Take My Family...no, really... Take My Family (with apologies to Rodney Dangerfield)

The view from my seat is … family.

I’m pretty sure family may have been what (who?) Charles Dickens was referring to when he wrote in Tale of Two Cities: “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…”

Family are the only people in the world who can say “Thank for the gift, but I would rather have had (fill in the blank here)” and know that you will still love them.

Family are the only people who can look you straight in the eye and say “You still look beautiful” and know that you will believe them even though it’s been at least a dozen years and 50# since the last time you saw each other.

Family know our best and our worst. They carry the knowledge of our past and want to share the present and our future.

They can get on one’s last nerve and be the balm that heals.

Family is the treasure that we take for granted.

Why am I waxing philosophically about family? Because I am winding down from a wonderful weekend with family celebrating the marriage of my niece Jessica and her new hubbie Nelson Flores. Nelson, welcome to the madness.

Where to begin? How about a Letterman style 10 item summary (in no specific order):

1. The phrase "White Man Dance" describing that specific pathetic swaying in one place on the dance floor WAS invented for the general Prusa dance style.


2. Prusa's can and will carry on a conversation regardless of any background volume - DJ, screaming children, barking dogs, B-52 bomber, you name it.


3. We do say "I love you" with food.


4. Speaking of food, no matter what your age, coming in the back door and smelling Mom's food makes one feel that they are coming home from school. I kept waiting for Mom or Dad to tell me to sweep the floor and get to my homework.


5. It is a mystery why the Prusa men keep losing hair and the women keep gaining it. Surely there is federal money available to study the issue.


6. We do love our dogs. If reincarnation is real, it's a good thing to come back as the dog of a Prusa family member.


7. We might survive without water. We can not survive without coffee.


8. Prusa's have overactive tearducts. It's not that we're sentimental, it's a physical condition.


9. In the Prusa dictionary, fruit = pastry filling.


10. A Prusa sibling may forget your birthday, but would donate a kidney at a moment's notice. And that's OK in my book.

Update 101 in 1001

Got to get moving - lots to do by May 28, 2011!

Personal
1. Post on my blog weekly, for at least 8 consecutive weeks.
2. Write a letter (not e-mail) once a week.
3. Call a sibling weekly.
4. Read 101 books (textbooks don’t count!). In progress
5. Lose 50 pounds. In progress
6. Work out 5 times a week for 3 consecutive months. In progress
7. Drink 80 ounces of water daily for 6 months.
8. Try a new cuisine (Thai?).
9. Be in bed before 10:30pm for a month.
10. Swim twice a week for a month.
11. Floss for 30 days straight.
12. Go to a concert. (DONE)
13. Take a dance class.
14. Wear sunblock every day from May 15 to September 15.
15. Shave my legs 3 times a week for 3 months ;-)
16. Watch the sunrise on a beach or mountain.
17. Finish my NP. (DONE)
18. Get a new job. (DONE)
19. Walk 1000 miles in a year. In progress
20. Bike 2000 miles in a year.
21. Don’t curse (aka cuss) for a week.
22. Complete a whole tooth whitening kit without missing a day.
23. Journal 5 times a week for 3 months.
24. Run a 5K.
25. Read 3 non-fiction books.
26. Enter a recipe in the Pillsbury Cook-Off.
27. Make homemade bread.
28. Bring my lunch to work every day for one month.
29. Select my clothes (for work) the night before for one month. In progress
30. Try a new dish at an old favorite restaurant.
31. Do not buy coffee (or any other beverage) at a coffee shop for one month.
32. Have 3 servings of dairy daily for one month.
33. Consume my 60 g. of protein every day for a week.
34. Go bowling.
35. Fly a kite.
36. Jump rope.
37. Walk to work 101 times.
38. Get a massage. (DONE)
39. Do not eat after 7 pm for one month.
40. Go to the dentist, as recommended, every 6 months.
41. Go to Nashville meetings 9 out of 12 months in 2009 and 2010.
42. Look in the mirror and say something positive to myself everyday.
43. Don’t make a joke about my size, or other physical feature, for one week.

Creativity
1. Make my Mom a quilt.
2. Make my Goddaughter a quilt.
3. Learn to knit.

