fake fireplaces with fake snow, sparkly lights, and tree shaped peanut butter cups. The mega-mart sized stores where food is just a sideline skipped the pretense and went straight Christmas in their ads. Ten foot skeletons were replaced with ten foot snowmen in the store displays and Jingle Bells (the musical kind) played through the PA systems. I like the season. But it should start after Santa rolls up during the Thanksgiving Day parade just like Mr. Macy planned it.

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Here we are again. That place where I say go look at the latest Uplift blog post. We’re confident you’ll like this post about self-help.

But before you go look, have you still not thought about joining the ROAMcare community and have the weekly Uplift blog delivered to your email as soon as it hits the website? In addition to an Uplift release every Wednesday, you will also receive weekly a Monday Moment of Motivation, and our email exclusive Friday Flashback repost of one of our most loved publications. All free and available now at  ROAMcare.org.

 

 

 

 

 

Extra, Extra – It’s Candy Corn Day!

Michael 9 Comments

Hello, everyone. Today’s special post is released in honor of Candy Corn Day! The world’s most perfect food. I know. I said so. I’ve written about candy corn a lot and I think all of them were referenced in last yea’s special post. So I’m reporting most of it here, and give you a break from today’s political lies and insults.

Yes, let’s talk about Candy Corn! You will notice I capitalize the candy and the corn because it’s clearly worth special recognition. And I’ve given it just that. Over the years I’ve written about Candy Corn nearly as often as I have about guns in airports. (But nowhere near as often as Groundhog Day. I have my standards you know.) I think my favorite was this one, Why did the turkey cross the road? You know it must be good because it doesn’t even have Candy Corn in the title. Admittedly much of it recounts my adventure when I was stopped from proceeding up the road by a flock of wild turkeys (the non-alcoholic kind). But Candy Corn makes a surprise appearance toward the end. You should give it a read if you haven’t, or a re-read if you have. Take note, it was written in 2000 when we were being advised to keep our family holiday extravaganzas on the minimalist end of the banquet spectrum.

It was 2014 when Candy Corn got its first starring role in a RRSB blog, Children of the Candy Corn, when I mentioned the many things you can do with it, culinarily speaking. My favorite is still Candy Corn and Prosecco. And it was 2018 when in Corn, Sweet Corn, I expounded on Candy Corn’s claim to being the perfect food even though most autumn offerings push that nasty old pumpkin spice on everything and everybody.

And there you have it, a special ode to that special corn. Happy Candy Corn Day!
I now return to you regularly scheduled insultfest.

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Laboring in 2024

Michael 5 Comments

Happy Labor Day all my fellow Americans. In honor of all the hard-working Americans, we get today off. Sort of. Over the years, I and about 27 billion other people have posted the origin of Labor Day, to honor the labor unions’ strength and importance to American society. And there was that big parade in 1892 when 10,000 people took part in that seemed like a good thing to do every year. In 1894 President Grover Cleveland agreed and made it a national holiday. Also over the years, I’ve posted a list of all the people who don’t get Labor Day off. 

Of the obvious ones who will be at work regardless of the color of the date on the calendar are police, fire, and emergency medical professionals. These are followed by the ones who get the “oh yeah” response, like military personal and hospital workers.

And there are those who few people think about like the people on live radio and television, the folks at the gas station you stop at on the way home from the beach, the people who work at the movie theater when you need something to do because the day at the beach got rained out, mostly everyone at the airport and train station although there are fewer jobs than there used to be (anyone remember “Red Caps”) and the pilots and engineers who get travelers to those places, the toll collectors on the roads and bridges that haven’t switched to EZPass or similar people-free-tolling systems, and the desk, maintenance and housekeeping personnel at the resort (oh, and don’t forget the lifeguards) you were at this weekend, unless you are one of the 10 million people working in the retail sector. Then you never get a holiday off.

Little by little, fewer and fewer hard-working Americans get time off from their work to celebrate our national holidays. In fact, about the only time a hard-working American is recognized is when a politician makes an empty promise to stand with the hard-working American.

Fortunately, we have us, and the blogosphere will be packed with sentiments wishing everyone a Happy Labor Day today, and some might even offer tips on making a memorable holiday picnic with only refrigerator and pantry staples. If you happen to notice you are missing an ingredient, that’s okay. You can always run to the store to get it. They will be somebody working hard there today.

And as long as you’re going, don’t forget to check out all the Labor Day sales!

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Life comes at us every day and no, you’re not going to like every minute of it. Enjoy what you do like about it. Learn from what you don’t. Find your enthusiasm. Encourage a friend. Love yourself. Grow from it all. And read all about in the latest Uplift post, Find Your Enthusiasm.

Happy Summer

Michael 10 Comments

Happy July everybody! We’re heading into our first full month of summer, and it’s hot hot hot, and on fire with summer fun celebrations! I’d like to take the time revisit and few topics I previously revisit on a variety of Fourths of July. I hope you’ll take the time to read or reread them and if you do, that you enjoy reading or rereading them as much as I did when I wrote or rewrote them.  

Up north it’s Canada Day today. South of most of the Great Lakes in will be Independence Day on Thursday. Neither day is exactly when new countries were constituted and truly became independent. Nor did that happen in France on July 14. But they are all momentous dates in the formation of countries we still recognize and celebrate today. Throughout the world, 21 other countries took their first steps to freedom and self-control in various Julys. I wrote more on those eventful events in 2017. You can check it out here.

