January 2008 - Posts
My faithful readership may recall a recent post that contained a link to an article indicating the 5 belly flattening foods. It was the post entitled, "This is the Best News I've Read All Day!"
The article described 5 foods that, if eaten with each meal, inhibit bad fats from forming in your mid-section. Two of those foods were nuts, and dark chocolate. To that end, I chased a fantastic custard fruit tart dessert with half-a-piece of caramel pecan dark chocolate fudge cake tonight. Ahhh, I can almost feel the washboard forming as I type.
I've been reflecting the past day or two about the concept of a grudge.
A grudge is "a feeling of resentment harbored because of some real or fancied wrong." Notice the term fancied, which is an idea or opinion with little foundation; an illusion.
I've encountered a person or two lately seemingly hanging on to a grudge, which has got me thinking about the whole subject in the first place. What I'm wondering is if it's something that's learned, or if it's a personality tendency. You've all met people that are perpetually being wounded by those around them. Perhaps you're even one of them. Their daily moods and attitude are at the mercy of the people that aren't calling them enough, or forgot to do something they said they would do, or otherwise didn't behave in some way, shape, or form so as to meet and satisfy their expectations. A person disappoints them and their day is shot. And you can be certain they will, inadvertantly in most cases, make great gains at short-circuiting the joy of everyone around them as well.
Personally, I tend not to hold grudges. I tend not to have predetermined expectations for people, either. I just kind of take people at face value. I'm not exalting myself for this, because I'm not entirely convinced that I could even take credit for it, or attribute it to myself directly. I don't recall witnessing the behaviour in my parents, so it was never modelled to me. Neither one of my parents ever place themselves in the role of a victim, which is what you're doing when you go around acting wounded all the time. Also, I remember my mother always telling me that when I allow other people to control my emotions, I'm giving them permission to have power over me. I didn't like the way that sounded one bit, and so I've pretty much decided not to hand people the reigns to my emotional state. It has become second nature by this point in my life, and I believe I'm a happier person for it. It's quite nice when your personal happiness doesn't rest on circumstances, and the sensitivity, or lack of it, in others.
One of the things that is particularly distasteful about holding a grudge is that it's inescapably self-centered. When you hold a grudge against someone for something they've done, which is most likely relatively petty (and even if it's not petty, it's still rather unbecoming), you're broadcasting to the world that;
a) you're self-absorbed, and
b) you allow your inner victim to be your outward facing representative to the world
Both of these things sound highly undesirable to me.
That then led me to think of all of the things that each of us do in our lives to wrong others we encounter, whether real or perceived. It's funny that we would expect grace from those people, but we don't extend it to them. I'm willing to bet that most times when people are holding a grudge against someone, the other person is going along happily in life having no idea the other person is ticked off at them. So, effectively, it's self-destructive and joy-inhibiting.
What I want to know is, what is the benefit or personal gain of grudge-holding? I've racked my brain thinking about this, wondering what would compel human beings to habitually engage in the practice if there wasn't something advantageous that results from the behaviour. I'm really at a loss to find a single benefit and must conclude that we participate in such behaviour to our own personal detriment.
It's remarkable to me that God finds us particularly lovable in light of all that, but I suppose it only serves to glorify His nature all the more. Perhaps that's the point entirely. Hmm... I'm satisfied with that.
If you're holding a grudge, for God's sake, put it to bed already and get on with your life.
(drum roll please)
Anyone but this woman.
The things people do for love. A bunch of middle aged men dressed up as Hannah Montana to win tickets (presumably) for their daughters.
I've been reading a book to the kids each night that has Alexander Graham Bell, Thomas Alva Edison, Louis Pasteur and Gustave Eiffel as characters. In the book, each character was imparting some insight into the secrets of their success. While their answers are all now famous quotes, one of them in particular rang true for me, and that was one by Bell:
“When one door closes, another opens; but we often
look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door that we do not see
the one which has opened for us.”
I had been doing that myself until recently, admittedly. But now I'm seeing opportunity. There is sage advice in those simple words that can completely change your life.
If I eat chocolate with *every* meal I can get a flat stomach! Yay!
Meet the 5 Flat Belly Foods
My biking injuries are keeping me from sleeping this evening so I thought I'd check email and read the news. My JKD instructor sent out an email that he is working on a one day instructional seminar lead by Rigan Machado, an 8th degree black belt in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu.
I might go just to let the guy know that his website is littered with typos and grammatical errors. You can tell that whoever wrote the copy for it speaks English as a second language.
In all seriousness, I doubt I will participate. It's a bit too hard-core for me.
Despite becoming a little too intimately acquainted with a tree while biking today, I managed to make it out alive.
The day started out full of excitement and optimism. Exhibit A (From Left to Right: Me, Russell Sage, Chris Carragher, Brian Ludemann, Rick Ellenburg, Mike Musselwhite, Charlie Sinnett, Troy Johnson, Greg Hurst)
(Click Image to View Larger Version)
In the first mile, Mike Musselwhite fell off his bike and twisted his ankle and had to call it quits. Little did I know what was soon in store for me. A few miles in I came across a pretty decent grade and started to coast down it. It was such a rush that I decided to let off on my brakes a bit and allow myself to experience a bit more speed. Unfortunately, the grade was about to take a turn to the right, unbeknownst to me, and my left shoulder smacked hard into a tree at the edge of the narrow trail. The next thing I knew I was on the ground, laying on top of the frame of my bike, and my sunglasses had sailed clean off my face and were in the dirt about a foot in front of me.
Charlie, my supervisor, was riding behind me and witnessed the incident and so I will be treated to a pantomimed re-enactment tomorrow morning at the office.
