Tag Behavior

Dare to Dream

Michael 8 Comments

Today is a special day and the people converging on Washington have nothing to do with it. But the people who converged on Washington on August 28, 1963, all 250,000of them, knew someday today would be special. Today, and every Third Monday of January, is officially the “Birthday of Martin Luther King Jr.” in that quirky way that Congress has of celebrating birthdays not on the birthday of the honoree but on the convenient day to wrestle out a three-day weekend for government workers. Rev. King’s actual birthday is January 15. No matter, at least a true American hero will get honored sometime today, maybe even in Washington

I think that’s enough said about today.

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(Photo from Wikipedia)

Speaking of dreams, did you ever dream about how you connect with others? (Yes, I know that is stretching the bounds of segue-ism. Bear with me.) (Please.) We dream of a world where we all treat each other like members of the same club, players on the same team, kids from the same family. (I told you it was a stretch.) What kind of club would the Human Club look like. We talk about that and what the dues to belong might cost in this week’s Uplift! Check it out. While you’re there, consider joining 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.

Dreamscape

Michael 8 Comments

If you read enough blogs over enough time, you will read at least one dream story from every blogger. Except me. I don’t recall once over the past 14 years and who knows how many posts, that I’ve ever written about my dreams. Or so it seems. Until now.

I’m not one to have recurring dreams. At least not that I know based on the ones I remember. I do have recurring dream themes and they seem to play out like a serial drama, or perhaps like a soap opera. Never really ending but different stories lines coming and going. But the same movie, night after night? Nope. No encore presentations.

But now, for the last few weeks – no, for the last few months, I seem to have hit upon a recurring dream, or else I am experiencing a dream-like occurrence. Every night, at nearly always at 3:15 in the morning, I wake up, check the time, and go back to sleep. There doesn’t seem to be an outside stimulus causing this. No odd noises from outside. Nothing consistent inside like the furnace kicking on at the same time every day. (Who designed furnaces, by the way? Did they specify manufacturers find the loudest switches known to man to activate their heating cycles?)

I thought this over and came up with this assumption. I typically am asleep by 11 and awake by 7, so 3am is my personal “middle of the night.” I may must have developed some cyclic response to my circadian rhythm whereby I wake myself once during the middle of the night to reset whatever needs reset in the sleeping body. It sounded good to me, and I continued along with my jaunty ‘4 hour sleep, short break, 4 hour sleep’ nightly pattern.

Then one day I happened to check the sleep chart on my phone. Although I had a few brief waking moments that I didn’t remember having, the three o’clock hour came and went with me never leaving a sleep state, when I did remember waking up. Did I dream that I was awake checking the clock, then rolling over and resuming my snooze. I checked other days, and found a disbursing pattern of sleep during the very time I knew I was awake? Or was that during the very time I was dreaming that I was awake?

Spooky. Weird. Michael-like. Whatever you call it, I guess I now have a dream story to put out there. If only I knew what it meant.

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Speaking of dreams, did you ever dream about how you connect with others? (Yes, I know that is stretching the bounds of segue-ism. Bear with me.) (Please.) We dream of a world where we all treat each other like members of the same club, players on the same team, kids from the same family. (I told you it was a stretch.) What kind of club would the Human Club look like. We talk about that and what the dues to belong might cost in this week’s Uplift! Check it out. While you’re there, consider joining 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.

Questionable Behavior

Michael 20 Comments

I know we are entering only the second full week of the new year, but I already have questions.

I undecorated from the Christmas season, redecorating into the winter décor (yes, there is a difference) Saturday and Sunday of the weekend. This was one of the few years I did not add to either of my ever-growing collections of nativity sets and nutcrackers (and if you are wondering (and I know you are) yes, I have a nativity set made up of nutcrackers, or nutcrackers in the shapes of a nativity set). Still, somehow, when all was said and done, I had no room in the inn for one iteration of the Holy Family. How does that happen? (By the way, the difference is snowmen.)

In the continuing story of the faithful companion Jingle the Dog, he is doing well enough, continuing with his chemotherapy. He was still getting his normal amount of exercise, walking a couple miles a day and leaping onto any piece of furniture that afforded him a good look of the outside world. Somehow (there’s that word again), he managed to pinch a nerve in his remaining shoulder. So, the daughter is now dealing with a dog with one missing front leg and one inoperative front leg, and was told to not let him walk or jump for 5 days. Has anybody ever kept a dog from not jumping?

Last Thursday I posted about the BBC Music video of “God Only Knows,” the mind-blowing compilation of “32 artists and groups mingling their distinctive styles into a single beautiful performance.” I’ve played that video several times, clocked the link to identify the participants, and wondered how they pulled this off. How did they?  Never got a good answer to that, but I did find an interesting behind the scenes video. (No, I don’t get referral fees from them.)

