Dorito Dust and Fuel Tanks

It's been a while.  A long while.  I'd like to say I have a good excuse for my absence, but I really don't.  I simply haven't sat down with my laptop and a blank white blog page staring at my face for far too long.  Sometimes it's a matter of not knowing exactly what to write that would be worthy of 5 minutes of your time.  It's certainly not for a lack of ideas that are making mach 2 flyovers in my brain on a regular basis...some of said ideas are worthy, some humorous, some serious, and some downright scary.

Time flies by...seemingly gaining momentum as each year passes.  One minute you're taking off your cap and gown, and in the blink of an eye, you're brushing Dorito dust off of your graying goatee and t-shirt while you're sitting on the couch watching reruns of Andy Griffith.  I always heard it when I was younger and didn't really understand it, but it's a very strange thing to feel like you're in your 20's on the inside, but then you walk in front of the bathroom mirror and draw and aim your .40 caliber handgun thinking some creepy old dude has broken into your house and is standing there in front of you...mocking you.  It's a very strange phenomenon indeed.  

So, it doesn't take long before the last blog post you made was 6 months ago.  So here I sit, coffee by my side, laptop appropriately placed on my lap, a now semi blank blog page editor page thingie on the screen, and my fingers feverishly hammering away at random keys trying to come up with something.  Maybe I can catch you up a little...

The boys and wives are all doing great.  Sammy is doing great (pushing 3 years old now - don't blink lil man!!! It's a trap!!).  Mom is doing great.  I'm doing great. 

Sorry to bore you with all the boring details like that, but I thought you might be curious.  As for me, I'm still working long hours at the mortgage company - still loving it.  I've finally bought a house after a few years of financial rebuilding after the business failure.  It takes a while to get back on your feet when your FICO score hits the single digits.  It's a fairly modest but nice smallish new house on the south side that still lacks some things like a dining room table/chairs, fence, spare bedroom stuff, maid service, and a groundskeeper, but it'll get there.  It's kind of a country subdivision with houses popping up all over the hood.  I'm getting used to being awakened by the subtle serenade of roofers nail guns attaching the 3-tabs down the street.  It's nice to be able to walk out on the back patio at night and see stars...typically not possible inside Tulsa city limits. There are trees around, but not so close that I can't catch some spectacular sunrises and sunsets on my walks around the neighborhood.  

My current project is inspired by a talk I heard from Bill Hybels (who was the pastor of Willow Creek Community Church in Chicago) years ago.  He was talking about overall health through keeping your life in balance.  His analogy was tanks, similar to fuel tanks.  He essentially said we have 3 tanks, and physical tank, and emotional tank, and a spiritual tank.  He said the key to holistic health is to keep all three thanks as full as possible and in balance.  Certain exercises and activities in those three areas help put fuel back into the tanks. Life circumstances will drain one or more of those tanks.  So if I determine I'm going to get my cardio in, eat healthy, drink my water, hit the weights in the gym, and take my vitamins and supplements, I'll be fueling my physical tank.  However, if I'm neglecting the emotional and spiritual tanks, I won't be whole or complete.  And it will certainly have a negative impact on my life.  So, I've been focusing on those three tanks.  I'm working on my physical health with what was mentioned above, I've been working on a daily journal to focus on filling the emotional tank (amazing how much the mental/emotional fog lifts with that fairly simple activity), and I've also been giving some attention to the spiritual side again, which admittedly, I've been driving around with the gauge needle in the red zone for far too long.  I'm thinking there is probably an intellectual tank too.  I've always enjoyed learning new things, stretching my mind, and as I watch my mom age, as well as some others who have hit their 80's and 90's, it seems as if giving some attention to the intellectual tank helps one age well.  

As I come to the end of this rambling post, I can already tell that coming back here, sitting down with a cup of coffee and visiting with y'all for just a little while fuels a tank that helps me maintain wholeness as well.  I'm really not sure what category it fits.  I feel like my posts are kind of like a garage sale.  I have all this junk that collects in my head and after a while I want to get rid of it, so I pawn all the junk off on you for next to nothing.  Now I've gotten rid of my junk, can refill it with new junk, and currently you're stuck with my junk that you're really not sure why you picked up in the first place.  Hopefully the saying, "one man's treasure is another man's junk" fits in here somewhere.

Wait....what??

FG

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Symphony of Silence

Image
I don't read many novels because I prefer the sometimes raw reality of non-fiction.  Many people have explained that their love of works of fiction stems from a desire to escape.  I get it.  Being transported to another time, place, or circumstance can do for us what a vacation can do but it doesn't cost as much.  On one occasion I read a period novel.  I'm really not sure what came over me and moved me to the dark side of reading fiction but I did.  I don't recall the name of the book or most of the plot of this novel, but I vividly remember the opening scene of the book. The setting was in the 17or 1800's.  A young woman, perhaps in her 20's or early 30's was sitting alone in a dark sitting room of her home where she lived alone.  She sat in a rocking chair.  It was dark as the sun had long past set.  Electricity didn't service the home therefore, there were no lights.  Of couse she had lamps and candles but none were lit. There was only the glow of th
Read more

Love Inside the Lines

Image
 As with most of us, when I was a child and given a coloring book, I was always told, "You need to color inside the lines!".  I mean, it makes sense.  Part of the beauty of art is seen in a certain amount of order and symmetry.  In order for some things to be recognizable the way we tend to see things, the colors stay within the applicable borders.  Puffy clouds in the blue sky are recognizable because the white is in the clouds and the sky remains blue.  In the spring, greens stay within the lines of the shapes of "leaf" in order for the leaf to maintain it's 'leafness' and be seen as leaf.  The Designer and artist seems to have been intentional with such things. When the boys were small, they were allowed to play in the back yard as long as they stayed inside the fence.  They could play in the front yard as long a they didn't go past the sidewalk.  My oldest compliant child didn't get close to the edge of the sidewalk.  My unique middle child w
Read more

Power Quitting

Image
 M. Scott Peck said in his book, "The Road Less Travelled" - I'll paraphrase from what I'm hoping is still a fairly sharp memory, "Life is difficult.  Until you come to the place where you understand and accept that life is difficult, life will be difficult."  Read it again.  Those are some very good words.  Life outside of Eden is tough.  God told us it would be after we (yes, we) thought we could make wiser decisions on our own without him.  Life on the other side of the flaming, swirling sword guarding the entrance to paradise is chaos, difficulty, de-creation, decay, and ultimately death.  (Spoiler alert: that isn't permanent due to God's love and grace).  No, it's not all bad, but we invited plenty of it into our reality. I've done enough circuits around the sun on this spinning mudball that I've experienced plenty of hard times.  I've lost a parent and a sibling as well as many friends to death, I've experienced lots of heal
Read more