Tag: Florida

Food For Families

Central Florida volunteers gather at a local High School every Thanksgiving Day morning to pick up and deliver boxes of food to needy Families.

Tomorrow will be our tenth year of this Thanksgiving Day family tradition.

A decade ago, and even before Cheryl was pregnant, I suggested to her that we find a way to show our children that we are here to serve and not to be served.

This is a simple, and seemingly insignificant act of kindness influences our thinking, and our actions, all year long.

A Publix Grocery Store Produce manager started Food For Families many years ago.  With help from Central Florida Churches, Schools, and community members, needy Families are identified.

The Central Florida Community also delivers Food for Families on Christmas morning and Easter morning, providing us opportunities to put others first on three special days where we traditionally didn’t.

Thanksgiving Tradition Cancelled?

“Dad, would you cancel Thanksgiving?”, my son responded brilliantly to my serious-sounding question.

I had just antagonistically asked him, “We don’t need to go to Twistee Treat today.  I mean, we can skip one Monday.  It’s no big deal, right?  What’s one Monday?”

Five years ago, I spontaneously suggested to our son, as we were leaving his school, that we stop by Twistee Treat on the way home. “Let’s get some ice cream and celebrate a great week and kick off a great weekend ahead.”

What child turns down ice cream, right?  The very next Friday, as we where leaving his school, he asked, “Are we getting ice cream?”  We all know how this turned out.

Every Friday, for more than a year, was Twistee Treat day.

Until one casual Monday, when I said, “Why don’t we go to Twistee Treat and celebrate the great weekend we just had and kick off the week ahead?”

So here we are, five years later. Do you think he’ll have trouble recalling ice cream with his Dad?  I mean, for as long as he lives?

Midlife Weekend Warrior

Saturday.  Finally.  “Thought it would never get here”, people exclaim. Can you relate?

We see it over and over and over, don’t we:

  • “Can’t wait for the weekend”.
  • “Thought the weekend would never get here”.
  • “The week is finally over”.
  • “The week was hell”.

If we are truly thankful for our midlife situation, wouldn’t it sound more like this?:

  • “Can’t wait to get started again on Monday”.
  • “The week flew by”.
  • “Wish I had one more day before Saturday”.
  • “That was the best week of my life”.

All I’m trying to say is thankfulness places a whole new perspective on how we see the world and our place in it. But you already know that, right?

Going Through the Motions?

It’s really easy, isn’t it?  Why?  Because that’s what we do.  It’s safe. It’s predictable.

However, I just can’t accept the status quo.  Can you?  Do you? There has to be more.  Intuitively, there has to be more.  Doesn’t there?

So if there is more, how do we strive to get it?  Why do we strive to get it? Should we strive to get it?

Whatever it takes to give ourselves Peace and Contentment. Ralph Waldo Emerson said it best, I think:

“We aim above the mark to hit the mark”.

Mid Life Learning

Mid Life learning:

“We learn as much from sorrow as from joy, as much from illness as from health, from handicap as from avantage – and indeed perhaps more”. — Pearl S. Buck

Maybe.  Maybe not.  What do you think?  Many mid life adults are too busy to even contemplate this kind of thinking.  I know full well the medicinal affects of a busy schedule. It can be used as a shield to protect us from painful truths.

“In youth we learn; in age we understand”. — Marie von Ebner Eschenbach

Mid Life learning?  Maybe.  Maybe not.