Little Moments Are What Matter Most

Dear Friend,

Life is full of difficult challenges, painful adjustments and thrilling surprises. But most of life is those moments in between.

It is so easy to lose ourselves in focus on the emotionally powerful parts of our lives – those issues that make the greatest impression on us. But life is really all the little moments that happen everyday. While we obsess over our job prospects or worry about that child or relationship or prepare for that big event, life is passing us by.

The greatest philosophers have always known that life is what happens while we are planning other things. But most of us forget that truism in the ding of everyday existence.

Knowing that the most important part of your life is the very part that you are living at this moment, not some event past or yet to come, is a powerful realization that can relieve your mind of so much angst. Our emotions are primitive things that evolved long before our modern, rational mind. While our mind lives in time – the past and the future – our emotions can comprehend only this moment. When we sulk about the past, our emotions think something bad is happening now, and so we feel bad. When we expect some future event, again our emotions can only comprehend that it is occurring now, and begin to react as if it’s all here, now.

This is why worry is so damaging, and a positive attitude so powerfully energizing.

If you feel sad, stop and look around you. No matter what else is happening in your life, if the world around you is safe and comfortable, and the people around you are pleasant, then focus on those truths, and the sadness will dissipate. In fact, most of our lives are pretty good – not ecstatic nor tragic – just simply peaceful. When we focus on the moments, we find that our lives are generally pretty good, and our emotional state is much more livable.

Take charge of your emotions. When times are bad, live in the moment. When things are looking up, by all means live in the glory of what is to come. Just remember, a lot of the time you spend moping around is time you are wasting – time you could be enjoying all that every moment has to offer.

So here’s to feeling great every day!

All the best,

Hugh

Dear Friend,

Be Emotionally Authentic With Your Kids

To be a great parent, is it better to try to always be on your best behavior around your kids, or to just be you, even if that means all of your flaws, hypocrisies and bad judgments are right out there in your children’s faces?

It’s easy to talk about this, but when we are around our kids, we are under a lot of peer pressure to behave a certain way. If friends or extended family are around, we feel like we are being judged as parents. And our parental behavior is likely at its most idealized in these moments.

Which approach to parenting do you think is best?

Should we strive to be the ideal parent we want to be? Or should we strive to live the best life we can? Is parenting a separate job from just living?  Besides protection and acknowledging the need of children to be noticed, acknowledged and loved, is the teaching part of parenting a separate process that you must perform as a parent? Or should we just live our lives as we wish and let our children watch us, while keeping them up to snuff about what it is they are watching?

I think that most adults strive to protect their kids from the courser edges of the real world. I certainly do. We want to protect their childhood innocence as long as we can. Perhaps every human being deserves a period of innocence in their life? But does that act of protection mean that we change our own behavior, or at least the behavior we expose our children to, to “protect” our kids from our own coarser edges?

I don’t think this is a cut-and-dried answer either way you go.  But I do think that so many of us are embarrassed by aspects of ourselves – our shadow selves – that we hide them from everyone, including ourselves. Yet kids cannot learn to be at peace with themselves if they don’t see their parents struggling with the same issue.

You don’t have to be fully self-actualized to raise a wise and balanced child. You just need to be honest with yourself and your kids about where you are in your own struggle for internal peace and your own search for happiness.  Let them see you in all your ugly glory when you cry, you laugh, you yell and you are at peace. Let them know that this is all a part of being human.

All the best,

Hugh

Are You a Stick-In-The-Mud?

Dear Friend,

Are you a ‘ Spontaneous Parent ‘?

Sometimes I’m a stick-in-the-mud.

The opportunity to do something exciting and new comes along, I have the money and time to do it, but I hesitate.  I’m waiting for something.  A sign from God, maybe?  I don’t know.  I want to be a spontaneous parent, but I don’t always feel spontaneous.  Does that make any sense?

