Daily Ramblings – Two Days

Tags

Appreciation, Chuckle, Comedy, Giggle, Gratitude, Gratitude Journaling, Laughter, Thankfulness

I was feeling a little under the weather yesterday, so I missed my weekly Thankful Thursday, so today, I’m going to combine yesterday and today’s topics into one posting.

 

Daily Ramblings gained some new followers this week. Welcome and Thank you for following me. I really appreciate it. I’m also grateful for the success of my Mom’s cataract surgeries. She was nervous about getting it done and was concerned with her left eye, but this week’s doctor appointment confirmed that all is ok.

I wanted to touch on gratitude journaling again because it is such an important habit, at least for me. I started small, but now my gratitude journal has evolved to a combination of gratitude and morning pages. The practice I use now involves writing down what I am grateful for until I feel it. When I feel gratitude my heart opens. There is a calming that comes and sticks around for the day. This feeling is hard to describe. It is like everything is all right in my world. If you are interested in trying this out, I’d recommend starting with the 5-minute journal. I am not an affiliate, but a satisfied customer. I don’t use the app for this reason anymore. I have a tab in my OneNote app that I dedicate to my journaling.

 

Anyway. For this week’s funny Friday, I’ll recommend a comedian I really enjoy. His name is Bill Burr. I’ll warn you, he’s very edgy, but his humor aligns with mine in every way. I hope you enjoy him. He has a few comedy shows on Netflix right now. You should try him out, if you’ve never seen one. My sister and I saw him in Detroit last year, and he has one of the longest comedy shows I’ve ever seen. He was on stage around 2 hours, which is unheard of in this industry. Most are off stage in about an hour or so.

 

Well, that’s it for today, folks. I hope each of you has a wonderful weekend, filled with love, fun things, and some time with your families and loved ones.

Until next time…

Dave

Daily Ramblings – Wisdom Wednesday – Adjusting to a New Home

Tags

Adjusting, change, Improvising, Learning, Overcoming, Solving Problems, wisdom

Image by Steve Buissinne from Pixabay 

Today’s image is a great segue into my topic for today. Sometimes we wake up and realize the tools we are using to negotiate our lives are no longer effective. We are literally trying to fix our watch with a crescent wrench. This is a sign that something has changed internally.

Have you ever woken up feeling like you are in a different place, confused, and disoriented? I have been in this state for a good few weeks. It’s like the feeling you have when you move to a new city or state. You new surroundings excite you, but you still feel you are in limbo. You have yet to make new friends and still depending on your phone to get you to the grocer, the gas station, the post office, and many places commonplace in your previous home.

When these changes occur internally, they can be disconcerting. You feel you need to do something different or more. You feel out of place in your own home, neighborhood, and town. It’s hard to describe.

I was doing some research on this and found my answer. The answer is to just be. Changes occur around us all the time. We get nudged to change our routine, change our diet, change our workouts. We get nudged to change jobs, change locales, and change our associations. This is all about the mission you have in this lifetime.

My religion discusses this phenomenon in great detail. Soul, the real you, decides what it wants to learn in this lifetime before it arrives here and takes a human body. It decides what experiences it will have in this lifetime. Sometimes soul needs to experience poverty or riches, health and sickness, ecstasy and horror. These make up the fabric of the life it chooses.

The best solution to the feelings I have been having is to reexamine my goals, set up new ones, get a good plan together to accomplish these things, and execute. By doing this, you can adjust to the internal changes that have taken place and help the physical catch up with the spiritual. This happens all the time.

There is a quote from Jewish scripture that is appropriate here. The quote is: “As above, so below.” This suggests that we have an internal or spiritual life with a physical life in the human body. When soul makes a gain spiritually, the physical or human body has to play catch up. The way to do this is to reexamine how you are doing things and make adjustments to them to be in alignment with the new home soul has found for itself.

I realize that today’s post may be a little “out there”, but my spiritual path has never steered me wrong, just like your religion of Christianity, Buddhism, or Islam has never steered you wrong. Each of us is in the religious path we need to achieve what we need to achieve in this lifetime.

