My 2014 New Years Resolution

Posted on January 15, 2014 by enthusiasmiscontagious

After a three month hiatus I am back. I am closer to finishing my long awaited book on dealing with adversity with humor and hope to complete it by this summer. Here is my thoughts to open the New Year.
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The older I get, I often feel as if life is like attending your wife’s class reunion. More people than you would ever care to meet, yet inside the vastness of the meeting place, you feel as if you’re an anvil in a punch bowl, you don’t fit in.

As you sit in the corner, you study the room. You see some individuals desperately trying to hold onto their youth. You see one guy with the comb over that looks like spaghetti on a basketball, the former beauty queen who still thinks she has it, and is so poured in and out of her dress she looks like a busted can of biscuits. Then you get the renegade who throughout the school years, according to your wife, was the epitome of wholesome. Now, the individual shows up to the reunion looking like the lead singer of Guns and Roses. What’s disturbing is he can’t wait to flaunt his new persona. “Look at me” his outfit screams.

Like watching an aquarium, you soon tire of the clown fish and the blowfish and find yourself asking, “Honey, can we go now?”

Every day Hollywood stars, singers and pop culture want us to emulate them. The outrageous is the norm and nothing is out of bounds. Like the class reunion, all I want to do is make a quick entrance say hi to a few people and retreat to someplace, anyplace, where the ridiculous doesn’t vie for my attention.

In church one day a young child heard the pastor say in his sermon, “You must live as a Christian in your home.” The mother noticing her son was more quiet than usual on the ride home asked what was wrong. The son with tears in his eyes said, “The Pastor said in his sermon that I was to live with Christians, but I want stay with you and dad.”

While the heroes and stars of the world continually ask us to look at them and be like them, I can’t help but think of someone else who says the same thing.

While Hollywood offers us illusions of greatness and beauty, God’s way of living promises us peace and rewards. Hollywood can keep its ruggedly handsome actors. My leading man feeds thousands from a tiny lunchbox, and can part oceans with one word. I am in awe that He still can place life into the lifeless and cure the incurable.

In 2014, I don’t want to be like anyone else but Him. I am also confident that the home He promised me, will make me feel like I fit in just fine. Trying to be just like Him, now that’s a resolution worth making.

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I’ve Been Insulted

Posted on September 23, 2013 by enthusiasmiscontagious

I am amazed each week the number of people who seem to look for opportunities to feel slighted. I think I’ve become an expert at identifying such a person. At least from the two stories I’m about to share you might guess which is legitimate and which is not. My first story is one that occurred last week thanks to a mix up by a large Canadian beverage manufacturer.

Let me paint the scenario for you. You have an extremely low self esteem. That is why you have a family pet. They’ll love you always, right? So you get up groggy to prepare for the job you hate, only to be scratched by cat FiFi when you push her off your freshly pressed pants. To tired to care, you put the pants on anyway and tell yourself, “I’ll just tell everyone they’re made of mohair. Baffled by your cat’s behavior you chock it up that maybe house pets have bad days too!

Now cranky, you wobble out to the kitchen for a piece of burnt toast and coffee. The coffee being so strong, it makes your socks stand up. You now rush out the door and settle into the torn seat of your car. Your rust bucket of a car looks so bad, it looks like it led convoys in Afghanistan for the past fifteen years. Or better yet, it looks like it took direct hits from a golf club wielded by Tiger Woods ex-wife. Despite the fact you are only four miles by the crow flies to your place of employment, you merge into traffic for the 45 minute highway gridlock ride to the job you hate.

The only thing redemptive about your job is lunch and it’s time now. You settle into a tight fitting seat only to find a sticky table. You know it’s a ridiculously dumpy food dive, but you’ll go anyplace to escape your pathetic job and boring existence. You twist the lid off your soda pop only to find a stark assessment of your life printed under the lid. The words under the cap state, “You Retard.” The only thing that keeps running through your mind is really?

This scenario may not be far from the truth. In a promotion last week that was meant for French speaking customers, French bottles made by Coke, found their way to an English speaking population in central Canada. The manufacturer aghast with the mix up, promptly cancelled the advertising campaign by simply saying, The words “You retard”, actually means “You’re Late” in French.

How would you like to have the worse week of you life only to be insulted by your beverage? Talk about bad timing. I can just see this hapless person, everything in his life is wrong, feeling that even the cosmic soda gods are now in cahoots against him.

You may find his dilemma a little easier to explain than the story of this one married woman. A man returning home from work heard his wife in the living room calling out his name. She said, “Come in here and watch this program on television with me.” She said, “It’s about a large woman with no confidence who’s made to look good for a day.”
He replied from the kitchen, “Are you watching our wedding video again?