Do you ever find yourself saying No to something that the little voice inside you says, “What?!? Are you nuts!?! Say Yes! Yes! Yes!”  But you ignore the voice and do the proper thing instead.  You know. You put your head down and work more.  You clean out the garage. Or at least you plan to.  Whatever.

I think there is a voice inside of us, a stern father-figure, perhaps, that disapproves of spontaneous fun.  It’s a guilty voice, I think.

It’s like when your serially irresponsible buddy says, “Hey, let’s hit Vegas for the weekend!” and you instantly say, without thinking, “No. Wish I could, but I’ve got grass to cut,” or something like that, even though you know that you really could go, that you probably need to go, to get away for a while and have some fun. And your significant other really wouldn’t mind, and might even enjoy a break from you brooding around the house this weekend.

Yet you said No.  Why?

My ‘serially irresponsible’ buddy is my oldest son.  And, in fact, he is no such thing, he just sounds like it when he says, “Hey Dad, I got a great idea!  Let’s fly to Europe and just bum around for a month or so!  We could stay in B&Bs and keep costs to a minimum.  Just you and me, discovering Europe together. What do you say?” (He really does talk like that, BTW).

My son is being spontaneous, just like I taught him.  And now I’m getting a taste of my own medicine.

Could we do this?  Yes.  I can work from anywhere.  Would it be a good idea?  You bet.  I have always wanted to spend time in Europe, discover new things and get the lay of the land.  It’s one part of the world that I am ashamed to say I have never visited.  And the opportunity to spend extended quality time with my oldest – the first such opportunity since our trip to Costa Rica nearly five years ago – is priceless.

And yes, I did just return from a trip with my younger son to Panama (fantastic experience for both of us, by the way).  But spontaneous parent opportunities present themselves when they want to, not necessarily when I am most prepared for them.  Business has picked up lately, so we could probably swing another trip if we keep it simple.

Maybe he just wants quality time with Dad like his brother just got.  Maybe I should put him off until next year, say, when the ‘travel fund’ will be more refreshed.  Or, perhaps, I should just shut up and go?

What do you think?

What would you do if your kid hit you with the same suggestion, out of the blue?  Would you think about it seriously, or just blow it off as the kind of things kids are always saying ’cause they don’t have to pay the bills. I mean, who’s going to feed the cat?  What about the bills?  Don’t you have a meeting planned sometime in there? Haven’t you promised somebody you’ll do something that would make such a trip impossible?

Probably.

Sitting here, reading about this, now, it’s easy to say, ‘Of course we’ll go.  My child is more important than these others things.’  But how often do we say that in everyday life?  How often have your kids made a similar suggestion, and the sheer extreme-ness of its sound, in contrast to the everyday thing you were just thinking about, made you reject it, and them, out of hand?

How often do all of us miss opportunities because we are trained to work instead of to live?  Ten years from now, will you even remember the garage cleaning you finally accomplished instead of spontaneously doing something with your kids?  Is it more honorable to break your word to a friend to get that project done on-time, or to fail to be the best possible dad or mom that you can be?

Sometimes we can keep our word to everyone.  But often we cannot.  Our time is our most precious resource.  And our quality time with our kids is the most important thing we can give them.

Our lives are usually full of commitments and schedules that keep us on time, but may also prevent us from doing what matters most.  Schedules and personal commitments are important.  But they probably don’t outweigh your child’s importance in your life.

Do yourself a favor.  Pick up the phone, cancel one of those commitments, and spontaneously do something with your kid today.  I promise you won’t regret it.  I know I don’t.

All the best,

Hugh

P.S. I’d love to hear about your spontaneous activities with your kids.  And it doesn’t have to be bumming around Europe, either.  Just a trip to the ice cream store is enough to create a special moment with that special little one.  And big ones, too!  So leave a comment or send me a note!  Thanks! 🙂

Dear Friend,

It’s time for another kids travel with daddy trip.

