A Slower Pace

Today sped by like a blur. Luckily, because of the time change we were able to sleep in a little and enjoy a leisurely breakfast. After that, it was Sunday school and church. My middle daughter sang with all the other little boys and girls which was a nice treat. And the sermon was very thought provoking — career vs. calling. I liked it and it paralleled some thought changes I’ve had in the last year or two where I am a disciple, husband, father and friend foremost and an employee second.

—— WARNING —— TANGENT BELOW ——

I now joke to people that my work is “only what I do on the side”. But it’s not always easy. It can be hard releasing those corporate or career ambitions especially when you see others passing by and enjoying the trappings….er, spoils of their success. I can still sometimes be torn by my plan to provide for, nurture and be involved in my family versus the pursuit of “being all that you can be” and making the most of your life. It’s not often in society that we heroize and glamorize the successes of being a great father and/or parent. We idolize and praise successful businessmen, athletes, politicians, etc however we fail at that when it comes to parenting. Maybe it’s because there are so few really good businessmen, athletes and politicians. Almost everyone is a parent — there are lots of those to go around. Maybe it’s because success defined in parenting is so nebulous; so undefined; so long-term. It is a lot easier to identify who makes the most money, scores the most points or wields the most political power. Maybe it’s because I’m reading the wrong publications. Business mags, tech pubs, and the local paper are not going to gush praises on exceptional parenting skills. Whatever it is, I sometimes wonder if I’m missing something. But then something always happens that yanks me right back to my reality that I’m doing the right thing for this family. A sunset highlighting the fall palette of colors. The kids discovering something new on the property. A view of wildlife out the back windows. I don’t care what people say but you can’t have it all. And I am cashing out my career and corporate successes for the dividends my family will pay back in the years to come.

—— TANGENT END ——

We returned home late from church only to have to get ready for the “Trunk or Treat” back at church later in the afternoon. There was a confirmation during the late service so our normal leisurely afternoon only gave us an hour or two before we had to head back. We rummaged in the basement for some old costumes. My wife got all the decorations for the “trunk” (actually the back of her Tahoe) assembled and loaded. I was able to do a few quick chores around the house before we turned around and headed back to church. Once there, my wife exploded her Halloween decorations throughout the Tahoe while I marveled with the kids at the numerous hot air balloons in the distance. We ended up counting a total of eight. Soon enough more cars showed up filled with costumed people and lots of interesting characters. My favorite were two sisters who were 1) peanut butter and 2) jelly each with a piece of bread on their back. Very creative. Not your typical Wal-Mart costume. A combination of candy securing, hayride, pumpkin painting, story telling, apple bobbing and snack eating took us to what seemed like 9pm. It was a fun time had by all. We loaded the hyper, candy eating, nap lacking, costumed kids into the truck and were floored when the clock read 6:30pm. It seemed like we were there for a long time and coupled with the time change, felt like it was late at night.

We got home in time to catch the end of the Denver-Philly game and then sedated, er….calmed the kids from their sugar highs into bed. Normally our Sundays are quite routine and peaceful, but today we always had something going on.

…..Dan at aslowerpace dot net

Not much to mention other than it was a typical God, family, football/NASCAR Sunday. Church to kick it off, making salsa with the kids, watching NASCAR with my wife and son (kind of), watching football with my wife topped by a great family dinner. Even the NASCAR finish was interesting — my car won, followed by my wife’s driver, my son’s driver and grandpa’s driver (Jeff Gordon, Tony Stewart, Jimmie Johhson and Bobby Labonte). Too bad my Dallas Cowgirls don’t know how to finish off a game. It wasn’t just this week’s game that they couldn’t finish well — they just dodged the loss in the two weeks prior.

It was funny during the NASCAR race. My wife rubbed it in that her driver was leading (and during most of the race I might add). My son responded by saying that when he played with his NASCAR Hot Wheels that her car wouldn’t win — only his and Daddy’s. That made me laugh.

Something different ———

I haven’t done this on the blog before but this is kinda important and needs your attention. I have a prayer request. My neighbor was hospitalized the week prior with meningitis. He came home last week and everything appeared to be normalizing but yesterday he went back into the hospital with a few blod clots and an infection. Please keep him in your prayers for a full recovery and a return to his wife and two boys.

…..Dan at aslowerpace

One really good habit I have recently gotten into is my nightly devotions. I have a quarterly devotional alongside my Bible on the nightstand. It has been a good tool to wind down the day and to mentally prepare me for the following day. Sometimes, rather than disturb my wife with the reading light if she is already asleep, I will read some devotional material on my PalmPilot (thanks to AvantGo). I came across this one tonight and I was moved enough to pre-post it for tomorrow’s post. I wanted to make sure it didn’t get updated and overwritten when I sync at work tomorrow.