Oaky, my brain is happier now. I haven’t gotten any answers. But at least the questions are out there now. That’s something, isn’t it?

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Isn’t it time to consider joining 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.

Not just the words

Michael 6 Comments

A show of hands please. How many have ever utter the words, “Yes dear.” Now an honest answer here. who envisioned a snarky retort when thinking of the last time you uttered that phrase. And yes, I am making an assumption that every one of us has been on the giving end of those words, and the receiving end too. 

But again, being honest about it, who hasn’t also said those words endearingly. You may have to think about when a little longer, but we’ve also all most probably given and received such a sentiment.

Words themselves mean little. They should mean little and rarely taken at face value. They are only there to convey feelings anyway. Sometimes, the feelings are strengthened by images. Sometimes, the images far exceed the feelings behind the word.

I discovered something like that a couple weeks ago. As I was preparing the New Year’s Day ROAMcare post when we associated 1960s ballads with daily resolution prompts to this year’s message, Live, Love, Share, I took a side trip to YouTube to refresh my memory of some of the music and lyrics. I ran across this version of “God Only Knows” put together by BBC Music from October of 2014. Although the song is a good one and the lyrics catchy, (and really do make a good daily living prompt because we really do know that God only knows what we’d do without each other, it’s the image of 32 artists and groups mingling their distinctive styles into a single beautiful performance that keeps playing over in my head.

I suppose I found a daily prompt for probably the rest of the year to encourage me to be a part of life and share my love. If the magic of the music doesn’t last, yesterday we suggested perhaps checking the obituaries for inspiration. Do whatever it takes to make it a year of love. God only knows what we’d do without it.

Isn’t it time to consider joining 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.

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Shopping Math Again

Michael 9 Comments

I’ve written a couple of times about shopping math problems. They started here. If you have a minute, bounce over there and refresh your memory. I’ll wait.

Back so soon? Now you have an idea of what I faced again, not once, but twice last week, the one week in the year when I really want to give my brain some time off. I mean I had already gone through a harrowing experience trying to decide if a wine bottle gift bag that comfortably holds a 750 ml wine bottle, will it accommodate a 32 ounce emotional support water bottle. (It doesn’t and it won’t.)

I was in the pet supply aisle of the local super-duper market (one notch below mega-mart) trying to determine which doggie doodoo waste bag offering was the best buy. It brought back visions of those toilet paper math fevers I used to experience. (I’ve since rid myself of the need to do toilet paper math shifting to Who Gives a Crap mail order toilet paper. Good stuff and I don’t have to figure out nothing because it’s on auto-order) (Not an ad but if they want to thank me with a complimentary case or two, I have closet space.)

But back to the bow wow bags. I could get 120 bags for $15 or 270 bags for $14. Something didn’t seem right there. Did the cheaper bags have holes in them? On the other hand, at better than a dime a bag it seemed like a lot just to hold you-know-what. Here’s 4 rolls of 15 for $7 and they are compostable. That seems important considering what’s going in them is future compost. What about the purple ones? Their cheaper still but wait, they’re 2 rolls of 25. Hmm…

Why did I ask my daughter if she needed anything at the store? It’s her dog. Let her figure out toilet paper math for canines. But she was doing dog math of her own. And when I finally settled on a leash attachable dog waste carry-all (the multicolor, compostable, unscented 4 rolls of 30 for $8), I was asked to help settle her current conundrum.

You recall Jungle, her canine companion of the recent cancer diagnosis and front leg amputation. He’s doing as well as he can be but is beginning new drug therapy which like all things pet related, costs more than what everyone I know spends on their children today. Anyway… the question was does she spend $X on a bottle of 15 tablets, a 5 week supply  from a mail order pharmacy who doesn’t take her dog’s insurance (yes…) but will reimburse her 50%. Or should she spend $1.75X on a bottle of 30 from the local pharmacy, who take her insurance but her copy is $1.2X. Then we also took into consideration that the mail order pharmacy will take gift cards that she can buy at the local super market and get shopper points that will turn into discounts totaling X/10 that she can use to buy dog food (or dog waste bags if she wants a really really large number of them.).

We never did come up with a good answer to that question and decided to use the mail order pharmacy because it involved the most steps so by logic it had to be the right choice.

All things considered, it was nice to do something together for an afternoon.

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Are you looking for ways to spend time with loved ones. The new year is a good time to resolve to do just that. You can join in with us at ROAMcare as we prioritize sharing  our most positive moments with our loved ones. Read how we’re doing that in the latest Uplift.