I have four kids.  Some years back I started a tradition with my first.  Each child gets to go on a big, exotic trip with their dad.  The child chooses the destination and activities.  And they get between one to two weeks of totally focused quality time with their dad.  No distractions.  No doing work while we are supposed to be having fun.  It’s all about them – and us.

I took my oldest to Costa Rica at age seven.  Today, he’s going on thirteen and he still hasn’t stopped talking about that trip. I think it created a bond between us that has never been broken.

My oldest daughter wanted a much more feminine experience.  She chose Disney in Florida.  So we went there and she had a Disney Princess makeover.  Plus we visited the park, water parks, and topped it all off with a quick cruise to the Bahamas and back.  She’s over her princess stage, but I know that she’ll never forget that experience either.

Now it is my younger son’s turn.

He’s actually eight, soon to be nine.  I had delayed his trip because times are financially tight.  I thought that we could just wait a bit until cash flow improved.  But I realized that if I chose to wait any longer, I’d find myself watching him graduate from college, and that once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to bond with and truly discover my son would be lost.

He asked to go to Panama.  I have no idea why he chose Panama.  Maybe he picked it off of a map.  I’m not sure he knows why.  Anyway, I considered a couple of options, and settled on a cruise to Panama and back.  The ship is only two years old, so this ought to be a great experience.  We will also stop in Mexico, some Caribbean islands, and in Costa Rica and Colombia, South America.

Of course he is very excited to go.  So am I!  What I find amazing about these kids travel trips, though, is that what the kids really seem most excited about is all the special “daddy time” they will get.  Focused attention.  No competition from the other kids or from daddy’s many distractions.  That seems to be what matters most to them.

I’m flattered.  But I also understand that this is about them being seen.  For once in a big family, they get to be the “only child.”

I spoil them on these kids travel trips.  Not with things, but with experiences.  And they understand that the experience is temporary, so we have to make the most of it while we can.

We’ll be casting off in about a week.  I’ll make sure I check in sometime and let you know how things went.

How about you?  I know that a trip like I am describing can be very expensive.  But as I said, for your child, this is really about focused, special time with you.  Do you take the time, even rarely, to make a big deal out of each of your kids – separately?  This is what I believe they really love.  And it creates a bond that never goes away.

Give it a try.  Better yet, do what we did and make a tradition out of it.  That way, you can’t wiggle out of it when it doesn’t seem convenient to take a break from your regular life.  It works for me! 🙂

I’d love to hear about any “special times” that you have created with your individual children!  Leave a comment here or drop me a line!

All the best,

Hugh

Dear Friend,

I’m too fat.

I came to terms with this fact recently when my wife mentioned a diet plan that she heard about at a local social gathering.  It’s called Medifast.  Maybe you’ve heard of it?

Of course I knew about my rotund tendencies. They’ve plagued me my entire life. So when I heard her utter the words, “Maybe we should try this out,” I agreed immediately. I didn’t really care about the plan. In the beginning of a new direction, any old thing will do. The key is to decide to do it and act immediately. Don’t look back.

So that’s what I did. And about $250 and a week later we had two big cardboard boxes full of dehydrated cardboard food looking us in the face.

For the last month my wife and I muddled through this “diet” process.  Some of the stuff from Medifast is OK.  I like the vanilla and chocolate shakes.  And the dehydrated soup is barely tolerable.  Most of the rest is not fit for human consumption IMHO.

What I get from their materials and what I read online is that the key to success in most of today’s diets involves eliminating carbohydrates from your diet, while eating smaller portions of proteins and healthy fats more often (about every two hours).

I find that eating more often during the day helps me to stem my voracious appetite, and the lack of carbs encourages my body to burn fat.

It does work.  So far I’ve lost about twenty pounds.  I don’t really look it but I need to lose more. I’m lucky in that my body type carries weight well.  I just don’t like how I feel when I’m carrying too much.

Other things I’ve done lately to improve my health include taking supplements and doing a bit of “pseudo-exercise.”

