Twenty-Twelve

I figure this might be my one post of the year so I’d best knock it out of the park…  having said that, I already forgot what I was going to type about…  hmm…

Oh yea..  I was going to discuss my path for success in twenty-twelve.  My number one goal — or resolution for all the old fashion-y folks out there — is to reclaim my health.  Central to this reclaiming and really the most important factor.. the ol’ diet.  So yes, without doing the broken record speech, I’m back on Paleo.  Paleo works really well for me in several key fashions:

1) The ability to eat lots of meat — I love meat and that is really all I have to say about that.

2) It destroys any and all cravings or desire to overeat which is a MAJOR bonus for yours truly.

3) Most importantly:  I want the best for myself in every situation.. craziness you say?  Nay, I’d retort.  When I’m eating this way, the mental, spiritual and emotional clarity I feel is out of this world.  I WANT to learn new things, try new things, have long-winded conversations and ask simple questions because in most cases I just don’t know the answer.  Before Paleo I’d typically just lose attention or pretend to already know the answer so the conversation would cease.  I actually become a listener and active participant.  All this sounds crazy, I’m sure, but oh so true.

4) I work hard and actually love it.  I also know the true feeling of leisure because I hammer myself all day with tasks I’d typically put off but now instantly just do because I feel there is no better time than now.

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Some other goals I have for this year:  a weekly mini-goal.  This is just something simple, something I wish I’d do more often but typically fail to do.  These mini-goals allow me to chase one simple thing each week and pursue it to my utmost.  No multi-item bullet-point lists for this guy.  This week’s goal:  Brush 2x a day and floss once.  Amazingly simple but I’m always busting on myself for not doing it.  Results so far:  Two & a half days in, success called and told me I was doing a smashing job.

My ultimate goal by pursuing these mini goals is to slowly make them a habit.  Next week will be something simple as well, like… spend 10 minutes reading the Bible.  Shame I have to make that a mini-goal but I sometimes go days without picking up a Bible or even reading verses online.

Some future mini goals?  Do 50 push-ups a day 3 times this week.  Contact at least two friends I haven’t talked to for awhile.  Walk 2 miles at least 3 times this week.  Fast from Thursday dinner til Friday dinner.  Spend 10 minutes a night cleaning around the house — not tidying, I’m talking hands and knees on floor cleaning woodwork.

All these mini goals essentially amount to what I’ve taken to calling ‘standards’.  These are standards I want for myself, nonnegotiable items that remain constant in every facet of life.  These things include but aren’t limited to:  the brushing of teeth twice daily, the reading of at least one book a month, washing the cars at least once every two weeks, washing dishes after dinner and breakfast, learning or reviewing one new concept everyday, doing one-hundred push-ups everyday, running 3 times a week, etc…  these become so embedded in my daily living that they are no longer goals, they are just ‘standards’.  I want my kids to look back on their father one day and remember me having standards of living, things or quirks I had that made me a little better as a father, husband, friend or neighbor every single day.

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Along with my mini goals and certainly a perk of my refined dietary push is that I’ve taken to every single day:  I learn at least one new thing everyday or review something I’ve been lacking.  The last couple of days, Algebra.  I’m so bad at math, it is actually comical but I have two options, I can keep telling everyone I’m really bad at math and feel crappy about it or I can learn it.  I’m done worrying about what I’m lacking so I have my back-up option, learn it and practice it until I’m at least proficient.  I’ve also taken to learning about one new concept, person, place or whatever.. this sometimes comes in the form of a conversation, sometimes in a text, sometimes Wikipedia but all the time striving to learn one new thing every single day.  Verdict of learning one new thing:  I’m loving it…  I don’t always recall everything because sometimes it just goes over my head but hey, I’m giving it a go.

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This is about all I have to say.  Enjoy the new year and consider something today that you could do, something you’ve put off or antagonized over for far too long.  Maybe you want to learn a new word every day or every week, perhaps you’d really like to know why dolphins are so easy to train or about redwood trees..  make it happen.  Life is too short not to explore this world and learn something new.  Or just sit there and do what you are doing now, life is too short and you should make happen daily what makes you happy.

With love for you and yours,
-LewBear

5 things…

I was surfing the webs earlier today and ran across a post for 5 things…  these are the five things I’m grateful for, couldn’t do without and make my life grand — these are obviously in no particular order.  