 

Happy? New? Year

Michael 7 Comments

I really want to wish everyone a Happy New Year but already this year is proving to be not too happy and unfortunately, that’s nothing new. On top of the terrible tragedy in New Orleans in the early morning hours of January 1, the FBI uncovered what they are calling the largest collection of explosive devices in one location when they raided a farm outside Norfolk, Virginia. Those events on the heels of the burning of a woman in the New York City subway, 10 mass shootings between Christmas and New Year’s Eve killing 47 victims, and of course the murder of an insurance company CEO by a fruitcake turned folk hero who people are still defending in social media.

Truly the same old same old. We have not only not learned to become more compassionate as we hit the winter holiday season, typically noted for peace and joy, we seem to be relishing in causing pain and suffering, emboldened by a bully atmosphere still hovering over the land from the recent political carnage.

I won’t say I have all the answers but I have all the answers. We addressed them in yesterday’s Uplift post, Resolve to Live, Love, Share. We opened with, “Resolutions. January 1 we make them. January 2 we break them. January 3 we forget about them. We have a tip for you. Live 2025 like it was the 1960s.” I know, you’re going to say the 60s was the poster child decade for social unrest. But we say nay nay. The 1960s I remember is a time of hope with people calling for peace and love, not like today’s unruly crowds purposely antagonizing others. We present a novel concept to get people together – love. Love is the root of all that is good. It doesn’t have to be elegant, it doesn’t have to be momentous. It merely has to be and it can be its best when it is shared.

I would be thrilled if you took 3 minutes to read all of Live, Love, Share and then you yourself joined us in resolving to lose hostility and to love more. Let’s bring life back to the party – let’s bring love back to life!

While you’re over there, consider joining 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.

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Happy Nearly New Year

Michael 4 Comments

It’s the last Monday of the year and it would be oh so easy to do a “year in review” type of post.  I wonder if that’s what this week’s daily prompts will be. The same prompt every day just worded a little different. Sort of like politics. Our politics this year were worded a little different. Mostly worded as lies. Turns out more people like lies more than truth, no matter how positive the truth might be. So yeah, but no, a year in review is off the list for today.

If not looking back, how about looking forward. I could make predictions of what 2025 will be like. But if you want to know how next year will be, you just have to visit your local shot and a beer bar and you’ll find more people than you can shake a stick at who will tell you just what’s going to happen next year. And they’ll be right because they all knew exactly how this year was going to be. I can hear them now. “Yep, I told you so” they will start. No, predictions aren’t for me.

How about I do a “best of” los of my posts from 2024? That’s perfect. Non-controversial. Non-political, non-critical of anything. Yep, we can do a best of from 2024, and um, that would be all of them. How can you pick the best? It’s like picking the best child or the best bacon. They’ll all yummy. Just like bacon.

I’m running out of ideas and if I don’t come up with something we’ll run out of Monday before I get anything typed onto the screen. What to do, what to do, what to do?

Aha! Why didn’t I think of this before? Resolutions! I’ll make my resolutions for 2025 and post them here and then you can check back with me later this year and together we’ll see how I did. And if you check back with me in March, I’ll tell you what they are. Didn’t you ever read that I don’t make resolutions in January. If New Year’s Day came later in the year, perhaps when the days are getting warmer and flowers are starting to bloom, then we can come up with some good resolutions.  Come see me when I’m not standing knee deep in used gift boxes trying to remember if they are recyclable, and when not I’m cleaning out the refrigerator of all the traditional holiday foods that everybody wanted but nobody ate.

Nope, the ideal time for New Year’s is late March, just about when spring is springing.  It’s far enough away from Valentine’s Day and Easter that we can use a holiday then. The long depressing nights are over so our resolutions can be positive and begin with “we resolve that we will do this” like the start of a real goal rather than “we will never again do that” like the opening for a bad excuse. So, resolutions are out too.

So just what should I write about? How about, I hope you all had a happy whatever holiday you celebrate. Whatever one that was I am certain it had traditions that leaned toward love and fellowship, peace and joy, happiness and more love. How about I write that I wish you the spirit of the holidays all year long until we can do this again next year.  I’ll bring the champagne.

And if you absolutely must have a New Years Resolution, try this on for size ⬇️

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Did you know there are 14 religious holidays in December and January? Do you even know 14 religions? I didn’t know any of that until curiosity got the better of me. Something they all have in common is that they when we remember something special shared with special people at a special time. Explore winter’s special times with us in our updated Winter Carol, last week’s Uplift post that we found, well,most uplifting.

A peek into the new year

Michael 2 Comments

I hope everyone is enjoying this holiday season. And a season it is indeed! Did you know between December and January, 19 religious and secular holidays are celebrated? Truly the middle of winter – or summer depending on which side of the equator you find yourself – is a magical time.

The next big holiday as far as the stores and restaurants are concerned pops up next week when we break out our new date books, calendars, and planners, and celebrate the beginning of 2025. Who had a quarter of a century in the “at least how long we make it through the 2000’s” pool?