As far as supplements go, I take a lead from author Ray Kurzweil, who says that we can all slow down the aging process if we just protect our body from free oxygen radicals by eating right and taking anti-oxidant supplements.  I take acai, resveritrol, and grape seed extract supplements.  My doctor also highly recommends fish oil supplements, and I like to include salmon in my family’s diet maybe once a week (they like my recipe).  Plus I take a daily multivitamin, and a bit of extra vitamin D to make up for my inside lifestyle and my reduction in milk consumption with this diet.

Then there is the pseudo-exercise I spoke of.  God forbid I just get off my ass and do some crunches, right?  So I bought this thing off the TV called the Contour ABS Belt.  It’s a belt that you wear that has electrode pads that stick to your stomach while you wear it around your waist, and there is an electronic controller attached with which you can set the program intensity.  What this thing does is send electronic pulses to your stomach muscles, rhythmically pulsing them tight, then loose, so that they get exercised without you doing anything.  I use it for 45 minutes a day while watching TV or surfing the Web.

If you use this belt right you definitely feel the buzzing pulses, and the muscle contractions.

I like it.  And I know that the exercises are done right, while I’m not always sure that I’m doing crunches right.  I can also get a pad for my lower back as an add-on to exercise those muscles, too.

A competing brand of belt has an accessory specifically designed to tighten and firm a woman’s butt.  I wouldn’t mind tightening my own butt, honestly, but all the literature specifically says it’s for women.  Do you think the gadget knows the difference? 🙂  [Note: you need to buy the electronic controller along with this accessory for it to work.]

Two other exercise gadgets I have collected are the Shake Weight and the Perfect Pushup.

The Shake Weight is kinda cool, actually.  It looks like a regular dumbbell, but it has a spring mechanism inside so that you can shake it while you hold it, which is supposed to provide much more muscle work.  In truth, I haven’t used it seriously.

The Perfect Pushup makes sense in theory.  It consists of two circular rotating handles that you can grasp while you do a push-up.  These allow you to twist your wrists, arms and shoulders in a more natural way, making the push-up a more natural motion.  In my experience, these things just get in the way.  My kids love to use them to give pretend electrical shocks to each other’s chest, as they do look a lot like those paddles used by medics.

When we are on the road, I don’t get much exercise.  All of the gadget’s I have picked up are very portable and don’t weigh much, so they fit in even the smallest living quarters.

Anyway, if you are like me and most North Americans I’ve seen, you might want to do what I did when my wife suggested that we try a little weight loss.  Don’t think.  Just act.

You already know you need to do something.  So do something!  Anything!

No program is perfect. But most of them seem to work.  So just start one.  You’ll feel a lot better that you did.

Good health to you always!

Hugh 🙂

Sometimes You Just Can't Back Down ...

Following Your Unique Life Path

Dear Friend,

I had a really weird dream last night.  I dreamed that I was in a parking lot with a woman.

I don’t know who she was and I couldn’t see her face.  But she was clearly quite pregnant.  She said that she was about to have her baby and she needed my help.  I was no medical doctor and I was concerned, but I placed my hands on the top of her belly and firmly pushed down.  I felt the contents of her belly flow smoothly down and immediately a baby landed on the pavement.

At first I was afraid that the baby might be hurt, but it looked fine, it did not cry, and it was rather large and long.

When I awoke and remembered this dream, I also vaguely remembered another dream I had the previous night.  It also involved a birth, though I don’t remember the details.  What I do remember is that the baby was born alive and apparently healthy, but it didn’t cry.  I remember being concerned that it needed to cry to exercise its lungs.

So, why am I telling you this?

Well, dreams can be a very important insight into what’s really going on in your head.  They are your unconscious mind’s way of working out issues and suggesting solutions.  They can also be a way that your mind lets you know that it has accomplished something.

What did my dreams mean?  I can’t be certain, but I have an idea.

