Halloween and Candy

 

Halloween is here! Happy Halloween everyone! Last night our family had a small Halloween party and decorated sugar cookies and then posted them on Facebook to be voted on. Our son-in-law won the contest with a nicely decorated ghost with a blue tie. We also had a chili dinner with a family chili cook off competition. My wife won with her Turkey Chili. We all had a great time and made a huge mess with our cookie decorating!

Now, it is Halloween and we have our candy bowl ready to go. We never know how many trick or treaters we will get. Some years we have a lot, some not so much. After our kids had grown up and were out of high school we did a few Halloween nights of turning the lights off and spending that evening at the movie theater. 

Some people go all out for Halloween and fill their yard with decorations and blow up figures. We have a few pumpkins in the yard for a Fall display and a few pumpkins on the porch. We have a few small Halloween decorations inside the house. Do you go all out for Halloween? Or, do you have few decorations or none at all? Do you host a big Halloween party? I think I have only been to two Halloween costume parties. I was a robot at one and Fred Flintstone at the other. 

How about candy for the treaters? This year we have a large bowl of mini chocolates and a bowl of miscellaneous suckers, Smarties, etc. Of course, with the chocolate my favorites will be the last to be given out just in case there are leftovers that I'll need to dispose of in the coming days! I've always heard that there is a house or two that give full size candy bars. I never found that house as a kid! I always found the houses with the old lady who would give you one piece of candy at a time. The worst was getting that cheap peanut butter candy like the picture below!

Fingerprints On The Glass

 

My wife and I keep our three granddaughters through the week. The oldest is three and a half and I'll call her V in this post. Her twin sisters are about ten months old. I probably don't have to say this, but......they keep us busy! I have a study that has a large desk with a glass top and two sets of Ikea bookshelves with glass doors. The study also has a fifteen pane glass door from the front entrance into the study. Our coffee table in our living room has four large glass panes as the top of the table. 

Our oldest granddaughter, V,  likes to sit in a chair at the coffee table to eat her breakfast and her afternoon snack using the glass pane table top as her dining table. By the time she leaves for the day, the glass is covered in crumbs and sticky substances and smudges. Clear evidence that a toddler sat there enjoying her snacks!

I remember when my kids were young and we had fingerprints and smudges on every glass surface they could get their little hands on. My daughter's favorite thing to do was to rub her fingers all over the window glass in the car where she sat high in her car seat. That window always looked a mess. She would draw pictures in any fog condensation on the window or would wet her fingers in her mouth and draw on the window. I don't know how many times I cleaned her car window over a few years time!

Her daughter, V,  is now doing the same thing in our car whenever she gets the chance. Not as bad as her mom, but she still has the same talent. When I'm at my desk checking email, blogging, etc. on my laptop, V likes to come over and ask me to hold her. I grab her up and set her on one knee to spend some time with her. Her latest thing to do at my desk is to draw robots and robot dogs on a pad of paper that I jot my to do list on. While sitting there, she will also have a few TicTacs from a side drawer in the desk. By the time she leaves she has done a number on the glass top. After she leaves for the day, I will glance into the study and see the fingerprints and smudges all over the edge of the glass top on the desk and then I head to the kitchen to get the glass cleaner. 

It dawned on me today that those daily fingerprints and smudges will only be around for a short time as V and her sisters get older. I envision that sometime in the future V will no longer want to sit on Pawpaw's knee or hang out with me like she does today. I know that I need to savor every moment I have with these three angels and enjoy the fingerprints and smudges. Those things are evidence that she was here and that she left her mark. V has left her mark on the bottom edges of the TV as she began to stand up and walk in her earlier years. She has left her mark on the bottom portion of windows as she was learning to pull up and stand up so she could look out the window or pat her little hand on it.

V's twin sisters are now beginning to leave their little prints and smudges as they crawl and pull up to those same windows and sit with me at my desk. I enjoy these times and know they will pass quickly. I figure that my wife and I have a short window of a few years with them in which we are a large part of their world.

These little angels are also leaving their fingerprints on my heart in the form of sweet memories and I hope that my wife, Nana, and I are leaving fingerprints on them that will help form and shape them into awesome people. 

So, I will continue to clean the glass daily or weekly with a smile on my face, knowing that three little angels have passed through this space! The twins just woke up from their nap and they have taken their turns helping me finish this post. Both have left new tiny fingerprints on the edge of my desk top. 

Do you have grandchildren or great grandchildren that leave their mark in your home and on your heart? What are the prime years that grandchildren think their grandparents are awesome? Do you feel that your time spent with them has helped guide and shape their lives?

