Remembering Bliss

My daddy died a year ago today and the past year has been filled with sadness, growth, and remembrance. We were going to drive down to Alton, IL to visit my father's grave, but after reflection and growth we decided to drive out and spend the day with my mother instead. Although my dad was important to me, my mother is still here and I know that my dad would rather I spend time enjoying my mother and being there for her instead of visiting his grave.

We spent the day remembering my dad by spending time doing things he enjoyed. We drove out to the Savanna Army Depot and enjoyed the view out along the Mississippi. My father loved the Mississippi and being there reminded me so much of my dad. My mom told us that the Savanna Army Depot was one of the last places she visited with my dad before he went into the hospital for the last time.

After our drive along the Mississippi, we headed to Bellevue, IA to look for eagles along the Mississippi. Bald eagles winter along the river and normally you can see at least a few of them diving and soaring in the rivers. My parents spent many happy days visiting the river to look for eagles and, during the summer, having picnics along the river and watching the boats go through the Lock and Dam. This was a favored summertime activity when Sean and Caitlin visited their grandparents and I am so glad that they have many happy memories of days spent visiting the river with their grandparents.

After eating dinner in a small diner along the river, we drove back to my mom's house and she told us how happy we were that we'd come out to spend the day with her and how it made what was a difficult day a little bit easier. She also shared with me that she'd had several dreams over the past year where she had dreamed that my father had come to visit her. She'd seen him standing at the foot of her bed a few times and once she'd seen him sitting in a chair in the living room. It made me feel good that my father's love had endured and that he was still watching over my mother.

I will always miss my father, but it hurts a little bit less to share memories of him with those I love and to know that he will always be a part of my life.

Thanksblissing

Despite the tough times, my family has so much to be grateful for and today we had the opportunity to give thanks for the blessings that have come into our life. Some of the things we are grateful for include:

• All four of us having jobs so that we can pay the bills.


• Being able to put the kids through college so that they can get good jobs in the future.


• Having a roof over our heads and food to eat.


• Having people who love us to share our lives with.
  
  
• Critters like Luke, Chester, Amedeus, and the like.
• Having had a father for my childhood and a significant part of my adult life. Unfortunately, there are a lot of people who don't have the opportunity to have their father around as they grow into adulthood.
  
• Having a car that runs and gets us where we need to go.



• Having our holiday our way. We have always had a very low key holiday with just the four of us and that has been an incredible blessing because we've been able to leave the dishes, eat when we want to, and not worry about entertaining other people.
  
• Kids who understand what it is like to not have a lot who are thoughtful of other people.

Here's hoping that all of you had an absolutely spectacular Thanksgiving.

Tropical Bliss

I found out last week that I needed to fly to Miami on Saturday and stay through Tuesday night. It sounds like a lot of fun to jet off to a tropical hot spot in November, but the reality of it was that I'd had a nice quiet weekend planned. I was going to have lunch with an old friend, scrub the house down, do my Thanksgiving shopping and just generally chill out. Unfortunately, in today's economy when duty calls you have to go because decent jobs are tough to come by.

My flight from Chattanooga landed about 6:00 pm on Friday so I had enough time to run out and do my Thanksgiving shopping, do my laundry, and repack my bag before it was time to fall into bed. Saturday morning I headed off to pick Sean up at school. We had a nice lunch together and then he dropped me off at the airport. Once I was in the air, I had time to reflect upon how this might not be such a bad thing, after all even though we were working there should be time in the evenings to hang out and chill out and just relax. I'd done my research on the hotel and found they had a pool and a great patio with inviting looking sofas so maybe I could spend a few hours hanging out by the pool and reading or writing.

Those fantasies were not to come to fruition until Tuesday morning. My new boss had most of his new team on the ground and together for the first time and he wanted us to hang out together and get to know each other. I like my new boss and I like my new coworkers, but I also love my me time and heading into the holidays I knew it was going to be in short supply and that sofa on the patio looked so inviting.

My me time finally arrived on Tuesday morning when I arrived downstairs 45 minutes before we were supposed to head to the office. I didn't see any of my coworkers at breakfast so I didn't feel guilty heading outside to claim one of the big comfy overstuffed chairs for my own. I leaned back, took a deep breath of the warm tropical air, closed my eyes and listened to the fountain. I felt all the tension ease out of my body as I enjoyed my brief tropical respite. After a few minutes of relaxing, I called a friend and enjoyed a good gossip session about all the insanity happening at work. Once our gossip session ended, I pulled out my trashy novel and spent 20 minutes soaking up the sun and reading.

