Many of my more extreme behaviors, both good and bad, are a result of not accepting me as I am. I have this sense that a desire to be better or improve myself stems from a dislike of who I am now. So I have worried that accepting who I am would undermine my achievements and my drive to be better. My competing worry has been that this is a false narrative and I am holding myself back.

I live in a neighborhood that is about 27 years old. Of all of the places I have lived, this one has the flakiest power. I presume it must have something to do with the age of equipment, maturity of trees, and Midwest storms. We have had several 4h, 6h, and even a few 12h+ power outages. These longer ones have resulted in a few situations where we had lost the contents of our refrigerator and freezer. Feeding a family of seven required a fair amount of food and subsequent meal planning and storage.

The Church of Minding One’s Own Business by Austin Kleon

With the anniversary of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, it was a time worth reflecting on. Not only being thoughtful about the memories and sacrifice of those who perished on that day but also reflecting on my experience. I had worked remotely at that time and it required the remote employees to travel to Seattle once per month for a week at a time. I happened to be up there during that week.

Football season is here and though I am a fair-weather Colts fan, I do enjoy the social fun of watching a football or hockey game. Doing this outside is something I could get behind as the weather cools off. My friend has a very nice outdoor space with an outdoor television made to survive the elements. He had let me know, that you can go that route, get an outdoor enclosure for a television, or use a cheap television and make sure to bring it in when you are not using it (or if you forget and need to replace, it will be much cheaper than the other options). I went with the cheap television option and had 24 hours to get a television up and running outside before week one kick-off.

I cannot remember where I had seen this, but it keeps resonating with me this past week. This is what I would tell myself twenty years ago if I were willing to listen:

I was curious about the origin of the phrase, “the map is not the territory” so decided to do some searching and found this:

This book was a quick read and I would not hesitate to recommend it as a well-written novel. I deserved some fiction after enduring Wendell Berry’s work. I had not heard of this book before and was led to it by Clifford Lee Sargent from his YouTube channel, Better Than Food.

An evening with friends at Bonge’s Tavern