A Slower Pace

Here is a prayer from Mrs. A Slower Pace this evening,

On this day of thanks, we pray that those less fortunate than us won’t go hungry. We pray for the men and women serving our country that they come home safely. We thank you Lord for all of our many blessings; that we have each other, we have good health, a safe and warm home, and clean clothes to wear. Thank you for Dan’s job and that he can provide for us. Thank you for our friends and watch over our families — we pray for their health and happiness. Most of all, thank you that we have each other and that you send us our special angels to watch over us.

Amen.

After having watched the Kenny Chesney concert from 8 to 9pm, I figured I’d push my luck and flip the channel over to the Faith Hill concert from 9 to 10pm. Some more country music entertainment with the wife and kids is worth bending the bedtime rule, right? I was disappointed that the broadcast wasn’t in HD and the concert lacked a little….. something. Being a male, Faith was sure easier on the eyes (my eyes) than Kenny. However, she is not the entertainer he has come to be. She might have the voice, the pop image and the multi-piece band backing her up, but she is no longer country and does not necessarily put on a great show. My wife even made the comment that she needed to stop doing the “bad white man dancing” and just stand behind the microphone and belt out the pop music. We made it through 1 1/2 songs until we all lost interest. The kids ran upstairs to read before bed, my wife left to prep the kitchen for tomorrow and I began watching the recording of “Lost” already going on the ReplayTV.

That’s what I get for pushing my luck.

…..Dan at aslowerpace dot com

Today is the busiest travel day of the year. In my last post, I highlighted the power of prayer. I’d like for everyone reading this take a moment and say a prayer for all those traveling today. Pray for their safe arrival to their destination. Pray for their patience because they are going to need it on a day like today.

Here is something I find interesting. Every day throughout the USA there are any number of people traveling here and going there. They travel for many reasons — business, vacation, adventure, fun, etc. But today is like no other day of the year. Because of the Thanksgiving holiday most people who will be traveling today are traveling for one sole purpose — to either return home to loved ones or to go and visit loved ones. I pray, not only for their safe arrival to their destination, but that they are inwardly focused on their loved ones and all that they have to be thankful for.

If you are traveling today or have loved ones you are waiting for, I pray for a safe arrival and that your time together is precious and treasured.

…..Dan at aslowerpace dot com

Tonight was a nice night for me. I was able to come home at a semi-reasonable hour even with all the stuff going on at work. My oldest daughter greeted me in the garage for my “different kid first every night” hug. I deposited my array of business geek gear in it’s home which is a basket on this granite telephone table in the entryway — wallet, cellphone, PalmPilot (old school man!), nice pen and access badge. Awaiting me around the corner was a wonderful candlelit meal created by my wonderful wife along side a nice chilled bottle of 2003 Hogue late harvest Riesling. Everyone had already eaten so the kids played upstairs nice while my wife and I had about a half hour to ourselves to talk. After that, carmel chocolates for the kids and some inside rough-house games of “tackle” — all the kids and the dog against Daddy. Then a round of some family video games followed by some decompression time — jammies, hugs and prayers. I don’t care what you do for a vocation or how hard a day you had a work; when you come home to that, things just seem alright. I sure needed this evening. I gotta go check the calendar to see if it’s my birthday or Father’s Day or something because I don’t deserve this just because.

…..Dan at aslowerpace dot com

I found out recently that I will be going back to CA for a business trip. While my wife has been back there a few times (alone and with the kids), I have not been back there since our vacation back in April. And while there we spent most our time as tourists — I did not get a lot of opportunity to mirror my past life there going to work, seeing acquaintances and friends and generally moving around in familiar territory. So this trip will be very weird for me. And with no immediate relatives in the area (my folks left a few months ago and my sister and her family vacated a couple months before us) it won’t be the anchor it once was. It ceased being “home” quite a while ago but going there, seeing the many familiar surroundings and paralleling many of the habits that were once my every day life (drives to work, meals at favorite places, etc) will be very surreal.

While planning this short business trip, I sometimes throw my mind back to the original decision formula of what made us leave. I play that arithmetic decision making through again, reprocessing as a double check to see if I’ve done the right thing for my family. What have we gained? What have we lost? I am not second guessing our move decision at all. I am merely using it as an anchor to ensure that we haven’t strayed from our path. Sometimes in our everyday course of life, we get distracted by the petty details and temporary wants. We need to remain focused on the long term goals that provide a deeper satisfaction for each of us.

I can tell you that I’d be lieing if I said that I wasn’t envious of the 80F degree day a friend said they had in CA. I told him he sucked.

…..Dan at aslowerpace dot net

So the french are having a little trouble, are they? What are we going on?…..13 nights of fire and mayhem you say. Maybe the french will just have to get tough and ground all the mischief youth. That should put them all in their place. Because the french know better. They are enlightened and…..french. Reminds me of some of the liberals in this country.

This predicament they are in has been years in the making. And the french acquiescing to radical people who do not WANT to be integrated into their secular society shows the absurdity of their viewpoint. The ongoing riots are just icing on the cake. I’m sure the lesson won’t be learned though. It’s tough to learn when you already know it all.

After reading that above paragraph, I was almost tempted to do a “search and replace” with french=liberal. It would still make sense.

On a final note, all of this was predicted over 20 years ago by the great hair metal band, Dokken in their song “Paris Is Burning”. Hence the post title.