4. Scrapbook our European adventure.
5. Take a quilting class. (DONE)
6. Finish a counted cross-stitch Christmas stocking.
7. Sort the boxes of photos and get them in albums.
8. Make Christmas gifts for my work buddies. (DONE)
(50 total)

Love
1. Go on a date with Steve once a month.
2. Hide a surprise love note for Steve twice a month.
3. Go to a movie that Steve wants to see that I don’t. (DONE)
4. Take Steve on a weekend get-away.
5. Have breakfast with Steve, outside in the backyard, on 12 Saturdays.
6. Make one of Steve’s favorite dishes once a month.
7. Get Steve something he would never get himself. (DONE)
8. Tell Steve thank-you when he says I’m beautiful instead of making a negative comment about myself, 20 times.
(58 total)

Friends and Family
1. Do not watch TV for a week.
2. Go camping…real camping in a tent!
3. Get family photos done.
4. Have a weekly game night.
5. Go a week without using the computer at home to do work or check e-mail.
6. Do not play computer games for one month.
7. Each month send a card or care package to each of the kids, for 12 months.
8. Have a dinner party once a month for 6 months.
9. Stay at the Wig Wam motel.
10. Go canoeing.
11. Visit one of Steve’s sibs.
12. Visit one of my sibs.
13. Go to an event of a niece or nephew (graduation, play, dance recital, soccer game).
14. Call a friend 5 days a week for one month.
15. Have a girl’s day with my daughter and daughter-in-law(s). (DONE)
16. Go with Steve to a marathon in another country.
(74 total)

Charity
1. Do something nice for a stranger anonymously. (DONE)
2. Do something nice for someone in my family anonymously. (DONE)
3. Purge and donate 101 items to St. Vincent DePaul, Goodwill, etc. (DONE)
4. Pay for someone’s coffee or tea anonymously at Starbuck’s or another coffee shop. (DONE)
5. Do a service ministry. (DONE)
(79 total)

Home
1. Cook at home 7 times a week for 1 month.
2. Try one new recipe a month for a year.
3. Make a will.
4. Clean a closet once a month for one year.
5. Make a sweet dessert only once a week for 6 months.
6. Paint the front hallway.
7. Work with Steve in the yard, every other week during one consecutive spring, summer, and fall.
8. Talk to a neighbor once a week for 6 months.
9. Sort and purge PhD stuff. (DONE)
10. Sort and purge magazines every 3 months. In progress
(89 total)

Spiritual
1. Try a new style of prayer.
2. Go on a retreat.
3. Add to my spiritual log once a month.
4. Say a rosary every day for 6 months.
5. Offer up an act of sacrifice one a week, for the intention of someone I love.
6. Say a prayer before the start of every meeting at work. In progress
7. Go to 2 FOP’s a semester while Emily is at Franciscan.
8. Go to a daily mass 101 times.
9. Coordinate a spiritual book group.
(98 total)

Finishing Up
1. Write a thank you e-mail to the person whose blog suggested this. (DONE)
2. Put $1 into a box for every item I cross off and then do something fun with it at the end of 1001 days. In progress
3. For every item on the list not completed at the end of the 1001, donate $1 to charity.

Have I mentioned...

...that I love my job?

Yes, I do. It's been along time since I've been able to say this, but I would do this job for free. Love, love, love working at a community health center.

Why? you ask (yes, I heard you). Because it is NOT work, it is really a ministry. Are my patients aggravating? Yup, sometimes...just like me. Are they needy? Yup, sometimes...just like me. Are they crabby and unreasonable? Yup, sometimes...just like Steve.

But, they are wonderful, varied, beautiful human beings. Sometimes smelly, often unintelligible (do to my lack of ability to speak Spanish, Russian, Bosnian, Croatian, Burmese, and southern) and many times with a bit of a chip on the shoulder. But, one look in most patient's eyes is enough. They want someone to care about them. To make them feel that their well being is important, that they have been listened to, and to recognize them as individuals, not just an invisible member of the lowest class. They are smart and funny. They are beautiful chubby babies and onery toddlers, tired parents and weary elders. They are men who have lost their hourly wage job and are ashamed of not being able to support the family. They are women who run the family and make it look easy. Parents who worry about their children, and children who are worried about their aging parents.

What do they have in common? For the most part: not much money and a health care system that doesn't have a place for them.

I love working to solve the puzzle of what is wrong with someone. To hear "you do that just like _______ (fill in the name of a doctor or practitoner that I respect) And best of all, those rare occasions when someone returns and says "You made me better."

How can you not love a job like this?

6 Months?

The view from my seat has been...a blur. I wonder how life can be so busy that 6 months has passed since I last posted here.

This is the time that I thought my life would be so much simpler...no little ones in diapers. No kids involved in soccer, baseball, gymnastics...no living in the car. No teens learning how to drive. No staying up until 2 hours past curfew waiting for someone to arrive home...unrepentant.

I think that answer maybe similar to the answer to that age old question - what is financially comfortable? For the financial question the answer has always been "someone who makes just a bit more than I currently do". Yes...what is considered a NEED grows in accord with income, leaving most folk looking ahead to whatever the next salary level is. Surely, that will be the income that will feel "comfortable". Comfortable defined as "able to have whatever I think I need without having to wrestle with delayed gratification.