First, they had nothing to do with real births or real babies.  As a guy, babies don’t have the same meaning for me as they might for a woman.

I think that these babies symbolized the birth of something new inside of me.  The resolution of an internal conflict.  The beginning of a new approach to life.

As I walked around the grocery store with my young son today, three words came into my mind.  “I Am Here.”  Doesn’t really sound very profound, does it.  Of course I was “here.”  In the grocery store.  So what?

But the words felt different.

Rather than a statement of fact, the words “I am here” felt like a claim of personal space – words of defiance and pronouncement.

I am here, and there is nothing anyone can do about it.  Others can try to influence, or even coerce me.  They might even kill this body.  But I don’t believe that others can have any meaningful impact on the true essence that is me.

Scientists say that the only constant in the Universe is change.  But I think there is one thing that is absolute and forever unchanged.  And that is the essence that is you.  Perhaps it is the part of you that is closest to God.  Whatever it is, it is here, now, and it has as much right to be, to live, to celebrate, and to lay claims, as any other essence.

Maybe, for the first time in my life, I internalized the message that avoiding conflict and discomfort are not a valid life strategy.  Focusing on not upsetting others is not any kind of life worth living.  Focusing on serving others out of fear and not generosity is the death of anything inside of you that is worth being.

Of course, all of this is as true for you as it is me.  And we all hear it.  But isn’t it unfortunate how long it can take our emotions to accept it?

The first step to success, to personal happiness, to being an awesome parent and partner, is laying claim to your own life.  This means letting go of fear.  Fear of death.  Fear of displeasing others.  Fear of failure.  And doubt of your worth.

All people start being worth about the same.  We are all born naked.  What truly defines our worth, and our greatest “success,” is what we do after that moment.  I honor the impoverished who manage to pull themselves up and make a better life far more than I honor a wealthy and powerful person who does little more than manage not to screw up what they inherited.  That is, it is what we do with what we are born with that most accurately paints our life portrait.

I have written here before about the fact that I spent most of my youth avoiding conflict.  I was a “passivist.”  And this wish to keep the peace has been with me for a long time.  Unfortunately, it has also prevented me from pursuing what matters most when the road might seem to lead to conflict.

I now believe that the measure of a person is their willingness to claim their place in the world.

And this place is not static.  It includes the path that you must follow to fulfill your destiny.  If something, or someone, is standing in that roadway, there is usually a peaceful way around the blockage.  But if there is not, then God help them.

To deny another their place in our world is akin to denying their right to exist.

And, occasionally, two objects try to occupy the same space at the same time.  Each minding their own business or, perhaps, intentionally barreling toward each other.  Either way, the outcome is the same.  And that is how it must be.

When I am walking down the road, and another approaches me, I enjoy stepping aside to let them by.  I enjoy honoring others and their unique journeys.  This action on my part in no way inhibits my progress in any significant way.  And the act of honoring others is in effect the act of honoring us all.  And it is easy to do.

It is actually hard to really get in another’s way if they have any creativity or flexibility in their character.  There are so many ways to achieve that we can all live together in harmony without much of the conflict we see every day.

We merely need to honor the beauty that is the unique life path that each of us follows.

I like to think that we are all the same person, just celebrating a different aspect of the universal personality that is God, and at a different place in our single journey.  That when I look at another person I am actually seeing me, but living a different life at another point in my continuing existence.  That makes it easier to understand why honoring others is so important.  In doing so I am simply honoring myself and my life path.

When others fail to honor your path, you must not defer to their actions if it diminishes your life path.

In the end, you must follow your life path.  You must continue your journey.  Because you and your life path are one.  And those who would deny you deserve to fear the consequences.  They are misguided.  And you have no duty to enable their errant ways.  Rather, you have a duty to teach them the correct way to live by your own example.

I wish you a smooth and carefree life path.  But if it is not, never deny who you really are, or the path you know you must follow.  Not for anyone. Or any reason.

