Hair Loss – Take Away the Distractions

Well, as you know, this is the year of doing more of what I love to do.  This weekend was another perfect example.  We had nothing planned this weekend, since we have been on the go so much since Thanksgiving, that the time has just flown by.

Friday night we went over to Tanya’s parents house for wine and snacks after what seemed like a crazy week.  Going to my in-laws place is a good thing for those of you who don’t like yours.  Not my experience at all.  Saturday got up late, watched to birds at the bird feeders and drank coffee.  The day started looking like it was going to be a really nice, sunny day so we planned an afternoon road trip.  It was the first convertible road trip of the year.

With the top down we headed up the gorge to see where we would end up.  We cruised to Stevenson to watch the kite boarders and wind surfers, but it must have still been too cold for them, not one there.  Then we headed to Hood River to see what we could see.  It had been a while since we had stopped there.  First thing we saw was that the Naked Winery had put a tasting room in, and actually several wineries had joined them within one block of each other, wow.

We tasted a flight there and started talking to a cool couple from Boise next to us.  As we left we wished them a wonderful weekend and headed to the Quenett Vineyard’s tasting room  across the street.  They have just incredible wines, by the way.   While there, we started talking to a couple that had met in Thailand while in the Peace Corp and the Boise couple from the first winery showed up about 15 minutes later. While the Peace Corp couple headed out.

Off to the third tasting room, The Pines.  As we walked in the Peace Corp couple are sitting there listening to a group of musicians playing guitars and ukuleles as one by one more ukulele players walked in with their little stringed instruments.  Well, the Peace Corp couple headed off to a romantic dinner, it had been 3 months since they had seen each other, and we headed to Big Horse Brew Pub, the best menued brew pub, just up the hill with the Boise couple.

We could see The Pines fill up with uke players from our dinner table and got to know Boise a bit better.  As we were eating we watched more and more people with ukes fill the tasting room.  SO, of course we had to go back to see what the heck was going on.  It ended up that we were privileged to be witnessing the First Gorge Ukulele Festival.  If you have ever seen the movie A Mighty Wind you will have a clue what we were a witness to.  Very surreal, wow very surreal, but looked like a blast.  Then we headed home.

An adventurous, unplanned, go where the wind takes us kind of day.  What a blast!  We just kept chuckling about the really unusual chain of events that were the day.  What a great story.

Sunday we rolled out of bed late, drank more rich coffee and then headed to 23rd street to stroll through the shops, in the sun, and people watch.  We ended up eating linner (lunch/dinner)  at Typhoon, our favorite Thai restaurant and watching the other people like us, excited about a sunny, Sunday afternoon enjoying their day too.

Even though it may sound like we crammed a lot of things into this weekend, they were all things that we love to do.  Some people may see hair loss as a bad thing, but if you shave away the distractions you can open up your calendar for the important memory building experiences that  create a life worth living.

Dalia Lama on Helping

If you can, help others; if you cannot do that, at least do not harm them.  Dalia Lama

I  don’t think you could get any balder than that, could you?  It has been really interesting to me as I write these posts  looking at life through the “Clean and Simple!” lens that everything is action.  Even what we view as not an action or inaction.

Everything that we do is preceded by a thought,  followed a choice to act or to not act.  So Dalia, help me out here.  With your life being dedicated to helping others to find peace, heal or be closer to God your advise is that if we can’t dig deep enough to help someone else out, that at least we can dig deep enough to not harm them.  WOW, that is Clean and Simple! enough.  Ok, that just makes sense to me.  Does that make sense to you?

So then, I say that, to say this.  In the whirlwind of daily life, we get frustrated and tired.  Some days you can even feel the dirt and leaves smacking you in the face as the day whips around you.  It has been like this for what feels like forever and you my not see ever getting our of the storm.  Keep on plugging on doing it again and again without taking a break to see  how you could lather up some things in the schedule and shave them out of your life.

I don’t have time to take a break to take that look, I’m just too busy. So then, you just keep in keepin’ on and beat yourself up that you’re not good enough, or smart enough to cram more things you may not enjoy doing in the first place into your schedule.

NOW as Dalia says,  “If you can, help others; if you cannot do that, at least do not harm them.”  NOW I say,  “If you can, help yourself; if you cannot do that, at least do not harm yourself.”  What do you think about that?

Jordon on Consequences

I never looked at the consequences of missing a big shot… when you think about the consequences you always think of a negative result. Michael Jordan

Michael, YOU ROCK!!!  It’s amazing how right you are.  Consequences are always something that will “pay for”, not earn and benefit from.  WOW!

This is one of those, the “way you think about things’, thing.  Hmmmm.   If I do things that result in negative consequences I can just stop doing those things and start doing things that result in positive consequences and PRESTO!  Clean and Simple!  That is slam dunk mentality.  Check these dunks out.  Here is a positive result for focused hard work and taking a chance.

I would love to hear a negative result you are getting now and what positive consequence you would like to have.

Do all things with love

Do all things with love.   Og Mandino

This is so true.  It makes daily life so much simpler and fun.