1.  Bacon — Sweet, sweet bacon.  We meet up nearly every day and you’ve been a great friend.  Buying our bacon somewhat local and knowing that it isn’t full of sugar and nitrates means it isn’t all that bad, this brings a smile to my face.  Added to a side of fruit and eggs or veggies and eggs or mixed with sweet potatoes, on a salad, plain in my paw, wrapped around a filet mignon..  bacon, you are the best.

2.  My wife — She has definitely improved my life in so many ways, spiritually and mentally definitely come to mind.  She makes me want to be better.

3.  My drive to work and back — it is like ‘my’ time.  I’m an only-child and definitely like my quiet-time, so this is best for me.  No radio.  No noise.  From time to time, a mind-less jack*** of a driver but otherwise, a very peaceful part of my life.

4.  Friends and family –  Good stuff.  I’m grateful to have dependable and selfless friends and family.

5.  Books –  Oh my.  I love to read.  Big books, little books, books with pictures, sad books, happy books, epic books, any books really.  I’m usually at my happiest when I’m able to sit down quietly at home and just read.  My happy zone involves my lady sitting across from me reading her own book or napping, usually napping.

For you.

This ‘blog’ goes out to a very special lady in my life.  This very special lady is turning 30 today and I couldn’t be more happy for her.

I hear that 30 is where the gears click and the true machine of what internally drives you becomes a physical embodiment for those lucky enough to be around.  My wife who is made up of a thousand little pieces, some dialed in to near perfection and others that still need tweaking is turning 30.  To me, she is the embodiment of good things.  Since our very first meeting, she has been a source of grace, fun, love and care.  She is compassionate, understanding and faithful to me, those she knows and those she doesn’t.  She makes me want to be a better man, to strive to be better for myself but also her and others I meet in life.  She doesn’t have it all figured out, but with each year that I’ve known her, she has gotten better.  I look forward to decades with this lady, to shared laughs and tears, joys and disappointments.  She is my best friend, confidant, biggest fan and best critic.  With each passing day I learn new things about her, some exciting and some rather dull but this is what shared life is about.  I wouldn’t trade one-thousand of her dull parts for a thousand exciting parts of another.  She has made my life better each day and for that, I thank her.    To my wife, on this her 30th birthday; Happy Birthday, Mylo.  You deserve only amazing things today and every day.

Yours.

Note:  This is actually rather boring and sprung up from out of nowhere.  I’m embarrassed to post it but honestly, I hate to think I wasted ten minutes.

So..  let’s totally play the random post game.  I come up with random topics, speak about them in minimal and – I can only imagine -  ambiguous depth and you either change blogs or fall asleep..  ready?!

House stuff :  The house…  well, good news is: We are semi-finished and I don’t feel homeless, physically or emotionally.  We have made it into a great home for the time being.  Not nearly where we want it and new projects pop up all the time, projects such as:  addition of screened in back porch, repair the roof on the back porch & front porch, get box gutter flashing rehung and metal painted, put together a building for the back yard, finish the two upstairs rooms and the bathrooms, fix the siding issue on the outside, get gravel for the driveway.  *sigh*  But yea, so we have far more to do than we have time or money.

School stuff :  A bit exhausting really.  Just sort of in a holding pattern as to whether I’ll be jobless, money-less and going to school..  or just money-less and still at my current job.  I’ve learned a lot in A&P2, it is much more of the theory and therefore requires quite a bit more applicable knowledge, applicable to what I haven’t figured out but that is another post.  Back when I went to high school and college (when not every single person you knew had a cell phone and the people who did paid for minutes to talk, not based on the amount of movies and songs they can download in a month’s time), I never had to think so this is very fresh, un-embarked territory for me.

If I won the lottery :  Say I won 10 million dollars today.  I don’t play the lottery but stranger things have happened.  10 things I would do:

1. Take my wife to NYC
2. Buy a house in Bali — something I could rent out the 8 months of the year I’m not there
3. Put 8 million of it in savings for future endeavors, keep 2 out for myself and others
4. Buy some mountainous land and build a house with a view, somewhere far out there
5. Fix a few things at the ol’ homestead in Paris – I would definitely keep it, just get some things fixed up that I don’t have the money for.
6. Pay off Faith’s student loans and never take any out for myself
7. I’d get on a computer once a month or less, maybe
8. Donate a whole lot of it to various groups me & the missus agree upon
9. I’d go to work somewhere doing something
10. Take care of my family and friends who needed help with things

I reckon that is about all I have for now.

Thanks.