And that is all I have to say about that.

All the best to you as always,

Hugh 🙂

P.S.:  What do you think?  Have you ever had dreams that were actually epiphanies?  Or that signaled some significant signpost in your life?  Tell us about it!  I’d love to hear!

Dear Friend,

Do you feel enough joy?

Does your lifestyle maximize your joyful experiences while minimizing those that are less, or even unpleasant?

Is it OK to regularly pursue pleasurable experiences ?  Or should you feel guilty for being excessively selfish? Especially if there were more noble things you could have done at that moment?

Is a life spent in pursuit of pleasure less valuable than some other life path you could choose?

How would Mother Theresa have answered these questions?

Perhaps we need to qualify the term pleasure?

If you show respect for others, and live by the Golden Rule, then pursuing pleasure is as natural as breathing.

I define pleasure as the opposite of suffering.  Some say that suffering is the normal condition of humanity.  And the pursuit of pleasure is his primary activity.  Some define pleasure simply as the absence of suffering.

And what is joy?  Is it the same as pleasure?

I think that most of us can feel pleasure as a momentary experience, often a distraction from our more mundane, typical condition.  Scientists say that pleasure is nothing more than a quick release of chemicals in our brains that causes momentary euphoria, then subsides (which would explain the temporary nature of pleasure).

Can joyfulness also be explained away in scientific terms? Perhaps.

But isn’t joy the central goal of just about every human on Earth?  Setting aside every human endeavor, every thought and action, every dream and plan, and even every relationship, isn’t the pursuit of a joyful life the point of them all?

Another way of putting it is thus: If you were full of joy, without the need to do anything else, would you still do all the stuff that you do everyday?  Would any of us?

And if a joyful life really is what everyone wants, why don’t we pursue it more directly?

Why is it so rare for anyone to speak of joy itself as the target of our efforts, the end purpose of everything?  Why is the word almost exclusively relegated to religious language, used by so few in day-to-day speech?  Could it be because joy is so rare?  Could it be that we simply don’t want to be reminded of a light so bright that we nevertheless cannot see?

Perhaps joy is so rare because so few of us directly pursue it?

If the central purpose of your life was joy, what would you do?  How would you transform your life as it is now to meet your goal?  How would you interrelate to others?  How would this impact the decisions you make everyday?

Is your life focused on joy?  If not, why not?  If joy is what you really want, why would you put off pursuit of it?

Perhaps you doubt that joy exists?  Maybe you imagine joy as a fantasy, and it’s pursuit as tilting at windmills? Perhaps?  But isn’t a concept so potentially powerful and game changing worth a little investigation?  Isn’t the possibility worth just a bit of your time?

Think about it.  And please let me know what you think.

I believe what today’s world needs, more than ever, is more lives bathed in joy.

How about you?  I look forward to your comments.

All the best,

Hugh 🙂

Dear Friend,

You’ll never find happiness if you always play it safe.

Take it from a guy who learned this the hard way.

When things aren’t going so well, and pleasurable moments are few, the last thing you want to do is to take on more misery.

If taking new risks in your life could jeopardize any happiness that you already have, you might choose to just do nothing, to wait for the clouds to pass over and the stress level to lighten before you try something new.

Perhaps you take small pleasures in eating, but you know you need to diet?  If the rest of your life is particularly stressful at the moment, the last thing you want to do is give up one of your few sources of happiness.

Yet, it may just be that the pattern of your life itself is what is causing your misery.  Perhaps you have grown too comfortable in your safe harbor, and your higher self needs to take a chance.

Could it be that a major source of your discomfort is the fact that you are bored out of your mind of this “safety”?  And yet, isn’t a safe harbor the perfect place from which to start new voyages?

Perhaps you are exactly where you need to be at this moment? And it is time to test out your new wings and fly.

Will you crash?  Absolutely.  Will the world be appalled at your failures?  Probably not.  And you will survive.  My friend, it is time for you to fail your way to a great new life.  And someday, you will wake to discover that failure has built you a very successful life after all.  A life bursting with the happiness that you crave.