Cruising Ducks

 

On our last cruise I found a duck with a tag attached to it. My granddaughter had found one on a cruise about a year earlier. That was the first time I knew of such a thing as a "cruising duck". The tag says "Oh what luck, you found a duck! Keep or hide, you decide". The tag also asks you to post a picture to Cruising Ducks Original Facebook page and has the name of the person or family that hid it. I posted a photo of me and my duck from our last cruise and then joined the Facebook group. I never knew that cruising ducks were such a big deal. I was very excited to find this duck and looked for another the rest of the cruise. The Facebook group has postings of the duck collections that people are taking on their next cruise. Some take 20, some take 100 or more. It's crazy! 

Some recent posts show people that have bought 3D printers to print ducks. Some are bedazzling their ducks with small jewels. Some are knitting ducks or making duck jewelry. The cruising duck scene has a life of it's own. The posts that show people who have found ducks are heartwarming. You can see the joy on their face as they display the duck they have found. Some have found one duck after searching for them for many cruises. Some have found numerous ducks on one cruise. It is all great fun!

We have a cruise coming up in a few weeks. I decided we would hide a few ducks to get in on the fun. This will be our first cruise to hide ducks and I'm excited to make someone's day. I've already gotten carried away with buying a wide variety of ducks. I have stopped buying and will take about 45 on our trip. Some are small and came 4 to a package. Some are a little bigger and are different colors. The last 5 I bought were blue and had snowflakes on them. I figured these were perfect for a November cruise.

If I'm successful at hiding them and find a few myself, I can see this turning into a fun thing to do on all future cruises. Has anyone out there found a duck on a cruise? I don't think the trend is very old and just got started the last couple of years. It is a fun thing for all cruisers regardless of age. Have you heard about this "cruising duck" craze? 

Have you heard of or experienced any other similar trend in your travels? I recently saw a news show about Block Island off the coast of Rhode Island where a local glass blower hides glass orbs every year along a walking path. The story showed proud owners of the orbs and talked of people who have hunted for the orbs for years without finding them. Have you heard of any other "treasure" hunts like this that are ongoing? All of this sounds fun and I would love to find one of the glass orbs some day. For local retirees, this would be an awesome walking activity while looking for orbs!

Say A Nice Thing!

Another short post to as a follow up on the last post. Last post I challenged you and me to do something nice and report back in the comment section. This time I challenge you and me to say something nice to someone. Make an effort to go out of you way to look for something to compliment someone about. Compliment someone on their appearance, their lawn, their attitude, etc. and then report back in the comment section.

 

Do A Nice Thing!

 

This is a short post as a reminder to myself to be a better person. This post is also to challenge my readers. I do not go out of my way to look for opportunities to help people like I should. I have times where doing nice things come to mind but I tend not to focus on it all the time. Don't get me wrong, I'm not mean to people, I just fail to take a moment to go out of my way sometimes to be nice to someone.

Yesterday, while at the grocery store, I loaded my few bags of groceries in the back of my car and headed to the cart cage to deposit my empty cart. I looked down my parking aisle and saw an older woman finishing up unloading her cart so I veered over to her and offered to take her cart along with mine. I got a huge smile and a thank you. I don't tell the story to toot my own horn. I tell it in a challenge to my readers and myself to do something nice for someone. Please seek out an opportunity daily and then return here and comment what nice thing you did. I will continue to seek out opportunities and will comment on my progress also. 

Please comment with any nice act you do, whether small or large. Maybe your reported "nice act" will spur someone else to do the same thing. Being nice does not cost a thing unless you escalate it to buying a coffee for the next person in line or something similar. So, get out there and do something good for humanity!

Perseverance

 Definition of perseverance

: continued effort to do or achieve something despite difficulties, failure, or opposition : the action or condition or an instance of persevering : STEADFASTNESS

I recently finished two books that made me think of the word perseverance. Both books were true accounts of war heroes. The first book was "On Full Automatic" by and about William V. Taylor Jr. and his tour in Vietnam. The second book "Damn Lucky" was written by Kevin Maurer about the service of John Luckadoo during WWII. Both stories are amazing and really put you smack dab into the middle of two historic times. Both achieved something despite tremendous difficulties, failures and opposition as defined above. 

William (Bill) Taylor tells of his battles and hardships endured in the Vietnam War. His tour of duty was 13 months and his personal battle was to survive those 13 months and return home safely. He survived ambushes, booby traps, snakes. leeches and more to get to the end of his tour and return home. Each battle that Bill Taylor engaged in might result in the death of several of his friends and fellow marines. One of those had just found out his son had been born the day before he died in battle. Several died in their last month or two of their tour. 