…..Dan at aslowerpace dot net

Well, if you haven’t checked the news lately, there was some terrible weather in our area early this morning. That weather spawned some very unusual autumn tornadoes that destroyed several neighborhoods and at last toll took 22 lives. It is very sad and the devastation is unimaginable. Quite a few of these people didn’t even have any warning. I believe part of it is that we were “out” of tornado season which usually is April through June. Personally, I’m surprised the enviro-nazis haven’t jumped on this freak of nature and blamed it on global warming. The bottom line is stuff happens and all we can do is prepare, plan and pick up the pieces. And to think that when my NOAA weather radio alarm kept going off for a total of 5 times from 2am to 7:30a and I had to wake the family, I was a little perturbed because of lack of sleep. That takes me back to one of my mottoes — “Things can always be worse.”

Please keep those tornado victims in your thoughts and prayers.

…..Dan at aslowerpace dot net

My wife saw my last few rantings and told me I needed to calm down and get some perspective. So I took her advice yesterday afternoon, grabbed a sweet tea and went out to water the garden. It was a perfect way to recenter on things and get a good perspective. Watching the stream of water shoot out and land on my work-in-progress plot of earth, I let the cool sweet tea refresh me from the hot and humid day hoping that the water I was spraying was bringing the same relieve to the beautiful garden that was springing forth. I delighted in the bounty that was growing — quite a few varieties of small, green tomatoes; a baby watermelon; many different peppers and a single, thumb-sized cucumber. I focused on getting the water to just the rows that needed it; not wasting any moisture on the dirt in between. Finally, with my sweet tea finished and the plants all wet and happy, I coiled up the hose content and relaxed.

Now, back to the Supreme Court property rights decision. In Thursday’s Wall Street Journal Opinion section, there was a good summary of what has been going on. It seems that the Supreme Court allowed for some “wiggle room” in their decision saying that the states can take remedial action — “Nothing in our opinion precludes any state from placing further restrictions on its exercise of the takings power”. That means that a state can limit this eminent domain power…..or encourage it. Luckily I live in a state that has restricted it. Quoted from the article:

“At least 10 states — Arkansas, Florida, Illinois, Kentucky, Maine, Michigan, Montana, South Carolina, Utah and Washington — already forbid the use of eminent domain for economic development (while permitting it for legitimate “public use” such as building a highway). Six states — Connecticut, Kansas, Maryland, Minnesota, New York and North Dakota — expressly allow private property to be taken for private economic purposes. The rest haven’t spoken on the issue.”

The article even stated of the intention of “an outraged citizen”, Logan Darrow Clements (my hero), to start an application process to build a hotel on juctice Souter’s land. It’s a long shot but it would be poetic justice. Here’s his media announcement — http://www.freestarmedia.com/hotellostliberty2.html — if you didn’t catch it on yesterday’s post — http://aslowerpace.com/serendipity/archives/229-A-little-less-America……html

Oh, and by the way, welcome to July!

…..Dan at aslowerpace dot net

Well, summer has kicked in full swing here in Kentucky. Not only do we get the beautiful sunshine, but we also get to enjoy the humidity. We call ’em 90-90 days. 90 degrees with 90 percent humidity. I was dreading it but with the pool and the affordability of keeping the A/C going in the house there are places you can retreat to and cool off. That wasn’t the case in CA. Granted, we only got one or two 100+ degree days but other than driving to the beach, we had no options. Our postage stamp sized lot couldn’t hold a pool (and an inground was too expensive) and thanks to our wonderful governor Gray Davis, we couldn’t afford the electricity for A/C with all the blackouts and brownouts. I actually heard people calling them “Gray-outs”. So anyway, even though it’s hotter here, we have tools to deal with it.

Unless, of course, someone decides to hold the annual church picnic at the end of June. That’s where we went today. It combines all three services into one big service held at 10:45am outside on the lawn. Great concept, bad timing. I brought our lawn chairs, quilts and sunscreen. I was able to squeeze my folks and kids under some spotty shade but the rest of us bore through the service in the sun. It was very uncomfortable and I used the kids wanting water as an excuse to “escort” them so I could have a few moments inside the A/C. It was a very friendly and warm (literally) service. The sermon was about being more welcome, more neighborly and more friendly as stewards of Christ. My wife and I looked at each other when the pastor referred to neighbors not knowing each other and that they should get out and welcome those who live around them. That makes for a nice transition to the birthday party we had yesterday.

What a blast! We ended up having around 20 kids and 20 adults over. A few were the family friends we have made through school and around town with the rest being each one of our neighbor families. It was great to spend some time getting to know them and watch all the kids play together. Since I plan on being here a while, it was nice to strengthen those ties and bonds. I especially wanted to share one of my assets — the pool — with my neighbors and their kids because they had helped us out several times before. From helping us get the Suburban unstuck to not suing us because of a dog fight to saving my back to helping us rookies with our new garden, we have had the extreme good luck fortune to move next to several wonderful families. I feel very blessed to have them here. Neighbors who will help you out in a moment’s notice. Neighbors who you can enjoy good times and special events with. Neighbors who are down to earth and care about you and your kids but who also don’t care too much and become that nosy neighbor that doesn’t have a life and intrudes into yours. We have a really good balance with the people here and look forward to many enjoyable years here with them. One of them even came in to the house to chat with my folks. He was telling them how lucky they were to have us move in to the house. Well, I tell ya — each of our neighbors might have gotten one nice family when we moved but we got the better end of the deal because we got several nice families when we moved.

I’ll just end this post with this — “Thanks, neighbors!”

…..Dan at aslowerpace dot net

While my wife and I were coming home from a wonderful Cheesecake Factory birthday lunch in Cinci, we were scanning through the not-so-familiar country radio stations. On one of the scans, it came upon a rock station playing Van Halen’s “Hot For Teacher”. Given our current homeschooling efforts I thought it was very appropriate and I reached over for my wife’s hand and said “Yeah, Baby!”.

…..Dan at aslowerpace dot net