My wife said I sounded depressed yesterday. Frustrated, yes. Concerned, yes. Exhausted, yes. Depressed, no. And today stands as proof...
Up early to exercise. I don't want to sleep through the whole coronavirus outbreak! I do my best thinking when I'm exercising. In the winter, my preferred method of torture is a road bike on a trainer. This Christmas, my gift to myself was an upgrade to a "smart" trainer. Unfortunately it's not smart enough to outsmart my procrastination efforts, but today was a good day. The bike brought a lot of great thoughts to my mind today - sticking to my values, paying my employees. There's much more detail in my mind, and money will be a future blog subject, but that's it for now.
Coffee today is from Zambia, Africa. I honestly don't remember how this evolution started, but February 2019 led to me deciding to roast my own coffee at home. Cassie thinks I have enough "hobbies", and I can't disagree, but this was too tasty to pass up. A few years ago we went on a dairy-free kick for a little while. I stopped putting milk in my coffee and instead used milk substitutes. Unsweetened almond milk, soy milk, coconut milk, etc. This all led to one of my life goals - drinking black coffee. And since I started drinking my coffee black, I wanted better coffee. Good coffee = mega $$, unless of course you roast it yourself. So today was home-roasted Zambia. Delicious.
With one of my daily goals checked off the list (exercise), I could move on to another. We spent some "family time" cleaning out the car. The kids were great, the had the bucket of hot soapy water in the back seat trying to clean all of the sticky sugar residue (Marie, I'm sure...) out of the cupholders. I've always appreciated a good detail from Fuller's, but with scarce financial resources and kids without school, I took advantage of the free labor.
On to baseball/softball in the backyard. My kids will be the best at getting hit by pitches - their dad can't throw. It's amazing what a year will do for hand-eye coordination, even in the absence of sport-specific practice. Lexie is really making good contact. Rich caught a stinger with a real baseball and his swing was timid afterward, but things will get better when the weather warms up. I wonder if they are going to miss their entire seasons. There's something to be said about playing in the backyard instead of trying to follow the rules and meet the expectations of adults (coaches, parents, etc.).
We picked up a walker from our good friends the Schubles. Cassie and our physical therapist Diane (who EVERYONE knows...) were concerned about Annie's progress during the break from therapy. We ordered a walker through Early Intervention, but Illinois is slow on a good day, and who knows what the coronavirus outbreak means for EI services. So the Schubles were kind enough to loan us their walker, and ANNIE LOVES IT!!! She isn't walking, she is running. It is amazing. She has probably needed this for a while, but it is hard to come to terms with the idea of a child having to use a walker before being able to walk independently. She was flying up and down the driveway, but always managed to head toward the neighbor's doorstep. They all love Eddie and Kristin...
I received a message from the owner of the small business that helps me with my Facebook page for the office. It was unexpected, so of course I responded right away. Rita Zamora from Rita Zamora Connections was calling to check in on me and see how everything was going. She expressed concern about the office being closed. She offered to reduce her services or delay payments. THIS is what customer service is all about! Of course, this is also exactly the type of business that I would never want to pay late - a small business with only a few employees, that is customer-centered and puts its customers ahead of profits. Ironically (or not) this inevitably leads to greater profits in the long run. But too many big corporations are chasing profits for TODAY, rather than investing in relationships for TOMORROW.
I got the garden going today, at least with cold-weather crops. Apparently mother nature wasn't going to wait for me to get outside. Check out the red lettuce that sprouted up and is thriving already. Volunteers from the end of the overgrown lettuce from last year! It honestly made me feel like I'm already behind, but it's only mid-March. The weather has been so mild that hopefully our garden will have a healthy start to the year soon! Oh, and I started a loaf of sourdough bread. It will be ready Thursday morning. I can smell it already.
How did today go? Exercise - check. Family time - check. Reading - uuuuhhh not yet, but there's still time.
Back to my thoughts on the bike. One of my mantras on the bike comes from Greg Lemond, a three-time Tour de France winner and the greatest American cyclist of all-time, who said about professional cycling: "It never gets easier, you just go faster." More to come...