Here in my neck of the woods we do fireworks in a big way. But we seem to be slacking off on parades. Fireworks are nice but parades, especially the marching bands, get my heart pumping. I think it’s because to me, bands are microcosms of America. I felt that way strongly enough that naturally I wrote about it. In fact, I’ve felt so strongly that I have repeated the same post a few times. The most recent was just last year and you can find that here.

On the Fourth of July 2022 we were pretty comfortably making that return to “normal” that we knew we’d get to eventually. That day I re-visited a post I wrote in July 2020 when we were just starting to find our way out of lockdowns and venturing back out on summer vacations, but not by air or by sea, but by land. That reminded me of my childhood vacations, always by car, and someone always stuck in the middle of the back seat, suffering from Middle Seat Hump Syndrome.

I hope sometime this month, wherever you are you can celebrate, travel, ooh and aah at the pyrotechnics, or march on to your personal independence. And between all that, I hope you have some time to read, or reread these older summer offerings from me.

Happy July everybody!

Who we are depends on many external factors, but what we are is all us. We look at how we tell ourselves what we want to be as we live life in the latest Uplift!

Happy Birthday America!

 

Real life advice for real life

Michael 12 Comments

I would like to wish the fathers out there a belated Happy Father’s Day, those celebrating a Happy Juneteenth, and to everyone, the words of life advice from a father who has served many years of life.

I got this idea from last week’s post when I suggested one who serves food would be better received (and probably better tipped) if that one did not have a tattoo of a spider on the back of their hand. I realized then that I had a wealth of advice just waiting to spill forth from my brain and what better place for it to spill than on here? Just some morsels of common sense sprinkled over some of the nonsensical things I’ve lately noticed.

For example. If you own a bar, restaurant, bar and restaurant, diner, pizza parlor, sandwich shop, or similar, and you find yourself a little short staffed, don’t mount on the largest sign you can find “Servers, cooks, bartenders, dishwashers wanted” in the largest letters you can find and post said sign outside your main entrance door. You would be better served to post a sign that says “Please don’t come here to eat unless you enjoy waiting hours before being served.”

Likewise to the local auto repair shop owner with the sign “Mechanics needed” and is wondering why business has taken a sudden downturn.

I’m not sure anyone ever put “Spam Spreader” on their resume, but someone must write and distribute those aberrations to polite electronic mail correspondence. My advice to whomever it may be, don’t use flags, up arrow notations of urgency, or more than 4 emojis in the subject line. I can’t think of one legitimate email I’ve ever received that came with 🔈😮🔥🚨 as part of the subject that had me thinking “Oh my gosh, I better open this email before I do anything else or the world may end!”

While I’m thinking about resumes, if you should happen to think about applying for one of those open waitresses, cooks, or mechanics positions, leave “content creator” off yours. I’ve actually seen that on resumes and it didn’t impress me, and to honest, I’m usually quite impressionable.

Also apropos resumes, if you are employed as one who gets to send emails, text messages, or even real mail to potential job candidates and you start your spiel with “I found your resume on line and know you would be perfect for a position we are trying to fill,” please read the resume, or the next time someone wants to hire me as medical director at some hospital in a “world famous tourist location,” I may take you up on that, especially if you’re covering travel and expenses (including a plus one, naturally).

Finally, to those seeking a position in government like, I don’t know, maybe President, it’s in bad taste to put out TV, radio, internet, and mail ads suggesting your opponent is “dishonest” if you’ve just been found guilty of a few dozen felonies. Just my opinion.

Have a happy week everyone – and a happy federal holiday to those in states where it’s not illegal to celebrate it.

One way to survive in this crazy world is making the most of every hour. Not with a strict schedule and sticking to a to-do list. It’s implementing a to-don’t list. Yes, the secret to doing efficiently and effectively is knowing what not to do. We know  we said so in the latest Uplift!

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The dedication of a lifetime

Michael 8 Comments

While you are taking time off today for Memorial Day in the US, try to remember why we remember.

I’ve written a few times of my disdain for spam, junk e-mail. There just seems something more intrusive, and more distasteful about it, than other kinds of unwanted solicitation. Recently, I started getting emails from something called “Patriotic Points.” It’s a poorly written, poorly disguised bit of campaign dreck spouting the lies we’ve all been on added with since November 2020. Normally I just click on the ”this is spam, keep it away from me” button and let the email client do its work, but this time I (foolishly) clicked “unsubscribe.” Within the week I was bombarded with a variety of ‘newsletters’ all with different names and subjects, but from the same email address each calling themselves American, Patriotic, Truth-seekers, but none of them living up to their self-acclaimed appellations.

I find something particularly sad about his year’s Memorial Day. So many people are calling themselves or others “patriots” who have never lived the word. It seems we’ve been too concerned Artificial Intelligence misleading us, we forget politicians invented the AI process. For 10 years I woke in a Memorial Day and dressed in uniform, not for a parade or a cemetery honor guard, but to report for duty. None of those years were spent in combat zones, but each day for all of them started not knowing that. Steadily, we performed our duties in training knowing that one day we could report for duty and be loaded into a transport plane for a point to be announced en route. We were not heroes, but we were and are patriots, as in the real definition of patriot.

So today when you see the parade pass by or see a flag wave, remember why we remember. “Patriotism is not short, frenzied outbursts of emotion, but the tranquil and steady dedication of a lifetime.” (Adlai Stevenson)

Happy Memorial Day

As we move through life, our needs change and so do the energy and interest we pay to activities and events.  As one interest wanes, another rises to keep the mind and body moving at the same energy level. It all works out.

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