The Penny

When I was out shopping today, I found a penny on the sidewalk. I stopped and picked it up and realized that I had been worrying and fretting in my mind about things I cannot change. I read the words “In God We Trust” and had to laugh. Yes, God, I get the message. It seems that I have been finding an inordinate number of pennies in the last few months, but then, pennies are plentiful! And God is patient.

…..Dan at aslowerpace dot net

“Life is fragile. Handle with prayer.”

…..Dan at aslowerpace

This afternoon I dug through tears to bury my beloved black lab dog. Wednesday while in the house, a visiting child stepped on him and he reacted by biting the child in the face. It wasn’t the dog’s fault. It wasn’t the child’s fault. It just was. It completely sucks. So many emotions going through me right now. It was all I could do to dig up the courage to do the right thing and put the dog down. I cannot risk a large dog like that around mine or anyone else’s children. While I love him very much and have run out of tears crying for him, I would ache a million times more if anything happened to mine or another child. In an ideal world I would have been able to find him a home on a farm with an older couple that knows exactly where he is coming from. He is getting older now and has less patience with children than he used to. A farm setting with some older folks to just sit on the porch and pet him while they all grow old together would be ideal. However, we do not live in an ideal world. And I cannot rewind time to prevent this whole accidental situation. There are no winners in this case. There is no silver lining. No brighter side, no better offs, no it’s gonna be ok. It just completely sucks to the bottom of my aching heart. I didn’t make it easier on myself by insisting to dig his grave. And to be there holding his paw when the vet came. However, that is what I would have wanted him to do if I had to be put down and he was the one making the tortuous decision.

That being said, shame on me. I know someone who just lost their mother and now found out they are fighting a deadly disease. There are soldiers dieing for our country. There are many who have ached and pained and cried and lost more than I have. But that doesn’t make me or anyone else feel better.

I love you my friend. I miss you. I’ll visit you often under the willow.

…..Dan at aslowerpace dot net

Well, we’re coming up on our 7th month here in Kentucky. A lot has happened and most of it has developed right in front of your eyes right here. My wife and I said we would give ourselves a year for the transition and we feel we made it in less than half that time. We are fully transitioned to the country way of life and have been enjoying the slower pace as we thought we would. Some things we anticipated. Others we wouldn’t have believed you if you had told us.

So that gets to my point — I think the story has been told. I have a few different directions I am contemplating and some of it involves the feedback I am soliciting right now. This is not a publicity stunt or some way of seeking greater readership (although that wouldn’t hurt). Like the parable I heard during the sermon at church yesterday, I am throwing my blog seeds out there in the hope that some of them sprout and yield a harvest. I hope people — however small that number is — are getting something from this effort.

Has the story been told? If so, should it close the chapter on our successful transition. Or does the story continue on? (Hopefully not like those Police Academy movies.)

No matter the outcome, now that I am in the habit of regularly writing, I will be exercising it. It just might not be on this blog or via the internet. I have a book for my kids developing in my brain as well as some deeper spiritual journaling not intended for publishing.

Drop me a note and give me some feedback.

…..Dan at aslowerpace dot net

If you read yesterday’s post, you know that my son and I had a mission to WalMart. The reason for that mission was to get a new litter box and kitten food. See, my wife made a promise as we were moving out here that my middle daughter never forgot — to get her a kitten. A few weeks ago when we were up at that farm in Indiana the topic seriously came up. well, our neighbors just got two free ones from some friends and there was still one left over so this was a good opportunity.

The kitten — we can’t tell if it is a girl or boy — is a beautiful striped grey color. It is settling in nicely and knows where the litter box is. The other cat, which ruled as queen, is still hissing at it so that will take a while for them to warm up to each other. But not as long as it will take the dogs to get used to another cat. All in all, my middle daughter has been beaming and excited to have her new kitten.

I have church tomorrow, so it’s off to bed for me. My son has invaded our bed and is still wearing his swim trunks. While it was hot today — 92F — it really cooled off nicely this afternoon and made for a perfect evening. It’s my favorite time of day during the summer when the sun dips below the trees but there is still lots of light. And it is the perfect temperature where you can’t tell whether it is hot or cold. That means it’s perfect. Although we are looking forward to hurricane Dennis bringing us some rain. The ground is parched and cracking and we need it badly.

