To vote or not to vote? What exactly is the question?

After this grueling election season, a lot of people are expressing surprise that so few of their fellow Americans chose to exercise their right to vote.  (According to reports I have seen, voting was at a 20 year low in a presidential election, which is bad, even for the United States, which typically has a low turnout, anyway.)  I have seen a lot of disparaging remarks about not voting, and I think they have missed the point. We also have a right not to vote, and it can be a choice of honor, a choice of exasperation, a choice of civil disobedience, a choice of protest.

Working rich...

Change is difficult for most people.  It is scary.  It is unpredictable.  It is challenging.  It is complicated.  It is emotional.  It is enervating.

But change is also exciting.  It is innovative.  It is opportunity.  It is interesting.  It is fun.

I have felt all those things in this complicated week of change, sometimes all at the same time.

To write or not to write.... It really isn't a question.

I rarely get into this genre of writing, but this morning I stumbled into a blog post by a so called "mommy blogger" who was expounding on the virtues of her recent epiphany of not blogging about her children.  Like most new converts, she was full of enthusiasm for her viewpoint, and somewhat sanctimonious about her freshly developed convictions on the subject.

What she apparently failed to appreciate in the whole piece was that she was still blogging about her children.  In fact, she went even further by reminding her readers that she had previously blogged about something so personal for her son that her own father had to tell her to knock it off.  By talking about how she was not going to make personal revelations such as these any longer, she was, in fact, talking about them, and reminding us all that she had talked about them previously.  Frankly, the whole piece fell flat, since the entire blog was, in fact, about her children's personal lives.

Life Math

0+5=5
1+4=5
2+3=5

I was recently asked by a customer at my job if I watched the political convention the previous night. This man was very pumped up about the speeches that had been given, and he is very excited about his choice of candidate. Although I am not in favor of his candidate, I respect his right to his opinion, however misinformed I think it may be.  So I tried to listen respectfully as I got the transaction completed.

But I also believe I am entitled to the right to privacy in my political persuasions. I am not required to disclose to anyone who I vote for, or my reasons why. I don't answer to the world - I answer to my own conscience. And I certainly do not need to answer to a customer who does not even know me.

So I responded to this customer by telling him I did not watch, and in an effort to shut down this line of questioning, I told him I am not political. Apparently he does not share my respect for the opinions of others, nor believe in my right to my personal privacy.

The great social media experiment....

Some years back, Frito Lay came out with a product called "Wow" chips.  The wow was, I assume, because they were fat free, thus people who were struggling to lose weight could suddenly eat chips without guilt.  Or so they thought.

But there was a catch, as there always is when you try to take a short cut on reality.  For many people, there were some unpleasant after effects to eating those chips.  The stomach issues are now legendary, and before long, those chips went off the market.  They are considered a "failure" in the world of snack marketing.

Happy Father's Day!

Until I was 12, I took my dad for granted.  I accepted his unconditional love for me, and for my mother and brother, as a birthright, an expected part of being his daughter.  I thought all fathers were like him, and everyone had what I had in the man they called dad.  I didn’t realize my great fortune in having the father I had.

Vision....

I have been thinking a lot lately about what leads some people to phenomenal success, while others, equally smart and with similar education and experience, languish in obscurity.  I can't prove it, but I think the difference might be at least partly down to vision.

You have to see the possibilities before you can claim the opportunities.  So simple, so obvious, yet so difficult to do in real life.

The voice inside your head....

I don't know about other people, because their life experience is different than mine, but I know that tough times have led to two relationships unlike any other in my life, one with my mother, and the other with my daughter.  (I have a pretty unique relationship with my son, too, but it's different, and anyway, this isn't about him!)

I lost my father at age 12, and ironically, my daughter was 12 when her dad and I separated.  Although each situation was different, it was also surprisingly the same.  Thoughts, feelings, emotions - they were often mirror images at the same age.  I have had the unique opportunity to experience both sides of that coin, and it has allowed me insight to both women that I would otherwise not have had.  As hard as it has been at times, it is a privilege to be in my life, sandwiched by these two strong and independent women.

My dad...

I have been thinking about my dad a lot over the last few days.  I don't usually spend a lot of time dwelling on it, but sometimes I wish he was here to talk to.  Fathers bring unique perspective and passion to the business of living, and sometimes I wish I could tap his wisdom and feel his hug one more time.  This has been one of those weeks.

Pot luck, Lutheran style

There are very few things we can be certain of in life.  But here are three things I know for sure.

• Death will come to all of us at some point.
• Taxes are odious and will always be too high, no matter how much we have to pay.
• You will never starve at a Lutheran pot luck.

I try to avoid death as best I can (there are several doctors putting their kids through St. Olaf on what I have spent to elude it,) and taxes are currently a sore subject around here (it is mid-March and the pressure is mounting.)  So I guess that leaves pot lucks, which is one of my favorite topics.

Lazy Saturdays....

Today I have the blessing of a lazy Saturday.  It is rare in my life, a day with nothing on the calendar, and I am enjoying it to the fullest.  My robe and slippers are getting a full work out this morning as I idly sit on the sofa doing nothing important, which is, in many ways, the most important thing I've done all week.

Just...

According to Merriam-Webster, the adjective "just" means:

1. Having a basis in or conforming to fact or reason;
2. Faithful to an original;
3. Acting or being in conformity with what is morally upright or good;
4. Being what is merited;
5. Legally correct.

I have been thinking about this word for the last few days, and how we have distorted the meaning in colloquial English to indicate almost the opposite. "I am just an at home wife and mother." "I am just an office manager."  "It is just a dog."  "He is just a child."  "They are just a fill in the blank."   Dismissive.  Oppressive.  Demeaning.  Hardly fits the original meaning of the word.

Father's Day....

On this day each year, I think of my father.  He was a wonderful father, and although we had too few years, he packed a lot of living into the time we had together.  My memories of him are both big and small, but it is small things I am remembering today, the 43rd anniversary of the day he died.

A million tiny pieces....

Have you ever opened a jigsaw puzzle and dumped the pieces out onto the table in a heap?  There is no pattern, no rhyme or reason to them.  You can't make out what anything is, much less the bigger picture, because there is just too much confusion.  Pieces are every which way - upside down, right side up, falling on the floor, scattered in a wide circle.  You have to bring out a light, start looking for the framework, sort things into piles, and bring some order to the disorder before you can really do the work of putting the puzzle back together.

It's a dog's life....

If you have ever wondered what life is like with a Jack Russell Terrier, well... it goes something like this.

My husband is out of town, and he calls in the evening.

Peace...

We live in a fast paced world, where we are inundated with information 24/7.  There is no off button any more, it seems, as we receive updates on social media and news on our smart phones without even asking for it.  There are syndromes in which people believe they are receiving vibrations from their phone when it isn't ringing (gives a whole new meaning to Good Vibrations, but I don't think that is what the Beach Boys were going on about,) and carpal tunnel from texting too much.  It is all too much.