Ponderings and Musings

Earl and I were talking about employment options last night and he mentioned that I’ve gotten to that age where I need to always keep my retirement under serious consideration. He is a wise man and that is a very true statement. One of the best gifts he has ever given me was on my 30th birthday where he insisted that I start a Roth IRA. Luckily, I’ve been saving up for retirement since then through various means. However, last night he mentioned that I need to always keep in my pension in mind.

That’s when I broke it to him that I don’t get a pension with my current job. I think he paled a little. When I reminded him of my 401K, the color returned to his cheeks.

The truth of the matter is that I don’t have wide sweeping plans for retirement. Since it’s probably over 20 years away, it’s not something I give a lot of thought to, but when I do think of my “sunset years”, I tend to go with what I know: rural location, no neighbors, comfortably sized mobile home. Flat terrain would be best. Something like Kansas or Oklahoma. After all, living in a mobile home in the middle of Kansas or Oklahoma would give my life just enough zing to keep it interesting. I might travel once in a while but right now I feel no need to travel the world. I’d rather we do that when we are adequately funded and still young enough to climb a mountain or jump off a waterfall.

Earl really pales with any mention of living in a trailer but I think it’s because it’s way outside of his paradigm. The only time he’s mentioned that it might be acceptable was after we visited my godparents in their retirement village in Florida. I don’t see me living in a retirement village (I’m really not that fond of people) but at least he saw that downsizing to something like that could be an option.

I guess we’ll just have to see what the future brings.

When I see little things in the news, like people living in the wake of Hurricane Sandy that still have power stringing extension cords and power strips out so others can charge their phones and other important equipment, I realize that I still have hope for the human race.

I started to lose a little hope when someone broke into my Jeep the other night, but then I read about good news and I feel better again. I’m hoping that people in the U.S. will do the right thing and vote like a good citizen should and more importantly, cast an intelligent vote on Tuesday (if they haven’t already). I might not agree with your political beliefs, but if you fill in your ballot with thought and compassion for the greater good of your fellow brothers and sisters throughout the country, regardless of how different they are from you, you’re doing the right thing.

I’m really hoping that everyone downstate and along the east coast are safe today. My inlaws got banged around quite a bit by Hurricane Sandy, but from what we’re seeing on Facebook, all seem safe.

We didn’t get much of a storm up in these parts. Schools closed, curfews were declared in a few insignificant villages, but for the most part we had a few big wind gusts and a little bit of rain. The yard didn’t even flood this time around. The highest wind gust recorded on the weather station has been 27 MPH. As I type, the wind is still around 10 MPH.

Earl and I decided to go to the gym per our usually Monday night routine last night. The roads had few people on them. Restaurants and other businesses had closed. Around two dozen people were in the gym as we trucked through our workouts. I was happy to see that others were maintaining some common sense and not afraid based on the hype. I think some folks forget that we are 200-250 miles from the City of New York. It’s like when we travel, we have to tell people that we are from Upstate New York because otherwise people ask how things are in Central Park or at the Statue of Liberty. I’m proud of being from Upstate. I wish more Upstaters would remember that this is Upstate. They confuse the hype and panic that grips New York and Long Island with what is going on in this area. I blame the internet.

While we were watching the local news broadcasts during our workout last night, I couldn’t help but notice a slight look of disappointment on the faces of the newsbroadcasters. Reality wasn’t living up to the hype and the bleak picture they had painted. Some say “better safe than sorry”. How many times did Chicken Little yell before people started ignoring him?

Earl and I just stopped at the filling station on the way home. As I sat there watching the gas pump count up at an alarmingly fast pace, I noticed the woman using the pump opposite of mine looking at me. I smiled at her. She smiled back and said hello. We then had a small conversation about the weather and the leaves and just some good little thoughts. We didn’t know each other. We had never met, but a smile, followed by a smile back, prompted a conversation, and that doesn’t happen nearly enough in today’s society.

As we got home and I took a look at my Google+ stream, the very first entry of the night was about smiling and being happy, simply because you can. I needed to read this today. I needed to have that conversation with the woman at the Hess station. I have been way too stressed out again and it feels good to just smile.

Smile at someone today. They’ll smile back. It’s contagious that way.

Here’s the Google+ entry I enjoyed. It’s a little long, but worth the read.