…..Dan at aslowerpace dot net

Tonight my son and I took a late trip to WalMart to pick up a few things. It was dusk with a pretty sliver of a moon greeting us with Venus hanging right below it. We got what we needed at WalMart and headed towards the bank for a late night deposit in the drop box. Because the moon was only a sliver, there wasn’t much light on the road. I drove my wife’s truck a bit slower than I normally would as I headed down the two lane country road. Ahead, at the edges of the headlights, I saw something on the road. Before I could react I had not one, not two, but THREE skunks directly in my lane with me bearing down on them. Luckily the road was clear and I had a bit of a shoulder as well as the oncoming lane to play with. I swerved my wife’s truck right, straddling the shoulder keeping control as I eased back onto the road after the threat had passed. I guess when the headlights blinded them, they didn’t even have a chance to get in position to spray me. I got away scott free! I don’t know who is luckier — the skunks for me not running them over or my wife for me saving her truck.

…..Dan at aslowerpace dot net

Yesterday’s sign was not only a country throwback reminder to the days of the smalltown shop that would close during part of the day and go fishing — it was an accurate description of my whereabouts.

We hit the nearby Kentucky Game Park with another family for some fishing, a picnic and whatever else the kids wanted to do there. We only planned a few hours, leaving at 10:30a and expecting to leave around 1p or 2p. We didn’t leave there until 5p. Needless to say, we all were having fun.

I spent some serious time teaching all three of my kids to fish. My son has a NASCAR Dale Earnhardt Jr. pole (mommy’s car) that got him going but his attention span waned as someone discovered a cache of crawdads at the other lake. My middle daughter expanded on her fishing skills. She has become quite the caster with her little Barbie fishing pole (reviewed here by Field and Stream — http://www.fieldandstream.com/fieldstream/fishing/article/0,13199,1060455,00.html –) and completely outfished her old man with a more serious rod and reel. Maybe I should have gotten that NASCAR #24 Jeff Gordon rod my son passed over.

We all bounced back and forth between fishing, relaxing, eating our picnic lunch, more fishing, exploring, more relaxing and again more fishing. The day was a perfect 81F degrees with little humidity and there was lots of shade around. It was a nice change from the hot and humid of late and we took full advantage of it.

Tired and spent from a hard day of fishing and relaxing, we headed home and 2 out of 3 of mine knocked out for the ride home. Upon arriving home we had to get ready for our neighbor’s annual 4th of July Saturday bash. These were neighbors that joined us last week for my son’s party. There were well over 100 people there. They are both from large families (he is one of 5 and she is one of 10), he owns a landscaping business and she is a local teacher. This allowed us to expand our social network and meet some more really nice folk.

At the end of the evening after it had fallen dark (around 9:45p here in Kentucky), they lit off a great 15 minute firework show. While quite a few fireworks are legal here in Kentucky — they even sell them at WalMart — anything that is air launched or explodes is illegal. However both our north and south neighbors of Indiana and Tennessee sell whatever you want. That is where my neighbor got his collection a week or so ago and proceeded to entertain us all with some great mortar launched shells. Multi-coloreds, patterns, explosions and reports. It made for a wonderful time and the kids loved it. We had a front row seat with no traffic to fight on the way home. This will be something to look forward to each year.

After we got home just before 11p, we put the kids to bed and I turned on the TV in hopes of catching the last few laps of the NASCAR race. Somebody was smiling upon me because there was a rain delay and they were on lap 11 with 2 laps left before the restart. Woohoo! I didn’t miss much. I grabbed some chips n’ salsa along with some iced tea and lemonade and made myself comfortable. My son wandered down and because he had napped on the way home from fishing, he would be up for a while. So I sat him in my lap and we did some father/son bonding.

What a great, eventful, satisfying, relaxing day!

…..Dan at aslowerpace dot net

This creative piece was awaiting me from my Dad in my inbox this morning. It isn’t A Slower Pace but it is appropriate for today and our situation…..and my recent rantings.

May your 4th be filled with all stuff American — picnics with the family on a hot day; some nice, cold refreshments (beer, lemonade, Dr Pepper, sweet tea); hot dogs on the grill (or other tasty animal); something sweet at the end (apple pie or red, white and blue Bomb Pops); and illegal fireworks. Be safe, enjoy the liberties we still have and throw back a memory to the tough, dedicated people that made this country what it is today.

…..Dan at aslowerpace dot net

George W’s Quagmire
Different war, same old complaints.

Is a free, democratic America really worth such a price? demanded playwright LeMoore. I certainly don’t think so. The world shouldn’t look to America for leadership. They should look instead to courageous nations truly endowed with greatness. Like France.

…..Dan at aslowerpace dot net