Catharsis of the Bogue

Oddities, Profundities, Profanities and Dad Stuff

Category: Personal Growth (Page 9 of 14)

Of All The Books….

May 27, 2014 / / 2 Comments

When we first moved into our house almost 4 years ago we had a ton of books.  There were books that we had been saving to “read” later, and books from college, and books from the library out of date materials sale.

We had so many books that I built floor to ceiling bookshelves, each 6 feet long.  Recently we decided that, while we love books, we needed to thin the herd.

Now, I love books almost as much as I love the internet.  I always have.  I love losing myself in a story and losing sleep because the story is just that good.  There are certain books that were my only friends growing up, my only escape from the drudgery of Junior High.

In the past I always hated giving books away or donating them, because I was going to read that again! It is mine!  I have a Collection!  But that can’t happen anymore.  I have had to face some hard truths.  There are so many new books out there I may never get back to the older ones that are not favorites.

There are many favorites that I may never read again.  So I have purged many of the books that I used to have.  The good news is, there are always libraries to read new books from.  There are even books on CD which I love as well.

I just had a thought as I was packing up some of said books for donation to charity.  Humphrey Bogart from Casablanca, sort of.  Some of these books I looked at and said to myself in my best Bogart, “Of all the bookshelves in all the world and you ended up on mine”.

Cheesy I know, but there is a relationship that you have with books.  They come and go.  They give you what you need when you care to search.  They are patient and everlasting.  They are meant to be enjoyed and I am convinced now, that they are meant to be passed on for others to enjoy.  A book can enrich no one sitting on a dusty shelf in my basement.

Now for the DVD “collection”

-Justin

Is that your blog or is your brain leaking?

May 27, 2014 / / 4 Comments

Man has it been an exciting day in Blogistan!  For some reason, my blog blew up today!  For the past few months I have been hoping every day to beat 72 visitors.  That was the most people that visited my site according to the Count Per Day plugin. I have been running that one since I started.  StatPress always shows a few more but it isn’t as pretty.

So I have been getting in the 60’s most of the time.  Today, I had 93 visitors when I checked 20 minutes after my latest post.  And it has just gone higher and higher.  At the time I wrote this, 2130 MDT (GMT-7), there were 218 visitors and almost 1100 pageviews!  That is TRIPLE what I have been getting.  I can only hope that this blog is catching on and this will be normal!

Sorry to brag like that but holy crap I am excited!  According to the calendar, I am just a week and a half away from my 3 month mark.  I hit a slight stumble of writers block after the Pre-Writing challenge but I am still going strong.  I am still planning my ebooks and fiction posts and where to go forward.

With help from Mike CJ I am working through the Beginners Guide to Blogging (look for a post on that soon) and will be pushing more and more things the right way.  I can’t be stopped.

Beware all of you who think that I will be giving up because I will still be here pumping out content and promoting.  I hope my traffic will continue  like this, I can see that it ended up with 251 views and 1244 pageviews.  That is far an above anything I have done up to now.  That is over half of the visitors that I had last WEEK!!

Enough from me now.  Thanks for reading and making my blog a success!  I would love to hear from you in the comments section below, can never have enough comments!  You can also sign up for my mail list, I am blitzing this week to get some subscribers!

Thanks for being here!

-Justin

A 6 Point Plan to Happiness

March 24, 2014 / / 2 Comments

I came up with this great title and then had to figure out how to fill it.  This is my list.  This is my 6 point plan for MY Happiness.  I think that anyone could benefit from it though.  They are in no specific order other than this is how they fell out of my head.

I would like to hear other thoughts on what makes you happy. If I get enough comments I will post a followup with plenty of links.

You have your assignment.  Go.  Read.  Comment.  Be Happy!

1. Be satisfied with yourself. I don’t know how many people actually strive for satisfied with themselves.  There is a huge push in the world to be better.  To be more.  To get into a better situation.  Why can’t we just be satisfied with ourselves?  For the most part I am satisfied with me.  There are things that I want to improve, but I could stay right where I am and be happy.