The new year will bring a new focus to ROAMcare. Our theme for our 2026 activities is “Live, Love, Share,” and next Wednesday’s Uplift will introduce members and readers to exciting new opportunities to grow and share the ROAMcare community as we re-open the user forums.

The new year will bring other new changes to ROAMcare and I thought I’d share them, just in case you visit us next Wednesday and don’t recognize the place. It won’t be big, but the website will get a minor facelift, and we hopefully will have the bugs worked out of the blog comments routine, not to mention the automated emails that seem to have multiplied for no reason.

We’re also reviewing our presence on social media. Starting January 1, you will also find us on Blue Sky and shortly after that, Tic Tok. We’re also differentiating our social feeds and we are looking to revive our YouTube channel with at least YouTube Shorts. I would love to see us bring back the ROAMcare on Air podcast but until one or both of us can be successfully cloned that may have to wait until 2026.

There is still 2024 to close out and Uplift subscribers can expect a FLASHBACK FRIDAY offering tomorrow and a new Moment of Motivation on Monday. If you haven’t seen it yet, you should pop over and read yesterday’s Christmas post. Nope, Christmas Post is a misnomer. Remember those 19 winter holidays? We think it speaks to all of them.

Happy Holidays! God bless us, every one.

Give yourself a present 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.

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The almost annual Christmas movie review

Michael 2 Comments

Welcome to the almost annual Christmas movie review! This year, the non-Christmas Christmas movies.

Did you know that some group out there surveyed the entire country about their favorite non-Christmas movies that are set during Christmas time. I know it was the whole country because the nice people on the TV news desperately searching for filler material found this report and it included a map of the U.S. noting each state’s favorite. I assume they mean the movie most commonly cited by the survey participants in those states, but “they” said the state’s favorite so let’s go with that.

Surprisingly, none of the favorites included “The Poseidon Adventure” which I think is a dandy Christmas-set non-Christmas movie even though it’s really set on New Year’s Eve. That counts as the Christmas “season,” right? The most often mentioned movie was or is depending on how current this information is (filler, remember), is “Mean Girls.” Only one state named “Die Hard” as their favorite which is where it belongs. Err, in the Christmas-set non-Christmas movie category, not just in one state. Although as a Christmas-set non-Christmas movie it’s really not that good. So there’s a tree it in. Big freaking deal. If the line had been written as “Yippie ki yay fella” it would have disappeared 3 months after its release. Anyway, the second most cited movie was/is lGremlins.” I suppose that’s reasonable.

But that was them. This is me. And naturally, I have my own ideas, just as I did in the most recent almost annual Christmas movie review when we discussed (haha, when I told you), the best Christmas movie ever (i.e. my favorite that year), I will lead you gently to the most Christmassy Christmas-set non-Christmas movie.

It’s quite amazing how many such movies there are. For some reason, the first that comes to mind is “When Harry met Sally,” although, like Poseidon, that leans more to New Year’s. And then that makes me thinks of “Ocean’s Eleven,” the good one (aka the original) which also is set mostly on New Year’s Eve. But with all the planning that went on, you know there was a Christmas tree and presents exchanged upstairs in Mr. Acebos’ living room.

A good choice that is, but there are other Christmas-set non-Christmas movies from the golden years of cinema. Let’s look at some of them.

For those who can’t imagine Edward G. Robinson in a Santa Suit there’s “Larceny, Inc.” from 1942. If you watch it, you will still have to imagine him thusly costumed because he wears a regular suit in it all the way through, but the action does take place during the Christmas shopping season.

Another possibility is 1946’s “Lady in the Lake.” I wrote about it a few years ago and mentioned that even though the opening credits of the movie were presented in a series of Christmas cards, Christmas carols provided the background music, trees and wreaths are prominently displayed, and one scene even opened with a recitation of Dickens “A Christmas Carol” playing on the radio, the Philip Marlowe mystery definitely is not a Christmas movie, merely another Christmas-set non-Christmas movie.

But my favorite Christmas-set non-Christmas movie from those olden, golden years is “The Thin Man,” the Hackett and Goodrich adaption of Dashiell Hammett’s mostly fun murder mystery featuring Nick and Nora Charles. The story begins some unspecified time before the end of the year that I contend was around Thanksgiving, and concludes with them on a train heading home where they disembark on New Year’s Eve, encompassing the entirety of the Christmas season. How much non-Christmassy can you get.

That’s all folks!

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The holidays bring a sense of generosity and togetherness. We can maintain this spirit throughout the year.  Small acts of kindness create a caring and enthusiastic world.
If you think that’s profound, you should read the rest of Do Unto Others. You know, life is life lived alone

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.

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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