Of the two stories, both wore their feelings on their sleeves. However with the second story, I’m not sure it was just feelings she wore. I think her sleeves bore the remnants of mopping him up.

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Major Changes to my Blog

Posted on August 15, 2013 by enthusiasmiscontagious

The story is told of a cowboy and his Indian friend scouting the west for a place to settle. Not being as savvy in the ways of the west, the Cowboy asked his friend to scout out in advance any dangers that could arise. They would meet up later in a couple of days at an agreed location. The Indian had a good lead of at least half day so the cowboy was most surprised when coming off a trail head, he spotted the Indian laying down in the path with his ear to the ground.

The Cowboy sensing the Indian had an important clue on what lay ahead, ran over and stooped over his Indian friend. Slowly with conviction the Indian said, “Wagon train, six wagons, 14 head of cow.” The cowboy was stunned, he said “Yes, go on!” The Indian continued, 12 horses, 7 women, two dogs, and one cat.” Speechless from his uncanny abilities, the cowboy blurted out, “You can hear all that by listening to the ground?” To which the Indian replied, “No, it ran over me an hour ago.”

Sometimes the picture isn’t as clear as it looks. I have written this blog for over a year now and I have contributed over 150 articles. Mostly what I wrote about was a humorous look at everyday life. My hope was that it would bring a smile to the face of friends and new friends and it would grow. Despite my snippets of success, I have found that winning over readers is definitely a full time job. I lack that time and energy.

Presently I have multiple projects and responsibilities that is precluding me from having the time to make systematic contributions to my twice a week blog. With this is mind, I will be channeling my extra energy into finishing a book project that has languished.

I will continue to add to my blog an occasional humorous take on life, but it will no longer be on a regular schedule.

I’m not gone, I’m just on assignment a little more often. I want to thank my readers and friends for your encouragement and I close with the words a Vermont farmer once told me, “If I don’t see you in the future, I’ll see you in the pasture.”

If you would like notice of any new article to my blog, simply click on the follow button that pops up on this page and my story will come directly to your email.

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LIfe Lessons from a Shower

Posted on August 12, 2013 by enthusiasmiscontagious

Many times throughout the day I find snippets of advice that encourages me to find little things in life that should make me grateful. While getting out the door early this morning, I found such an object; the master bathroom shower.

Think about it. So much of who we are is defined in that 7 X 3 foot space. When you arise groggy and out of sorts, it’s the warm water that wakes you up. When someone flushes the toilet while you’re using it, it substantiates that despite advanced age, you can still gyrate like a lead actor from the movie Flash Dance.

When you are hot and coming in from mowing the lawn and you have more grass clippings and sweat on you than a dachshund, you’ll always find refreshment in the soothing waters of the shower.

I remember once hesitantly climbing under my house in order to fix a leaking sewer pipe. That little square of heaven, the shower, made me feel human again after the job was done.

We don’t give this little space the credit it’s due as an inspirational venue. It is here that great ideas are first formulated. As the cobwebs of our brain are cast aside in the morning, it is under this cascading flow of water drops that we sing without shame as if we’re competing for the last slot on American Idol.

The shower stall also awakens inside us, epiphanies about ourselves we would nary dwell upon. I was taking my ceremonial cleansing the other morning and I glanced upon my shampoo bottle. I purchased this (it seems) about a year ago, but the pesky thing is still three-quarters full. How is it that the items we dislike the most stick around forever, but the good stuff is gone in a flash?

I thought I got a deal on this shampoo knock-off at the dollar store. In fact according to my hair, that’s “dead” wrong. Personally after using it for months it seems more suitable for cleaning hedgehogs. It leaves my hair dull, my hair sticks out and doesn’t lay properly, and no matter how much I use, it fails to lather. At the present rate, I don’t think this bottle will ever run out. I’m using it now as body wash just so I can buy a new bottle of shampoo.

The reason I bring this up is because it dawned on me in the shower. I’m cheaper than I am proud. It doesn’t matter that my hair leaves me looking like a static electricity experiment, I won’t throw that bottle away for nothing!

The only positive thing about my shampoo is it doesn’t make me lose hair. This bottle with all the texture of wallpaper paste, holds my strands together like a magnet to a box of screws. And therein lies the premise of my assertion. The shower is a place of peace, a place of repose, a place of joy and thought.

I have an additional suggestion for the shower. The next time you have a disagreement with your spouse, have the argument in the shower. I dare you to stay angry when you’re laughing hysterically at each others singing abilities or…well you get the picture. My wife of course has more reason to laugh hysterically.

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