John Luckadoo's story involves his deployment to a B-17 bomber group. He has to survive 25 missions to return home. Out of 40 men he trained with and flew with in the 100th Bomb Group, only 4 survived the missions. He survived enemy fighters and anti-aircraft guns to finish his 25 missions. John Luckadoo returned from many missions in which 20 or more bombers failed to return with his crew. The odds were that only about 25% of crews made it to the 25 missions and returned home. He survived and turned 100 this past March! Their stories show their determination to persevere through their situation to hit those magic number of 13 months or 25 missions despite terrible odds of surviving to the end. 

Their struggles and near misses demonstrate what we all are capable of in tough times.

In retirement, most of us don't come close to facing the situations of the two young men above where perseverance is at the highest level you can imagine. However, there may be numerous situations in which perseverance is a valuable tool during your retirement and your last 20 or more years on this earth. 

In retirement you may have small situations that require short bouts of perseverance such as a repair or remodel of a part of your home, an unexpected car accident that you have to deal with, a family or personal relationship that has gotten off track for some reason, a financial hit to your budget or retirement funds and many other short term "tough" situations.

Also, during your retirement and last half of your life, you may endure much tougher situations involving death of family or friends and personal medical situations involving you, your spouse or immediate family. Major medical situations would be the most likely situations that might equal the life and death battles that the two men above endured. My wife has persevered and continues to do so with her breast cancer diagnosis. Her perseverance through chemo and radiation treatments has shown how tough she is while in a very hard situation. 

During "Lucky's" missions, he talked of being scared to death as he walked to his plane for a mission. But, once he climbed into the plane, he knew that he had a job to do and he began to focus on the moment rather than possible outcomes. I saw this same determination in my wife. Once she was hooked up to her IV, she would even make a comment about having to do what she needs to do to be around in the future for the grandkids. To me, she had the same attitude of perseverance that the bomber pilot had and I have full faith that she will continue to persevere for the next 30+ years!

I need to remind myself daily about the tough battles that people are going through and the fact that my life is going pretty well even though small things get me down sometimes. There is always someone else out there who is persevering through some pretty bad times. As much as people grumble about the state of the U.S., I wouldn't trade it for anything. We need to think of the problems going on in Ukraine and Haiti to remind us of how great we have it right here. We also need to continue to remember the heroes like Bill and Lucky who helped give us this great life we have today!

Have you had to persevere through anything lately? Any big issues that really knocked you down for awhile, but now are in the past? Have you read any great books lately that are similar to the two I just read? 

What's On Your Coffee Mug?

Here at the Retirement Coffee Shop, I enjoy a couple of cups of coffee every morning. A cup of Folger's usually starts out my day. On occasion I may have some roasted coffee that I picked up at a local coffee shop. Every morning I reach up into the cabinet above my coffeepot and pick out the coffee mug of the day. My favorite is a mug I picked up at the Evel Knievel Museum. Some of my other favorites include a cup that has a picture of books on a bookshelf, a NASA cup and a new favorite is a plain blue Corell cup. 

When out thrifting, I see a million coffee cups in all shapes, sizes and colors. Many have advertising logos and many have a few words of wisdom on them. You have seen many of these cups before with words embossed on them such as "I'm the boss!" or "Best Dad" or some other saying. My son bought one over the weekend that had a cat in a Santa hat and said "Meowy Christmas". I saw a coffee cup a few weeks ago that had some retirement slogan on it. I should have grabbed that one for my daily coffee.

I think your coffee cup says a lot about you. My coffee cups, shown above, say that I am a highly intelligent daredevil spaceman or something similar. I have three coffee cups that just sit as decorations on a bookshelf in my study.  One is a bright orange mug with Cozumel written on it, one is a Life Is Good cup with a cartoon guy laid back in a chair and one is a White Pass train cup with three train engines on it. These three say that I like Cozumel, trains and a relaxing day. 

 A "Best Dad" cup says you probably are a great dad and you love your kids and they love you. An "I'm the boss!" cup says that yes indeed you are the boss and you are proud of it. A cup with a puppy or cat on it shows that you love animals and especially love your pet. If you have a cup with some type of company logo it shows you are too cheap to buy a mug and got that one for free somewhere. Some coffee cups have your name on them. I don't know why you really need your name on the cup unless you keep it in the cabinet at work and it would show everyone that it's yours and yours only. 

A person's coffee cup may indicate they love nature, sports, a certain hobby, music, etc. by what's on the cup. What does your coffee cup say about you? Do you have a favorite cup or two that you use a lot? Do you have a cup with a really cool saying on it?