Time to clean the pool

Dear Devon,

I want to thank you.  Thank you for being a wonderful person and listening.  Not just listening but taking the things I say and putting them into practice.

When we were walking to the movie the other day you said “Today is a good day to clean the pool,”  that told me that you listened to what I said and understood that it meant you can change your mind by changing your thoughts.  Words are tools that can be used to change your mind and other people’s minds.  More important than words is the ability to listen.

Listening with you eyes and your ears will give you to tools to influence people.  I am quiet because I choose to listen more than talk.  You have a gift that you can talk and listen at the same time.  The most important of these is the listening but the talking lets you really engage people and build trust quickly.

You are wise.  You always have been.  Part of that wisdom is putting into practice which I see you do all the time.

Dad.

"Our life is frittered away by detail. An honest man has hardly need to count more than his ten fingers, or in extreme cases he may add his ten toes, and lump the rest. Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity!" he writes. "[L]et your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand; instead of a million count half a dozen, and keep your accounts on your thumb-nail....Simplify, simplify."

Walden, Henry Thoreau

I just want one key...

1980's movie.

Morning Prayer

The morning prayer determines the day.  Squandered time of which we are ashamed, temptations to which we succumb, weaknesses and lack of courage in work, disorganization and lack of discipline in our thoughts and in our conversation.. all have their origin most often in the neglect of morning prayer.  A thought, exercise, listening.

South Pole Santa

I have decided to move to the South Pole. We will hand make toys with Oompa Loompas.

I'm packing a bag

Are we as we muddle through day to day simply packing a bag for a place that we are going?
If we are packing this bag of events and people and interactions simply going to have to have someone else unpack that bag and then they get to figure out what to do with it. 

do we get to take that bag with us?
Then also aren't we somewhat in charge of what we put in that bag.  We choose from the loose random articles that come before us and how we view those things.  We can choose an outfit that fits or one that doesnt' fit us; just as we can take an event that fits or not.

I was watching an older gentleman complain at the library yesterday:  He went to the Gay Library and the clerk told him that they sent the item to the other Main library.  He total went berserk and told her how he lived 5 miles from this library and 8 miles from the other library and the computer system told him it was at this one.  She replied it was at the Gay library but when he put a hold on it that it was sent to his 'main' library on his profile as a convenience.  She could change his 'main' library to the Gay library if he liked.  "I'm not yelling you, I'm yelling at the system"  She calmly said I understand and I can fix it for you but he continued to rant that he didn't want anything but for the system to ask where he wanted his item held before he 'held' it.

what kind of bag are you packing?

Use of societies resources....

Does society really need another jail, most of the people I see are at the particular location (jail or court) because they have the inability because of a chemical, lack of a chemical, mental situation, or just bad choices.....
Sometimes life has left these people without the view that there are options.

Dog straws

I never would have thought I would have to fight over dog semen. Seems my client raised champion coonhounds. These straws were worth thousands of dollars that they kept on the back porch of the single wide. Too bad he didn't think the judge would give him the kid.

2 months after the case became final, his 9 year old daughter was molested by the boyfriend mom moved into the trailer.  But he had his coonhound straws.