Life is full of positive experiences. Notice them. Notice the sun warming your skin, the small child learning to walk, and the smiling faces around you. Smell the rain, and feel the wind. Live your life to the fullest potential by reveling in the beauty of these experiences, and letting them inspire you to be the most positive version of YOU.

What would happen if you approached each day intentionally, with a positive attitude? What would happen if you embraced life’s challenges with a smile on your face? What would happen if you surrounded yourself with people who made you better? What would happen if you paused long enough to appreciate it all?

Living a positive life is all about creating positive habits to help you focus on what truly matters. This is the secret of super positive people. Here are nine simple ideas to help you follow in their footsteps.

1.Wake up every morning with the idea that something wonderful is possible today. – Smiling is a healing energy. Always find a reason to smile. It may not add years to your life but will surely add life to your years. A consistent positive attitude is the cheapest ‘fountain of youth.’ You’ve got to dance like there’s nobody watching, love like you’ll never be hurt, sing like there’s nobody listening, and live like it’s heaven on Earth. Read The How of Happiness.

2.Celebrate your existence. – Your mind is the window through which you see the world. The way to make this the happiest day ever is to think, feel, walk, talk, give, and serve like you are the most fortunate person in the whole world. Open minded, open hearted, and open handed. Nothing more is needed. All is well… and so it is.

3.Appreciate life’s perfect moments. – Your life isn’t perfect, but it does have perfect moments. Don’t let the little things get you down. You’ve got plenty of reasons to look up at the sky and say, “Thank you, I will do my best to make this a great day.” So slow down and pause for a moment to stand in awe of the fact that you are alive, and that you have the ability to rediscover life as the miracle it has always been.

4.Embrace life’s challenges. – Uncharted territory in your life is not good or bad, it just is. Yes, it may rattle your foundation, and you may be tempted to pullback, say you can’t do it, or bail completely. But these are exactly the conditions that set you up for massive amounts of personal growth. Each experience through which you pass operates ultimately for your own good. This is the correct attitude to adopt, and you must be able to see it in this light. Read Change Your Thoughts, Change Your Life.

5.Become addicted to constant and never-ending self improvement. – It doesn’t have to be January 1st to give yourself a chance to make the most out of your life. Every day is a new day to learn, grow, develop your strengths, heal yourself from past regrets, and move forward. Every day gives you a chance to reinvent yourself, to fine-tune who you are, and build on the lessons you have learned. It is never too late to change things that are not working in your life and switch gears. Using today wisely will always help you create a more positive tomorrow.

6.Live and breathe the truth. – It’s the most positive, stress-free way to live, because the truth always reveals itself eventually anyway. So don’t aim to be impressive, aim to be true. Those who are true are truly impressive. Being true means having integrity; and integrity is doing the right thing even when you know nobody is watching.

7.Fill your own bucket. – Choose to be happy for no reason at all. If you are happy for a reason, you could be in trouble, because that reason can get taken away from you. So smile right now because you can right now, and make it a point to fill your own bucket of happiness so high that the rest of the world can’t poke enough holes to drain it dry.

8.Help the people around you smile. – Today, give someone one of your smiles. It might be the only sunshine they see all day. Sometimes just a single genuine smile or compliment can lift a person’s spirits to new heights. At the right time, a kind word from a stranger, or unexpected encouragement from a friend, can make all the difference in the world. Kindness is free, but it’s priceless. And as you know, what goes around comes around. Read A New Earth.

9.Spend time with positive people. – Life’s way too awesome to waste time with people who don’t treat you right. So surround yourself with people who make you happy and make you smile. People who help you up when you’re down. People who would never take advantage of you. People who genuinely care. They are the ones worth keeping in your life. Everyone else is just passing through.

-Marc and Angel Hack

So I do a silent little happy dance when it turns 12:30 on Wednesday afternoons. This happy dance is in honor of the fact that at 12:30 we are exactly half way through the work week. Half way! That’s right, we are on THIS side of the work week now and the duration between now and the coming weekend is shorter than the duration between now and last weekend. That’s what being over half way means!

This is how my brain operates.

I probably should speak aloud as to what all this means, this tendency to measure my work intervals by how close they are to the the weekend. I mean some things should remain unspoken and this is probably one of those things. I have learned the important politics of being unspoken and I’m finding that sometimes it’s a good way to go.