My thoughts on connectivity…

The wife and I have been spending entirely too much time transfixed on the television set and world wide web.  We don’t have cable, so I’m sure we spend far less time that the typical American family.  However, we have recently spent a couple of evenings sans web and TV, and by way of that, a couple of relaxing and productive evenings.  I’ve noticed myself in the last couple of months, looking forward on my drive home to what wonders Netflix has churned out with new instant movies, what may be in the Redbox or whether a new episode of (fill in the blank) has appeared on Hulu.  Instead of spending the rare, quiet moments of my commute to myself processing the day I’ve had, praying or looking forward to the dinner I’ll share with my wife and the time we will spend together, I’m thinking about what the third member of our small family has in the way of entertainment.

I’m hoping and praying that over the next several months, we can learn some new habits.  We are moving the computer upstairs into the future reading room/office — specifically during the week.  This ensures that if you feel the need to check for something online, check email, etc… you must walk upstairs and basically sit in the room by yourself — it ensures that you really want to be up there and not just idling away.  It is too easy with our current set-up, having the TV hooked into the computer and a wireless keyboard to just peruse the webs, to overspend time on blogs or facebook or find some other method of skipping out on reality.

Things that we’ve been avoiding due to this web/tv extravaganza:  me putting in the necessary time it takes for proper learning of anatomy & physiology, the tidying of our home, missed conversations with my wife in which feelings go untold and views get expressed, books go unread, etc…  So we put it to a vote, our little family of two on a walk last night.  We voted that in the now, in these moments where we are gathering ourselves and preparing for our future, we want to model what our future lives will look like.  Do these lives consist of nightly movies or time spent reading?  Do we want our kids to know more about characters in movies than about their parents?  Our wishes are not that we’ll become a completely unconnected family — we have too many friends living away from here or that we don’t regularly speak with on a daily basis.  At the same time, we both spend eight hours a day plugged into a computer, do we really want the 3-4 hours we have to each other of an evening to be spent looking at a screen full of people we’ll never know?  Do we want to watch a tv show or clean dishes?  Do we want to facebook or finish a good book?  Do we want to talk and pray together or would we rather catch the Parenthood from last week?

So, as for me and my small family, we are choosing to unplug during the week.  We are choosing to be with one another, we are choosing the path of productivity, home cooked meals, a clean home and quiet moments.  We are choosing a simpler life for the time being, we’ll still catch a movie on the weekend or check our work email of an evening if we’ve had a rough day at work.  We aren’t choosing to go Amish (although I have a fondness for their way of life).  We are choosing to take a walk after dinner and before the dishes, instead of filling those moments with a movie that we have already seen.

66,962..

..is the number of push-ups I will have done when I see my goal through to the end: 66,962 — give or take, as in, if I miss up to my 10 allotted days (which I’d rather not be that guy), then I’ll only have done say…  66,904, or whatever.

It wasn’t easy to figure that number up, after many failed opportunities to find a formula I went the old fashioned route, added them up in a calculator in sections of 20, thus I know that by the end of day 60:  1830.  Day 200:  20,500.  Day 320: 51,527.

It is crazy to think that I could be embarking on a personal journey that will end with me having completed over 50 thousand of any one thing.  I’ll learn perseverance, I suppose.

I’m forced to ponder what one looks like physically after 66 thousand push-ups, perhaps I’ll be shaped like a gorilla, all chest, back and arms.  Sort of like this:

As opposed to how I look now:

Minus the bow tie, of course.  I wouldn’t know the first thing about maneuvering such a contraption.

I’m beginning to think I should have stuck with my green suspenders and pink hot pants, left this push-up goal for the monkeys with the biceps.

Book Goal Achieved.

I give you books 25 & 26:

The Paleo Solution was a humorous look at less than humorous subject matter — I’ve found the ideas within to be what make ‘me’ feel the healthiest.  Whether it is for you, your family and friends, that is your move but as for me and the wife, we had great success even before we picked up this book.

Murakami is definitely one of my favorite authors so it was no real debate when I saw a book on the shelf at B&N that I hadn’t read, it quickly found a place in my head and room on the bookshelf.  As with all of his novels, you have to read some seemingly boring material to get to the actual twist that always sends you reeling.  Good ol’ Haruki.  Bless you, my friend and bless your lovely works.