In the end, I have a very sore left shoulder, and I smashed my right knee, so I have quite a few cuts and bruises from my thigh down to my calf. My knee cap is actually hurting worse than my shoulder, now that I've iced my shoulder for a while.
I should have known when the sign at the trailhead said "Warning: This trail is for intermediate to advanced cyclists" that there was probably a good reason for that being posted. No matter, I'm going to try again, but in the words taken from George of the Jungle. Watch out for that tree!
Today's smoothie creation I'm calling spiced apple blackberry. It's not a very good name since I'm omitting ingredients in the title, but I guess I can call it whatever I want to.
I added a cup of frozen blackberries, a cup of frozen blueberries, a cup of vanilla yogurt, a cup of sparkling lime water, a package of spiced apple cider mix, 2 tbsp of flax seed oil and 2 cups of ice. It's really similar to a smoothie I made a couple of weeks ago except for the addition of the blackberries, which are fantastic. The only difference is it makes it a bit "seedy" which you don't tend to get with the blueberries alone. One fruit that I have to go light on, or skip altogether (despite my love for them) is raspberries. Raspberries have an inordinate amount of seeds, and makes the smoothie extremely grainy and you have to chew it, practically. The fruit that is best if you want to avoid seed are frozen peaches and blueberries, and strawberries are a bit better than raspberries because the seeds are smaller, and less tough.
I highly recommend using blueberries if you make your own smoothies because they have wonderful health benefits.
Today's the big day. I'm getting all of my gear together and heading up to the US National White Water Center for my mountain biking excursion. My friends Brian and Denise are going to watch the kids for me at their house. The boys are really excited because they really enjoy playing with their kids; Brian Jr., Asia, Jada and Matthew (another one is on the way but the gender is yet to be determined).
The white water center sits adjascent to the Catawba River and is an olympic training site for whitewater slalom racing. I'd love to do the climbing and whitewater rafting activities there eventually, but one thing at a time. I really want to get into more out-of-doors activities, especially camping. I love that since the weather is so much milder here, it opens up a lot more months in the year to participate in such things. I was looking at a website with various biking trails around the country yesterday and I'd love to travel to different places with my bike and camping gear and try out various trails. That'd be most awesome.
Oh boy. I can't believe it took me this long to realize I could make chocolate smoothies. I was making chocolate milk just a moment ago for Justin when I got the idea. Yummy! I'm going to have to tinker with the recipe a bit, but for the first iteration it's quite tasty.
Saturday is the best day ever. I spend most of the day at home in my pajamas. So far the kids and I have played dominoes, waltzed in the kitchen, and I gave Tristan another guitar lesson. I've been teaching him strumming patterns and chords. So far he has D, G, C, A and Em committed to memory. I've also been teaching him to play Fur Elise on the piano one bit at a time. We're about 1/3 of the way through the right hand. Justin doesn't have an interest in playing an instrument thus far so I haven't been pushing it on to him. The lessons for Tristan were at his urging.
I've created a gallery to add pictures that Tristan has been taking since he got his digital camera for Christmas. He loves taking photos. Some of them are pretty interesting. I particularly like the one of the guitar sound hole, and the monopoly board. Interesting perspective.
This article is about an artist who draws using only a Bic pen. It's pretty amazing.
I'm getting really excited about the 15 mile mountain bike excursion tomorrow. I think this is going to be the most challenging thing I've ever done in my life. I've never participated in any single activity that has caused me to burn 2,000 calories at one time.
I'm going mountain biking on the trails at the US National White Water Center here in Charlotte with a bunch of my co-workers (Russell, Greg, Rick, Charlie, Chris, Troy and Brian) on Sunday. This video is taken on the same trail that we'll be doing. It's supposedly fairly challenging and the total ride is going to be 15 miles. I haven't decided if I'm going to stop at 5 miles, or do the entire ride. We'll see how fit I am for it. Probably not very. At least I'll be outfitted properly in all the glorious spandex I bought today. Oh, and a new helmet. Can't ride without a helmet since a couple of my co-workers have colided with trees at this course.
I'll let you know what happens.
This is interesting. I think I could benefit from a few of these tips.
For years I've lived pay check to pay check, like many Americans, but I'm tired of it, and so I have a plan. I just came up with it this week, and I'm completely stoked because I know it's going to work. Yes, I've created a budget, but it's not just a budget in isolation. I have a system in place now that will provide me with a $2,500 savings cushion by June and an additional $2,500 to invest at year's end. I'm using my Flexible Spending Account as a savings account.
Anyone that works and has kids has the opportunity to have $5,000 automatically deducted from their paycheck to pay for childcare costs with pre-tax dollars. I've decided to use this as a savings tool, having the money deducted, but not submitting for reimbursement to allow the fund to grow. The money is out-of-sight and out-of-mind, which is about the most no-brainer way to save that I can imagine. In June, I will submit for reimbursement for the first half, and deposit the money into my savings account. A portion of this will be my emergency fund initially (aka car repair fund) at least until I get my car repair fund fortified (which is also budgeted) and then it will be treated purely as savings. Going forward, any purchases I wish to make will be budgeted and saved for (clothes shopping, electronics, etc), so that the $2,500 will remain as the foundation of my savings account and be built upon.
At the end of the year, I will submit for reimbursement for the remaining half, and invest it in an IRA. Then, I'm going to repeat this cycle every year.
I'm fortunate to not have debt, and my car is paid off, but my financial picture really needs work in the area of stricter budget adherence and fortification of my savings. This article, Managing your Budget, may be of interest to some of you desiring to take the bull by the horns as well.
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