However, because we are over halfway through the work week, I will share a little “yee haw!” out loud.

Yee haw!

Now back to your regularly scheduled program.

When I ride my bike in the morning before work it’s still rather dark out. I take the usual safety precautions; I have a headlight and a taillight on the bike and I deck my halls with boughs of holly. Add a star and I’d really be lit up like a Christmas tree. People can see me.

Unfortunately, folks appear to not be in the habit of turning on their lights while they’re driving anymore. In a ten minute span during my ride I saw at least four cars driving in the relative darkness without their headlights on. I find this perplexing. Are they confused by the operation of the light switch that’s (usually) integrated with their turn signal? Do they think that the car will perform it’s automatic magic and turn the lights on for them and quite frankly they have no idea how to turn their lights on anymore? Do they just not care? Do they not notice the darkened dash in front of them because they’re too busy texting?

I’m finding this trend alarming. Not only is it dangerous that the driver can’t really see where they’re going, but it’s also dangerous to the rest of us on the road. Personally, I think that cars are becoming too automatic (many turn the lights on for you if you want it to) and therefore people are getting way too lazy. And then the plague of apathy that is gripping this nation is really no help, either.

If it’s dark out, please turn on your headlights. You’d be amazed at what you see when you can see where you’re going.

Back in 1996, when Earl and I were dating and hadn’t moved in together yet, I drove him down this road and showed him a house that I really liked. It was a fairly simple house that had been built in the 20th century. It was set back from the road about 100 feet. The house, though simple in design, still had a fairly sprawling feel to it as it had been added on to each end over the years. Tennis courts were on the lot adjacent to the house and landscaping and the like indicated that it was all one property.

The property was settled on a road across from large, open cornfields, which were protected from the road by a row of large maple trees. It was such a beautiful, peaceful setting for me, and I could imagine looking out the picture window on the front of the house, through the maples, across the field and onto the hill that was off in the distance; the last hill between the Adirondacks and the Mohawk Valley.

The house in question was for sale but was way out of our price range at the time. Earl and I were just talking about living together in the apartment he was living in at the time, a house would be further down our timeline together. But there was something about that house and that road. I just loved it. So peaceful.

The road in question, at least the portion between two parallel, fairly-main roads, is home to a couple of stone farmhouses, an Amish family in a very simple, white house and a few newer houses. Each lot is at least a couple of acres. The southern side of the road, aside from one of the farms with a stone farmhouse, is all working farmland. It looks like corn was the crop of choice this year. The entire portion of this road is flanked by maple trees.

During my bike ride today I found my way over to this road simply because I still have a certain fondness for it. It is paralleled to its north by a river, which runs behind the house I loved back in 1996. I stopped for a moment to take the photo at the beginning of this entry and after hearing the fake shutter sound from my iPhone, I just paused and listened to the stillness. I could hear birds doing their thing in the field. The hum of farm machinery was faint but still indicative of work being done on a Saturday morning. And I could hear the river doing its thing behind the houses it passed by. Here and there I could hear leaves dropping as they’re apt to do this time of year. The maples aren’t in their fiery glory yet; the peak leaf-peeping weekend is still a couple of weeks away in these parts, but I still felt that that road was still an ideal for me.

The house in question has long been sold and its owners do a fantastic job of taking care of it. I smiled as I rode by and continued along my bike ride.

Perhaps someday.

I can’t help but be excited about the upcoming weekend. I mean, it’s the weekend after all, and lately it seems like the work week is just an annoying obstacle to the weekend, where I want to be. I suppose that could be interpreted as a crappy work attitude, but it’s not, it’s just being real. I do what I do because I get paid and I reasonably enjoy what I do. But to weigh the work experience against a time period where I’m calling the shots and doing my thing on my terms without stock holders getting all cranky about things? I’ll take the weekend every time, thank you very much.

Earl comes home tonight after being gone since Monday and this contributes to my mood of frivolity. I made one small change to the kitchen to spruce it up a bit while he was gone and I’m hoping that he’ll enjoy this one little thing. I know I enjoyed it when I got up this morning and made way to eat my breakfast.

Tomorrow night we are venturing to Rochester for the evening to have dinner with friends. Two hour drives in each direction to have dinner with friends is well worth it. Most find us crazy for doing such things, but I don’t mind being thought of as crazy. Crazy people do their own thing on their own terms. And that’s what I do.