Halloween

It’s Halloween today. Usually our tradition is to put up Fred Daniels in our front yard. He is our scarecrow. Unfortunately, I was unable to locate him in our attic this year. To be honest, his pants are no longer his pants, they are now my daughter Elly’s. The rest of his body, hopefully is intact. The attic right now is trashed and cluttered.

Yesterday we had a nice dinner by campfire in our backyard. Usually I scrounge up wood (some dry some not so dry) from our backyard. This time I decided to buy some kiln dried wood from Food Lion. It costs $7 but, wow, the fire last night was awesome. We enjoyed hot dogs (meat and vegan style) and a nice glass of Pinot Noir.

The night ended with the girls and me carving pumpkins in the garage. This year we decided to play Harry Potter music in the background. It was a fun time.

Tonight we are having our friends over for dinner and then going trick or treating. Can’t wait!

Running

I used to run a lot. I stopped training and running long races about a year ago because of a couple of different reasons. One, I felt like I was running the races just to obtain the medals. Two, I didn't really enjoy the longer runs and I wasn't 100% sure that these longer runs (over an hour) were actually beneficial for my health. It was fun running the half marathons and finishing them knowing that I had trained for them. The best part about them was running with a huge group of people and the excitement of the race itself. I do miss that. Right now I'm not on a schedule because I'm not training for an upcoming race. I'm having a difficult time finding my groove as far as working out and running is concerned. Right now I haven't set a fitness goal for myself, a goal with a timeframe attached to it. I can see why people run marathons. It gives them a sense of working towards something.

Everyday

I started this blog a few days ago with the intention of blogging everyday after hearing Seth Godin recommend the benefits of daily blogging in an interview with Marie Forleo. He said that everyone should have a blog and that having one forces you to become more aware of yourself and what is around you. Well I missed yesterday. I thought about a couple of ideas to blog about when I first woke up yesterday morning. I said to myself "I'll do my post when I get to work early." I then got to work earlier than normal and got distracted with emails and the work I needed to do that day. I then said to myself "I'll do it right when I get home." I was starting to get tired and extremely hungry. I ended up going to a few shoes stores after work to browse for a new pair of shoes and then picked up a few Take N' Bake Pizzas for the family. It was now getting late. The only thing on my mind at this point in time was having a nice slice of pizza and enjoying a movie and going to bed. The thought of blogging at this point in time was now gone. My streak of daily blogging had ended at 3! Looking back, I should have just got it done and out of the way when I arrived at work early like I had initially planned. It didn't get done because I put it off. Right now I'm righting this blog post first thing in the morning (everyone else is still asleep) and I feel good that I'm back in the saddle of producing a daily blog.

Confession

I walked up to a friend at work yesterday and started the conversation with “You know that confession is good for the soul right? Well I have a confession to make. “I actually think Justin Bieber has some good music”. He giggled. I then noticed that he was reading an online article for his Philosophy class about Natural Law. I asked him about what he was reading. We then started speaking about religion and philosophy. About what and why people believe what they believe. It was a good conversation.


Back to Bieber. I don't know anything about him, except that I've found myself liking a few of his songs when listening to Spotify. How integral is he in the realm of things? People must like him, right? What continues to make him so popular? Age old, philosophical questions.


In ending, It’s funny how a confession about Justin Bieber led to a fun and deep conversation about religion. Sometimes you just don't know what will result you will obtain from an action taken. A lot of things in life are logical. A lot are not. Sometimes you just have to go with the flow and be thankful for the small unexpected detours.

Doing

Each day brings a new opportunity to do what we have always done or to make changes and do something different. It’s all about the doing. Most of us know what we need and want to do, but we don’t do these things for a number of different reasons. Some folks don’t do what they feel like they should do because they believe in the following statements from Romans in the Bible: “We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me” Romans goes on further with more of the same and then wraps up with this statement “What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me form this body that is subject to death? Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!”

Can we do anything apart from being delivered from sin by the belief in Jesus Christ? If you believe that this is the only way, then the answer is “yes” and if you don’t believe that this is the only way, then the answer is “no”.

Others believe in Kaizen, a Japanese business philosophy of continuous improvement of working practices, personal efficiency, etc. They do because they believe in the process of continued improvement. Kai means Change and Zen means Good. They believe that they are making changes to become better.

 

Some people go with a gut feeling to determine what they want to do or not do. They believe in trusting their intuition. In order to do this you need to be in tune with your gut! You need to truly know and trust yourself.

 

I am a true believer that there is not one way to do. One should do what they want to do out of a sense of wanting to improve their life and the lives of others, not through guilt or fear. The choice is ours about what we want to do and the reason we do what we do. So do.

Fall

Fall is upon us. The leaves are changing. The scorching heat of Summer is behind us, but there will be another Summer just like the one that we were just in. We complain “It’s too hot” while in the midst of it and then complain in the midst of Winter “It’s too cold”, but Fall is a different. It’s comfortable. It’s neither too hold or too cold. Fall is the season of regeneration. it’s a time for the trees to shed their power and to return it to the Earth. The Earth is there during all of the seasons, not complaining one bit about it being too cold or too hot. It just is. It is present in the moment of doing what it needs to do. It’s not about complaining and comparing one moment of life to the next. It just is.