Merry Christmas! Here I am all strapped in on Christmas eve, working traction into my day. Should have gotten one of those reindeer headbands with antlers, would have been very festive and a nice compliment to the strap around my head and neck. Seriously though, much to be happy about these days. Thanks for reading and all the best to you and yours!
Monthly Archives: December 2010
Overloaded with good cheer.
I saw this Dad in the grocery store holding what appeared to be his four-year old daughter and at the same time he was trying to push a cart built for children which was stacked full of very real food. I just pictured her insistence at using that particular cart when they arrived at the store and he agreed, in addition to making her happy it would avoid any immediate hassle. Yet in reality five minutes into the shopping experience it was clear that cart size wasn’t cutting it. She had bailed on walking but he was still hanging in there with pushing the thing. Every so often he’d reach down from his tall frame to tap the cart, giving it a push so it would go gliding forward. He’d then take three paces to catch up with it before he had a chance to trip over it. It was all in the timing, his speed was impressive and as he listened intently to the little girl ramble on, you’d never guess he really could benefit from a bigger cart. He may have been overloaded but he was going with the flow. I think that’s a real skill, to just go with things when they aren’t necessarily easy, when there very well may be a better way, but you do it for the good, you do it because it makes someone else happy.
Maybe that’s what this time of the year is all about, putting ourselves out, going the extra mile for someone else’s happiness, maybe even for a stranger’s, all the better. It’s a very cool thing to see love in action. So as I’m doing my traction today I hope to bring you some good cheer and glad tidings with this post.
Feeling groovy, but not.
I’ve been in the groove lately with traction. I feel like I’m really in a manageable routine and even though it’s uncomfortable and tedious and sometimes a bit too much on the painful side I’m really doing ok with it. For the first time I’m allowing myself to even think ahead a week or two and believing, I can do this. Looking back if someone had told me that I’d be so “ok” with it, so compliant with traction I wouldn’t have dreamed it, yet now that I am, it’s so freeing.
BUT, (why is there always a but, anyway)can I tell you my new thought, rather new fear, it’s that I’ll be all content in accepting this, rather than resigned to it, I’ll be as fine as I think a person can be who straps their head and neck in traction several times a week and yet, it will stop working. I’m not sure if this is an irrational fear. It’s just lately the more I do traction the more it feels like I’ve plateaued. The clerk at the pharmacy had to come out from behind the counter to push the key pad for me since my touch wouldn’t push the machine to the next step, yeah, the tired fellow customers in line where real happy about the delay in that moment too, like what’s with the chick who can’t figure out how to use the key pad. Oh and let me tell ya, there was this moment the other day when I couldn’t hit the digits with enough pressure to turn off the security alarm. That got my attention, probably the next door neighbor’s too, definitely got the attention of the alarm company but fortunately not the police’s.
So the new year could prove as interesting as ever but my wish is not to get too far ahead of myself in the fear department, to just take this all as it comes. Like I began this post, I wouldn’t have believed I could come this far with my attitude, or rather to this place in “Thoughts In Traction” as I have, so maybe I shouldn’t terrorize myself with the “what if’s” just yet. Instead I’d rather think of the new career possibilities, just think how “useful” I could be to someone if I develop the skill of not leaving fingerprints!
So I’ll leave you with a cliffhanger, stayed tuned, will I use my new skill for GOOD or EVIL?
Only time will tell.
Distraction, concentration, procrastination all in one little day.
Did you ever impatiently wait for something to bake in the oven only to then realize you hadn’t turned it on? Did you ever take your recipe with you to the grocery store and be so intent on making sure you bought every ingredient that you spent ten minutes looking for sour milk before you realized it was SOUR MILK?! Well, that’s been my attempt to be productive, what a nut I am. It has been a snowy couple of days and maybe the barometric pressure is throwing me off, who knows but I should definitely not be operating heavy machinery today so it’s good that traction is on the light side when it comes to mechanical things. I have a list of things to do a mile long like many do this time of year and I’m pretty much only thinking about the fun stuff. I’m going to make an old recipe of my Mom’s and Grandmother’s that I’ve never made before, I’m hoping it will be a success if I remember to pre heat the oven or at the least turn it on. So wish me luck or maybe considering everything I should wait until tomorrow.
If Life gives you lemons……
We’ve all heard that saying, how to make the best of a bad situation, well today I heard a child trying to do just that. A Mom and her two daughters were shopping in the same aisle as I was and one of the girls asked their Mom what something was, the Mom responded, “That’s coal, it’s a lump of coal. It’s what Santa leaves for bad boys and girls, for kids that misbehave like you and your sister…. and, if you and your sister don’t start acting better you’re only getting coal for Christmas!” The child stood there quietly as if she was deeply contemplating what her Mother had just said and then she asked, “Mom, can you eat coal?”
I did my best to keep my laughter to myself because the Mom looked at me with a look of, “if you laugh, you’ll get coal too!” So I turned away from them and tried hard to remain quiet but just then the little girl walked over to me and said, “Hi.” I wanted to say, you are one awesome girl but I thought the Mom might hit me as she had just threatened to hit the other child, so I smiled and said hi back and left the aisle.
I started to think though about how we have all this stuff we tell children and this child basically said, hey, if coal is all I get then I’ll make do, I’ll make coal lemonade. So today sitting here strapped in I’m making traction lemonade and it’s not so bad.
Thoughts In Traction.... 