Although I didn't get all the me time that I'd hoped for, that 45 minutes of tropical bliss was more than enough to recharge my batteries and give me the boost I needed.

Self Directed Bliss

The economies in the toilet, people are losing jobs all over the place, and every indication is that it will be a long while before the economy recovers and companies start hiring again. A lot of my good friends have lost jobs due to the economic downturn and several of them are looking at it as a blessing instead of a curse.

One of my very best work friends was let go in August from a job he'd had for about 18 months. He'd spent the last several months in a situation that was uncomfortably close to mine: a younger boss who was clueless who felt threatened by his talents and his ability to build relationships. It seemed that nothing he did was right and every time he turned around he was getting dinged for some minor infraction of the unspoken rules (i.e. his boss didn't like him and was out to get him). After the hell his boss put him through he was feeling relieved when the ax finally dropped and he was let go. He was also fortunate in that he'd just come into an inheritance that would sustain him and his family for a while.


I saw him for lunch a few weeks ago and rather than being upset and depressed about being out of work, he was choosing to see it as a positive and was investing time in his family, volunteering at his church, and working on his investments. The turn around in his bliss level in just three months was amazing. He was relaxed, confident, and back to the old joking self that I'd come to appreciate.

Another friend of mine works in the Miami office of my company and she's been notified that her last day with the company is 3/31/09. I was amazed when I saw her this week and found that she was amazingly happy and up beat. She's making plans for a future that doesn't include corporate America. She's been prototyping jewelry for the last few months and is working on creating a web-based business selling her designs. The happiness flowed off of her as we talked and I felt happier just being around her and listening to her plans for the future. She told me that she was looking at her release from her current position as a sign that she should follow her bliss (okay, my word and not hers) and work on creating her own reality. Like my other friend, she's fortunate in that she has the financial resources to live without a "real" job for a while.

Basking in my friends happiness, I almost wished that I'd get laid off so that I could work full time on creating my own bliss instead of spending 40 to 50 hours a week working for the benefit of a company. Unfortunately, I'm not in the position to do that, but the lessons in bliss I've learned from my friends is that happiness comes from following your dreams and being master of your own time and not slaving for someone else. Applying that to my own life means that I need to draw boundaries around my work life and home life and spend my own time working on the things that are important to me.

Cuban Bliss

Three days in the semi-tropical paradise known as Miami made me believe that Latin Americans really know how to cook. In the three days we were there, we gorged ourselves on awesome Cuban, Brazilian, and Peruvian food. I missed Texas de Brazil the first night in town, but my team is pretty congenial so two of my teammates took me out for a late Cuban dinner and I had beef with onions and black beans and rice, the food was incredibly tasty and even though it was late out, we indulged ourselves in a little Cafe Cubana.

I'm not a coffee drinker, but I will always swill down the incredibly sweet, rich coffee favored in Cuba. It is made like expresso but with sugar added to the brew and it is potently rich. It is usually served in very small cup or shot glasses and it is meant to be savored. Drinking it fills your body with a very intense rush of caffeine and more than one cup will give you the jitters and a serious headache. One of my friends and I both made the mistake of downing three shots of Cafe Cubana in less than an hour and although we both suffered for our over indulgence, it wasn't enough to make us give up the Cafe Cubana.

We headed back to the Cuban restaurant for lunch the next day and indulged in a feast fit for all of our senses. I indulged in flank steak with chimichurri sauce, ceviche, and plantains. Chimichuri sauce is a mix of parsley, olive oil, and red peppers that is drizzled over the flank steak to create the most amazing flavor. I'd first discovered Chimichurri sauce in Chattanooga of all places and I'd been a fan every since. I often make my own and drizzle it over steaks, but it's never quite as good as what you get in restuarants. Ceviche is fish cooked in lemon juice and it becomes the most amazingly tender fish you've ever put in your mouth. I've learned to love certain types of sushi, but I loved ceviche from the first bite I put in my mouth. Plaintains are to Latin America what potatoes are to Ireland and they are served in a variety of ways from mashed like potatoes to fried to cooked with a little brown sugar. We indulged ourselves in sampling all the different ways that plantains were cooked.

Our food fest continued throughout our visit to Miami and on my last day in the land of sun and cigars, one of my good friends took me out to a Peruvian restaurant and we enjoyed a feast. We had Peruvian corn, which has much larger kernels than typical US corn, a wonderful cheese sauce with potatoes, and ceviche. The food was all fresh and tasted delicious and while we were at lunch we talked about life, love, and the wonders of self discovery.

All in all, the food, the fun, and the sun were all blissful in Miami.