We all have a fantastic new life just waiting for us beyond the thin veil of decision.  All it took me was a simple epiphany.  I realized that it wasn’t my current lifestyle that was holding me back – it was me.  My fear of trying something new was what was making me miserable.

Here’s a little tip – when you decide to set off in a new direction for your life, your first failures don’t add to your discomfort.  The simple fact that you have begun your journey to a new way of living makes all of your first goofs actually fun!  It’s counter-intuitive, I know, but it is true.  Happiness derives from the journey, not the accomplishment.

If you are not satisfied with the life you now lead, the simple act of deciding to make a change, and then taking real action in a new direction – any direction – will bring pleasure and a sense of accomplishment to your life.

Momentum is the greatest tool to reaching our highest destination.  Stiction is what engineers call the force that resists change – that keeps us from getting started in a new direction.  Once stiction is overcome, the job of change gets fairly easy – momentum is now on our side.  So, the greatest challenge that faces us all when we set out to make a change in our life is not achievement of our new lifestyle – it is overcoming the stiction that has held us in place for so long.

The enemy of stiction is decisive action.  It’s not so much what you do, but the fact that you do it at all that matters.

I have known all of this for some time.  I’m sure that you have read it many times, too.  The funny thing is, our heads are quite hard.  They can acknowledge the common sense of a fact and yet it still doesn’t really get through to the part of our brain that makes the big decisions.  We hear it.  We comprehend it.  And we do nothing.

Do yourself a favor if you can.  Spend a weekend alone.  No TV.  No email.  No distractions of any kind.  Sometimes our minds need this safe time to process all that we have learned.  It works for me.  I am often surprised at the ways I process my own words.

So give your mind a chance to comprehend all that you already know, but haven’t absorbed.  Perhaps this will be the weekend that you turn the power of momentum from your enemy to your friend, and you begin to take your life in the direction you really want.

Happiness to you and yours in this new year!

Hugh 🙂

P.S.:  I really want to hear about your breakthroughs! And your “failures”!  🙂  Leave a comment on this article, or drop me an email. We are all in this journey together.  You never know how your thoughts, ideas and experiences might help someone else.

Family Travel Plans This Holiday Season?

Dear Friend,

The Holidays

I hope you have some great holiday plans this year!

We are spending the holidays with extended family   Afterward we may head back out in January, though, as you know by now, I refuse to make solid family travel plans unless absolutely necessary.

Holiday Warrior Upgrades

The Warrior is trying to morph into an ice cube, but I keep fighting back.  We have installed a 50 amp electric plug at our house so we can pull shore power. We also just had installed a septic drain connected to our septic system so that we can use our water while we are here (when it’s not frozen).  I have been working on a tie-in to our propane tank here at the house so that I can pull from that while we are stopped here, but that upgrade is still in the works.

Other Warrior upgrades in progress include replacing the headlights with brighter ones (the stock headlights on the Chevy Kodiak chassis are a joke). That ought to make a big difference when driving on lonely desert roads at night!

What Are Your Holiday Plans?

I am curious to know how you are spending the holiday season.

At home with family and friends?  On an adventurous family travel journey to distant lands?  Or something in between? How is the economy affecting your plans?

Let me know by replying to this post, or send me a note at hugh@hughdeburgh.com.

Happy Holidays!

Hugh  🙂

P.S.:  Just a note about postings here at TPW.  Sometimes there are long breaks between my posts.  There is usually one of two possible reasons for this:

1. I’m spending time with my family, and they always take priority for me, or

2. I don’t have anything to say that I think is worth your time and attention.

I value your time in the same way I value my own.  I’m not going to bother you by writing stuff just to hear myself talk.  And I want to make sure that you know that when you receive a message from me, it’s something that I think is important, and that you may find interesting and useful as well.  🙂