Father’s Day – 2011

Yesterday was Father’s Day and it was time well spent. I woke early, as usual, stayed up too late, and didn’t finish what I wanted – only what I needed. This morning the alarm woke me at five and I crawled out of bed. There was an unusual orange hue to the morning sky and I wondered what was up remembering ‘red sky in morn,’ sailor be warned.’  Sure enough, we had storms headed our way. The morning routine continues; Ivy out, coffee on, and reading, checking mail, or watching a television program I recorded to watch when I have time.

There are only a few shows I watch on television and if I cannot watch them, I try to record them to watch later. This morning was later for CBS Sunday Morning. I rarely get to watch this live as it is on Sunday morning (as the title suggests) and starts at 8:00 AM and ends at 9:30 AM, unfortunately, it is in direct conflict with church so it is recorded. Yesterday, we were hustling and bustling to get to church on time and the TV was off. We even made it to church on time. After church, we made a trip to the hardware store for grill shopping and then home. Chores, they never end. Then, it came back on for me to watch the Indycar race from Milwaukee later in the day and that was TV for me, yesterday. CBS Sunday Morning is like a newscast, but broken into produced segments usually around a theme or related in some way, yesterday’s episode was about – Father’s Day. I watched the first segment on Mid-life Crisis for men and I wondered and reflected. Is MtDC my mid-life crisis? I watched what I needed and decided to get started on the day.

I re-read last year’s blog post and the posts on either side of Father’s Day. A year ago, I had been in Paris to take my dad’s cremains to France with my brothers and stepmother, Julie. It seems a long time ago but it wasn’t. It was just enough time to process some of the events that have occurred over the past few years and wrestle with them just a little bit more. I thought of dad and what I learned from him; how he made me who I am and how I thought how I need to grow, change, and revise. Maybe it is a mid-life crisis. However, it made me realize that what I am looking for is right here. Just as Dorothy learned in The Wizard of Oz, what we are looking for is often in our very own backyard. We just are too busy looking for something that is better, newer, or fancier and we miss it because we are looking in the wrong place.

Last year, I had my picture taken with the kids in front of the house and we did it again this year, my, how the kids have grown. I don’t think I would have done it had I not been writing MtDC and I’ll never know. I do know that MtDC is a good thing for me; it makes me think about thinking and what it is I really want.  Yesterday afternoon, I took Olivia to the pool and swam laps and she played. I got in 825 yards, almost half. Maybe I miscounted, but they seemed easier than Friday’s laps. Olivia swam a few laps with me and I jumped off the diving board on a dare from a friend. Boys will be boys.  Afterwards we came home, and I cooked steak for dinner and we cleaned up and all fell fast asleep.

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Today is Monday, June 20th. It is day thirteen and fifty-seven remain, all worth counting and making count.  It is the beginning of the week and the beginning of vacation bible school for William and Olivia. This morning Beth is headed to Versailles to be with her mom, who has shoulder reconstruction surgery Tuesday, and her dad. She’ll be there all week. Summer camp starts this Sunday. William and I are off to Tesomas in Rhinelander, Wisconsin and after camp, we are all off to Michigan and the cottage. Summer is quickly moving and the days are certainly counting, only in ways I never dreamed. Today is gonna be a great day – Making the Days Count, one day at a time.

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