Saving for what?

I have this habit of saving things for future use, even if I don't know what that use will be, or when. I don't know where it started but over the years I have saved clothes I don't wear, random equipment, and even food. I saved things that were perfectly fine by all stardards even though I didn't really have a use for them. I saved them because someday I might use them... Ever since college ended I have slightly been getting better and better about this. It started when I left my college dwelling and moved to Montana. I gave away almost everything that I couldn't take with me. I put somethings in storage, and took somethings to my parents house. (By the way, some of those things are still there.) It felt great to simplify my life, but there was a lot more to come. I learned a great lesson one year when my brother was in Afghanistan. When I was in college I worked at a golf course, which was one of my favorite jobs ever. I was always out on the course working and as a result I found lots and lots of golf balls. I saved them for my future use. I seperated them by value. The really expensive ones went into one box, and all the others went into the other. I never used the expensive ones, because I decided I wasn't a good enough golfer yet. I would save them until I could play well enough to really appreciate expensive balls. Years went by and the box went untouched, even though I personally valued them. They ended up on a shelf in my parents garage, waiting for the time down the road when I was a low handicap golfer. Or so I thought. I got a letter from my brother telling me about how he would hit golf balls off of a rocky cliff overlooking farm fields to pass his free time. He thanked me in the letter for the box of gof balls mom had sent him. I could sense some humor in his words. I thought mom had sent him the box of cheap balls??? Wrong. The expensive balls I had been saving were being flinged all over Afghanistan, and the balls I could care less about were waiting for me in my parents garage. I pictured my brother devilishly grinning as he whacked all the Callaway's and Pro-V's into oblivian. At the time I thought my mother sent the wrong box. I thought she should have sent the cheap balls instead. The more I thought about it the more I had to laugh at myself. I was saving them for something important, and I almost missed it. Looking back I could not think of a better reason for saving those golf balls, and I am so happy my mom sent the box of good ones to my brother instead. Since then I hardly hang on to anything I don't use. If I don't need it, I want some one to use it. Call it simplifying, but it feels great to know someone is going to appreciate and actually use what I didn't have an immediate need for. I am in the process of filling up a bin for The Salvation Army, and in it I have even put in some of my good cowboy boots. Even though they are important to me, they are just possesions. Its time for someone to put them to use again, afterall thats what I've been saving them for.

Back on the water

I'm going to get back out on the water today. The frozen stuff you have to drill holes in. I haven't fished for quite a while, or even really wanted to go. I am running out of fish in the freezer, so I need to go celebrate the fact that God loves me and made me a meat eater. Hopefully the fish will cooperate. Everytime I go ice fishing I think about the first time I can remember going. I was very little and probably a major pain in my dad's butt. However, I got to go anyway. I don't remember a lot about the day except that we went out on Hauser Lake with Great uncle John, and Grandpa. We had a pile of perch on the snow and ice and I was more interested in playing with them than trying to catch them. Uncle John even convinced me to kiss them. He told me that if I did they would come back to life. For some reason, I like to try this with my nephews and other kids too. Hmmm.

Letters from Home

Ever since I was a kid, I have been afraid of writing letters. Superstition at its best. The first letter I ever wrote when I was a kid, ( all by myself), was to my cousin Mark in Saudi Arabia. Shortly after that he was killed over there. For years I wouldn't even consider sending a letter, until my brother deployed to Iraq. I was scared that somehow the two actions were linked. I realize now how stupid that sounds, but fear and love are very, very powerful emotions that outrank reason. I finally forced myself to write to my brother. He came home safe, Thanks to God.
Mom has been writing to me ever since I moved away from home, and except for the first five or so letters, I think I have all of the rest of them. I wish more than anything that I would have kept them. I lost them somehow. Both the ignorance of my youth, and the shanty I lived in led to the loss. That was one of the most important times in my life, and my mother's. Those letters captured something that even a great memory couldn't glimpse at. It was also when 9-11-2001 took place. I will never forget that ever. The way the house I lived in smelled, my tiny room with hardwood floors, the hot September morning in Boise. My vagrant roommate running in to wake me up shouting, "Phelps wake up!!! They just bombed the pentagon!!!!!" The disbelief I felt when I watched the second plane fly into the second tower live on television. All of the events and aftermath that followed. I lost all of my mothers insights and observations from those tremendous events in our lives. Over the years my mother has continued to write to me. So much has changed and taken place it makes my world spin just to think about it. I have pieces of it captured in her letters. Someday my kids and grand kids will get to read them, and perhaps gain a special insight to our lives and our relationships. Even though we talk on the phone often, there is something immensely different and more personal about written word. News about the family and old friends, stories about my dad that reveal an unknown and unseen side of him. When I was lonely those letters connected me to my mother and family in a way that almost seemed to soothe my homesick heart. Letter writing truly is a lost art. I started this blog as an attempt to write to all who would wish to read my letters from home.

Hope and change

What is hope, really? I'm not sure. I think many people have some absurd definition in their minds that means all our dreams will come true and we will live happily ever after. I think hope is something we hang on to, knowing that the chances of success for what ever it is be slim, but possible. I have hopes, don't get me wrong. I hope my dad will quit smoking so he can hunt with me in the future. I hope for healthy babies. I hope for those in my family who struggle with other addictions. I also pray for these things, among others. I think hope and prayer aren't enough. For true change to happen, we need action and conviction. If we want to change something, we have to make a substantial effort. Almost always we need support from those whom we love and respect in order to accomplish that change. If we are comfortable, or content there is hardly any motivation internally to make anything happen. What we get is hot air. Something we are all familiar with. If we have others around us that we hope will change, we have to support them, even if it means changing ourselves. I stopped using tobacco to support my dad, I didn't tell him that though. Maybe I should. I have also tried to stop nagging, trust me negative reinforcement like this doesn't work. No One, two years old or eighty eight likes being told what to do. It makes us want to rebel. I think these things are universal with lots of problems. There are lots of things that we hope for. Hope is a good thing, even though the word has been hijacked and overused lately. The most important thing is that we can't confuse hope with a wish. Wishing gets us nowhere, hence the old addage "Crap in one hand and wish in the other. See which one fills up first." People wish all the time for unrealistic, and sometimes even negative things. Wishing is Hopeless. Hope is something we have to go after. Hope has to be realistic. We can't hope to win the lottery if we don't buy a ticket. That would be a wish. We have to buy lots and lots of tickets and invest our best efforts, learn to play the odds, and strategize on what numbers to play. Then maybe we will see a change.

One bathroom down

All the small details are finally finished. I think it turned out pretty nice.

Users

not knowing

I got a phone call tonight from an old friend, and immediately I knew something was wrong. I could sense a quiet pain in his voice, one I've heard before. He told me his dad had died last night... I didn't know what to say, and I felt nearly as helpless as he did. I wish there was something I could do for him, some way to comfort him. I can hardly imagine how he felt. His father had gone up to the cabin in a remote area and gotten his truck stuck, so he spent the night in the pickup. Sometime during the night he got up, probably to use the bathroom and he fell down an embankment. During the night he died. My heart broke for my friend and his family. I don't know how to reach out to him, I don't know what to do. All I could do was say how sorry I was, and that I would keep him in my prayers. There is a unique useless and helpless feeling I have right now.