Talking ‘bout a Resolution

A few years back I made a resolution that stuck, I resolved to NOT make any more New Year’s resolutions. Best dang resolution I ever made!

I find it increasingly ridiculous that we as a collective global society resolve to tackle personal challenges for which we have no resolve. Worse, is that we need a new calendar to jump start our initiatives. By February we can toss off all of the grand plans as we flip the page to a new month blaming our lack of resolve on a New Year’s Day hangover. “Oh, that was just the champagne talking.”

You need a little more at stake to make life changing choices than merely hopping to a new annum, more than drunken pledges. You need dreams. You’ve got to be able to dream what it would be like to cross that “one” off of your life list. You need FIRE, baby!

“Dreams die hard/ and we watch them erode/ but we can not be denied/ the fire inside.” - Bob Seger

This is just me, but I’ve found that you need to be less definitive in desired outcomes. Choose a dream and set out on a journey. Make many stops along the way, know that sometimes you must backtrack, detours are not roadblocks, simply side trips. There are few of us who can set a stopwatch on achievement. If you want to try something, try, that’s it. Try - no more, no less. You are not too old, you are not too anything. Set yourself up on the road to wherever it is you want to go and let the rest of your life get in the way. So what? Reposition and continue to move forward.

This is the chorus to the first song I wrote, “Unlock The Music.”

I’ve got a thousand songs inside me
Dying to come out
An old guitar beside me
I’m trying to figure out
I’m going to learn to sing and play
I’ve made this conscious choice
To unlock the music that’s inside
And give these songs a voice

It’s not much, pretty darn simple and step one on a new path. I waited until my mid-forties to address my fire inside. Now I’m just chasing sparklers down the trail to see where the fire is going to take me.

Perhaps 2010 will be your year to set out and unlock your music. Godspeed on your travels.

*****
While we’re on fire I should address 2009. What a year! Renee had that other fire burning. There were some other things going on around here but let’s face it, addressing that issue was the major theme throughout. It overshadowed everything else. It is the 800 pound gorilla in the room and oh, how we love monkeys! We did our best, with the help of surgeons and a whole host of medical personnel, to extinguish the flame. Still it smolders. Mid-January we’ll take another trip to Cleveland to investigate the pain and discomfort that continues to poke at her insides.

Resolve means a little more around here than getting in shape. Hey, I’m already in shape. It may not be the shape I want but it is a shape. Resolve is also more than giving up bad habits, of which I have none. Renee thinks differently, just ask her, she’ll tell you, but that’s just a women’s inherent desire to change a man into something he can never become. You see, around here resolve means survival. Resolve means getting up every darn day and facing whatever this life throws at you. Many of you had a rough year. You know what I’m talking about. Thanks for hanging tough.

So, we don’t need no stinking resolutions. We’ve got resolve and we approach 2010 resolutely.

Happy New Year!

Merry Christmas!

One week to Christmas and we’ve got a busy week ahead, snow’s in the forecast which we hope won’t get in the way of all there is to do. We have been blessed lately with some quiet on the medical front. There may be some more rough travel ahead but we’ve plowed clear down to the pavement and are just patching some potholes now, smooth sailing right into the new year. There is not a better present out there!

It has been 13 months since I started this blog and invited you in to witness some of the craziness that has surrounded our lives. The first site counter crashed and six months of counting was lost but the second is clicking at over four thousand hits so somebody is reading this. Thank you!

I hope it has been both informative and entertaining. I’ve had a lot of fun putting it all in writing. The feedback has been great and the best part is on some really low days I got a laugh out of Renee.

I must apologize to all for not sending out Christmas and Hannukah cards last year. We were pre-occupied with hospitals and trying to get Renee back to some semblance of health. If you remember, Renee had surgery on December 2, 2008, spent over two weeks in the hospital in Cleveland, developed a staff infection and landed back in the hospital here in Louisville on December 23rd after a miserable week at home. We were in the spirit last year but more of the haunting variety.

We missed a lot over the last year, vacations, holiday trips back to Jersey, nearly the entire summer stolen by that darn colon. Cassidy’s Christmas with her mom in the hospital was less than spectacular. She took it like a trooper, though. What we didn’t miss was quality time with doctors. Too bad there’s not a frequent flyer program for that. We would have racked up some major points.

We were carried through by spontaneous acts of kindness by neighbors and friends, an outpouring of caring by near and distant relatives and a few random deeds of thoughtfulness by complete strangers. We’ve got a great support group and I know we would not have been able to bear the burden were it not for all of you.

Over the last 13 months we have seen both the worst and the best of what life can dish out. There was much pain but there was no hardship. There was always room at the inn, there was always enough loaves and fishes, some friends even helped me turn water into wine (actually beer but you’ve got to stick to the script). We believe in miracles here. They may not have been of the magnitude of The Virgin Birth but were no less spectacular in bestowing saving grace upon us.

So, please rejoice with us in miracles and …..

Have a very Merry Christmas!

Love,
Bob, Renee and Cassidy

Celebrate! Celebrate!

Dance to the Music ...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kXI6CdTVJ-0&feature=related

Celebrate - Three Dog Night

Happy Hannukah!
Are we still allowed to say that or will it produce a court battle from the ACLU?

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We were being extremely hopeful that our Cleveland excursions were complete except for routine annual checkups. Renee’s internal ring of fire dashed our hopes. The surgeon wants us to travel back north in January and see him and a gastroenterologist and perform some tests. A stabbing pain in the left side of her gut was the clincher. This is not the direction we wanted to be headed in 2010 but we’ll continue forward. What would we do with all that free time away from doctors and hospitals anyway?

*******************

Last night was the first night of Chanukkah (according to Jewish convention you may never spell it the same way twice), the devout Jewish ritual celebrating the miracle of burning oil. Yes, the oil crisis can also be blamed on the Jews and we have over five thousand years of spent candles to prove it. For those of you unfamiliar with this annual custom, it is appropriate for you to give me a gift per night for eight straight nights. Apparently you did not do your shopping early because you’ve already missed last night. I’m deeply disappointed that you have chosen to ignore this time honored tradition. You are probably concentrating all of your efforts on that Christian holiday that also falls in December. You know the one that gets all the press. What’s it called again? I always forget because the evil doers of the world have homogenized it so much by substituting the word holiday. Merry Holiday!

There will always be those who attempt to secularize religious observations but heathens are a greedy lot. They have figured out how to denounce the existence of a higher power but they want it both ways and wish to share in the gift exchange portion of the program. They also wish to participate in all of the festivities without a nod to the history of how these days have evolved into special occasions – suffering, hardship, persecution and martyrdom. History shows us that ignoring history is a dangerous thing.

In our household we choose to celebrate both the Old and the New Testaments. We celebrate thousands of years of both Jewish and Christian principles handed down through the ages. I joke about gifts but recognize the foundations upon which the gift giving was built upon, the base upon which is stacked all of our celebration. I do not fear the words “Season’s Greetings” or “Happy Holidays,” I know better. I know from whence they came.

Carry forward the traditions of your faith whatever it may be, tell the stories of miracles past. Bring families and friends together and spread the spirit that elevates us at this time of year. It is all good. Oh, and don’t forget to sing – even pagans can’t deny the power of melody and song.

Celebrate the season because when January comes around it is back to the grind and to health worries and to doctors and tests and hospitals and everything else that drains the spirit.

Celebrate any way you know how. Celebrate strong and hard so that it becomes part of your essence. Celebrate until it usurps any negativity. Celebrate so that it carries you through until next December.

Celebrate - ‘Tis the Season.

And don't forget to dance to the music!