In the case of my current question, "When will life not seem so busy?" I have arrived at the conclusion that my here-to-fore answer of "when my family gets past _______ stage" is inherently wrong. Just as with balancing the household budget, balancing my calendar/schedule is NOT wishing for the next seemingly better phase. It is a matter of choosing to step off the race track and consciously adopt a life that affords what I see as important.

For me, quiet time is important. Time alone, to read, sew or pray. But when I am on the day-to-day treadmill, not attending to consciousness, I do not make the choices that I need to in order to have that time. It's not my life that needs to change - it is my attention!

Perhaps that should have been my New Year's resolution. To be attentive. Not to late to make a new resolution, is it? Unfortunately - I think I may have more success with the original 2010 resolution: "Eat more chocolate".

A sentiment after my own heart...

There is no hope for a civilization which starts each day to the sound of an alarm clock. ~Author Unknown

Word

Never apologize for the condition of your house. Trust me, unless it is for sale, our homes look just the same. Word.

Making Ant Hills

The view from my seat is…ants. No, not “ants in the pants” (sheesh). It’s us…American people and how we resemble ants. Busy, busy, busy. Travelling to and fro. Carrying important “stuff”. No time to stop. Hurry, hurry. Must build the house, must decorate, must work, must do more, more, more! And then someone will step on the anthill, or it will rain and flood the hill out, and what do we have? A mess.

I think of the Frank Sinatra oldie “High Hopes” – anybody else remember it? Here’s the ant sample –

Just what makes that little old ant

Think he’ll move that rubber tree plant

Anyone knows an ant, can’t

Move a rubber tree plant

But he’s got high hopes, he’s got high hopes

He’s got high apple pie, in the sky hopes

So any time your getting’ low

Instead of lettin’ go

Just remember that ant…

Oops there goes another rubber tree plant

My questions: Did the rubber tree plant need to be moved, or did the ant just think that’s what needed to be done? What would have happened if the ant hadn’t moved the rubber tree? What if the ant had made a date for a cup of coffee with another ant instead? Or gone for a walk in the country? Or played hide-and-go-seek with a little ant? Nooooooo…we all take great pride in that lil’ ol’ any moving that rubber tree plant. And Frank encourages us to be like the ant…have high hopes and aspire to do what can’t be done.

How and when will we break out of this?! Are we really better off? I vote NO! Let’s let the rubber tree plants stay where they are and make time for each other! Time for conversation, reading, playing, enjoying life, time for JOY!

So, I am willing to start the revolution, if you’ll join me.

We can call it…hmmm…what’s a good name? How about:

• Let’s Try Enjoying Life (LTEL)? Not snappy enough?
• OK: TINTED (Time Is Not The Enemy Dummy)? Personally, I like that one, but some may think it offensive.
• INA (I’m No Ant)?
• BREAK (Be Real, Enjoy, be Attentive, Connect)? There – I think that’s it. Operation BREAK.

The first part of Operation BREAK is data collection:
Step one: Make a list of the top 5 things that are really, really important to you. Not what you think SHOULD be important to you… no one but you is going to see this.

Step two: Make a list of the top 5 things you would do if you won 55 million dollars in the lottery. Won it TONIGHT. What would you do first tomorrow? If you say “Quit my job” that’s fine, but what will you replace that job with? Does what you would do, if you could, reflect what you say is really, really important to you? If not maybe you need to re-evaluate what you say is important. It’s OK, we’ll wait. (tap, tap, tap, sigh)

Step three: Bank balance and calendar audit. Take a look at your bank statement (online or on paper, doesn’t matter) and your day planner. Does where you expend your money and time match what is really, really important to you?

Yes, it IS cheating if your job didn’t make the top 5 and you justify time over 40 hours per week (or whatever percentage of full time that you work) as “being for the good of one or more of the top 5”.

Step four: Consider this – what in your life is really a NEED? How much time and effort goes into acquiring, maintaining, and (possibly) upgrading WANTS? Just consider – think about it without judgement. This is just data collection.

Step five: Over the next week note your reaction when one of these things happens:

1. The phone rings as you are engaged in something.
2. A co-worker stops by your office (cubicle) to talk with you about a non-work related topic.
3. You run into a friend, or someone you haven’t seen in a long while, as you are shopping, pumping gas, or involved in some other essential activity.
4. Your offspring asks you to do something for them.

Think about this stuff, watch some ants, see if you’ve got rubber tree plants that you are rearranging, and let’s talk more about this view … later.