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New goal, you ask?  Well, probably not but I’m going to tell you.  This one is a little more intense.  It is in the form of a health related goal… okay, so without further ado (since I’m sure all two people who read this, including me since I’ll inevitably proof-read it)..  push-ups!  Now before you close the window…  this is a major goal that will be building up over the year.  I add one push-up per day, so that the day of the year coincides with the number of push-ups I will do that day.  So for example, today I do 3 and tomorrow I do 4, on August 28th I do 240, etc…  the kicker is, I’m giving myself 10 days I can miss.  So there are 10 days I can not do push-ups, they may be days that I’m feeling under the weather or lazy but if I go over that 10 days then to resume after a day missed is to do that day+the day missed.  So if I missed August 28th, I would be doing 240+241 to buy back into the goal.  Needless to say, I don’t want to waste any of my 10 days on anything below 150.  :)  Now these don’t have to be unbroken, I can do 50 in the AM, 50 at lunch and 50 of an evening, so long as I do that particular number on that particular day.  It is a rather ambitious goal.. or so me thinks.  But what is another year of life without a major goal?  I let too many years pass without some force pushing me, the force of 2011 is going to be push-ups.  Wish me luck!

Weeding the ol’ garden

I’m not much for making resolutions but here are some goals I’m pushing for in 2011:

-More giving and accepting of love.  It rears its pretty head in nearly every situation I find myself, some form or another, I want to be willing to give it a chance.
-Work on my mood.  I get in a bad mood, especially at work.  I need to work on this, perhaps calling up my good friend Romans 12 will help.
-More spiritual.  I’m seriously lacking in this arena.
-Be healthy.  Just putting down the stuff I know does me harm and picking up the goods.  Can be easier said than done.
-Work on laziness.  I tend to be lazy, I want it to stop.
-Be a better family man.  Work to be better for my wife and family.
-Learn.
-Better financially.
-Better steward of things I own.  I don’t want stuff to own me but I have nice things and need to care for said things to ensure they stay nice.

Basically I just want to be better and more whole.  There are things I adore about myself but there are definitely weeds in my garden that need pulling.  I’m making 2011 the year that I cultivate.

Have a wonderful and safe new year, may all your resolutions be met and gardens be weed-free.

Two more…

I give you book #24.  It was a doozy.  A perfectly out of left field book to help with the push to finish out my yearly goal.  When I first began the book, say 30 pages or less in, I was ready to call it quits city (does city even make sense here?).  The type of family it follows isn’t necessarily something I wanted to follow around for another 300 pages but I kept on, I ended up finding them slightly less than endearing but certainly interesting.  I would get into a spot with this book in which putting it down became the hardest obstacle of any given moment.  I believe it is the antithesis of my family and all my friends’ families, so I found it engrossing.  This is the book that actually made my wife comment, ‘If I could just figure out a way to turn myself into a book.’ — but hey, goals are goals.  I would suggest it for anyone wanting to be subtlety shocked and in need of a laugh.  I actually found myself cheering for some folks in the book and getting angry with others, funny how that works.  In the end though, all worked out swimmingly.  Kudos to Ms. Heller for a lovely read.

Two more books to go, I would imagine a grand total of 250 or less pages to finish out both books.  It is definitely looking very promising for my yearly book goal, we shall see though.

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In other news, I just wanted to share with whoever may read this or even to Empty Space…  as 2010 draws to a close I feel it imperative to mention that I feel very blessed.  Blessed to have a wonderful wife and family, friends, acquaintances and cunning enemies; blessed to have the ability to read and enjoy so many different points of view; blessed to have a home and nifty possessions to fill it.  I truly forget how blessed I am sometimes and just wanted to vocalize here on my very small and humble blog space.  I tend to look at the lacks instead of focusing on the haves, but I’m hoping to make 2011 and beyond a much better place internally, full of acknowledged blessings.  I’m not necessarily going to make any resolutions or goals other than ‘be better’.  If anyone actually does read this, anything moving you toward betterment?   New goals?  New outlook?  I’d love to hear any and all; Empty Space, this means you too.

Books 21-23

 

When I feel like I HAVE to read, I’ve noticed that it sucks any relative fun out of what could barely be deemed a ‘fun’  act to begin with.  As I near the end of this year, I’m forced to reflect on changes I would have made:  I certainly would have shot for twenty-four books — this being the chief change aside from: DON’T DO IT.  Although I miss the joy of opening a book and reading during my sparse downtime, I reflect on the fact that I will not go quietly into the night, I will not go defeated on this challenge.  So, until the stroke of midnight signifying a new year, I will be doing everything in my power to finish the last three books.  Two of which I have already started, one of which is still unknown.

As far as these books go, you can find a description and grips of reviews on Amazon.  My book report days are over.