2.  Kids. I can’t imagine my life without my kids.  As frustrated and as mad as I can get at them, I wouldn’t trade them for anything on the planet.  There is such a content joy that can be had from seeing my kids ride their bikes outside, or play with the dog, or just run, laughing all of the time.  One of my all time favorite memories is of my son at 5 years old, running his heart out (by himself be it noted) pulling his red wagon and laughing like a madman.  I will never lose memories like that.  Knowing that he is that happy because I have given him the ability to run, the wagon to pull, and the house to run in front of , is happiness in itself.

3.  Hobbies Everyone needs something to do besides work.  I have a potload of interests and hobbies but my favorite is fishing.  I could fish all of the time.  Every day.  Most nights.  My wife is sick of me talking about fishing.  She forbade me from taking her fishing for her birthday yesterday.

4. Simplify There is great happiness that can be had from getting rid of the chaff that we accumulate in this life.  Philosophers have always talked about simplifying your life.  Buddhist monks teach themselves to let go of everything and become empty before they can be filled with enlightenment.   Being able to purge all of the crap we had saved over the years, all of the hand me downs for the house and all of the stuff we may “need” is wonderfully freeing.  Living without credit cards saved our butts during the recession of the past couple of years.  Didn’t really affect us at all, and good thing too, Dialysis and a kidney transplant are expensive enough without interest from a credit card.

5. Spouse/Significant Other I know this will be debated but one of the best things in my life is my wife.  I like to have her around, I like to be married.  In our religion we believe that we are forming eternal families here on Earth, and I have found the perfect person to do that with.  We get along well, we are not too hard on each other, and we work well together.  A cornerstone of my Happiness for sure.  We will have been married 12 years in May and dating for 17 in September!

6. Don’t miss the opportunity to teach others.    There is so much to give back that it is impossible to do so.  Take the opportunities as they come to teach others what you know.  Whether it be someone a world away over the internet being taught PHP code or your neighbor that you can teach to change the air filter on his lawn mower so it runs better.  If you can teach your kids to do something doesn’t it make you happy when they can repeat it?  Give as much as you can back to the universe.

This is not a complete and comprehensive post by any means.  Just go and be happy.

-Justin

Dad’s Are SUPPOSED To Do Laundry!

March 24, 2014 / / 3 Comments

I am sure you are getting sick of me yapping on about how I am a stay at home dad.  What can I say, it’s what I do.

Today I want to address a topic that I have mentioned before in a short Migraines and Laundry series.  This post will be short and to the point.  Even if you do not stay home, Dad’s are supposed to help with laundry!  It probably will not even give you a migraine.

I don’t want to get preachy here and I don’t want to have a bunch of  “help your woman” posts but, there are some things that need to be addressed.  When I first got married I had hardly ever done laundry.  My mom did it all for us and I was darn near clueless on how to load and wash clothes.

There came a point in the first year of my marriage when both my wife and I were going to college and working where I had to learn to do laundry or go without clothes.  Simple as that.  And guess what, laundry is easy to learn and easy to do.  If I could only get the drive to fold I would be golden.  Don’t like to fold.

If you have kids, you will know what this next section is about.  If you don’t have kids and think you may have ahandle on Laundry, you are wrong.  No could be wrong, no maybe wrong, you are WRONG.  Kids, even little tiny ones, generate so much laundry you will wonder why your washing machine doesn’t say tilt at least once a week.

It just gets worse as they get older but your saving grace will be when they get 8 or 9 and can help with the laundry.  I have one there now.  And she is going to get all of the new baby’s clothes.  Bwahahahaaha!!

Seriously, laundry is a big task.  It is hard to keep up on.  It is never ending.  It is necessary.  If the machine is sitting idle, go throw in a load.

I’d love to hear your comments below!  after that sign up for my mailing list!

Thanks for reading

-Justin

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