For now, I need to be patient, remain cognizant of any inner nudges that come my way, and be patient. Everything is in its rightful place in the worlds of God and God never gives us a problem we cannot solve.

To summarize. If you ever get the “feeling” like your out of place or something is not right, realize that Soul has found a new home or place to explore in the inner worlds. This feeling is a sign that you are growing. Rejoice. This is a good thing. We need to grow and experience and learn. The process of improvement and getting better never ceases. You may rest awhile here and there but the drive to improve our circumstances never stops.

I hope each of you has a terrific Wednesday! I’m off to do some chores around the house and get in a workout later today.

Until next time…

Dave

Daily Ramblings – Ted Talk Tuesday – Acceptance

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Acceptance, Adapting, Changes in Society, Differences, Disabilities, Love, Ted Talk

Image by OpenClipart-Vectors from Pixabay 

Today’s Ted Talk is a heart-warming one. You’ll enjoy it. I won’t ruin it by giving any spoilers. It is a good one.

Enjoy!

Until next time…

Dave

Daily Ramblings – Motivation Monday – Making Time and Focusing on What Matters

Tags

Focus, Making Changes, Making Choices, Making time, motivation, New Rituals, Retirement

Photo Credit: Image by Jonas Svidras from Pixabay 

“Productivity is never an accident. It is always the result of a commitment to excellence, intelligent planning, and focused effort.” – Paul J. Meyer
Read more at: Brainyquote.com

What’s going on this week? I’m working on my book, going through a web development course, hitting the gym hard using Kris Gethin’s 4-week Muscle Building Trainer, and following the rest of my rituals.

Recently I changed my daily rituals. I always add and add and add to my daily routine, until it becomes untenable. This resulted in an audit of my daily to-dos and I came up with a neat idea–minimize my daily to-dos to a certain number and not add anything else. This has helped greatly.

My focus is important. I always want to read, write, contemplate, and exercise daily. These are my priorities. My core focus is on writing my books and spending some time learning something new each day. I finished a course on Aristotle’s Ethics yesterday offered by Hillsdale College. Now I am moving through an NLP course. It is long. It is about 179 online sessions, but really fascinating.

What is my motivation? It’s simple. I just want to be productive in retirement and take advantage of the time I have now to do the things I didn’t want to put time into when I was working full time. This is the key. You have to make time for things, even in retirement. Retirement doesn’t change what you are motivated to do. You still have to discipline yourself to go to the gym, set aside time to contemplate the spiritual things, read books, learn, and write. Trust me, there is no difference between what you do now and what you want to do. Everything you commit to doing, requires you to NOT do something else.

My Mom got her second cataract surgery today. Everything is ok. She has to go back to the doctor tomorrow to check the eye after it’s had some time to calm down, but there were no issues with the surgery. While I was there in the office, they had Women’s World Cup soccer on the television. Germany trounced the Rwandan team 4 – 0.

That’s it for today, folks! I hope you have a terrific Monday!

Until next time…

Dave

Daily Ramblings – Workout Routine – Chest and Back

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Back, chest, Dumbbell, Flat, healthy living, Incline, Pyramids, Superset, Weightlifting

Today’s workout:

Superset #1:

• Dumbbell Incline Chest Press 1×30; 1×20; 1×10; 1×5; 1×5;
• Bent Over Dumbbell Rows 1×30; 1×20; 1×10; 1×5; 1×5;

Superset #2:

• Dumbbell Flat Chest Press 1×5; 1×5; 1×10; 1×20; 1×30;
• Bent Over Dumbbell Rows 1×5; 1×5; 1×10; 1×20; 1×30;

Notice what is happening here? The pyramid starts in superset 1 and completes in superset 2. The reps start with30 and reduce to two sets of 5, then start with 5 and increase to 30. So 10 sets of work for both body parts. As a reminder, supersets involve doing two exercises together without rest. So Dumbbell Incline Chest Press set 1 and Bent Over Dumbbell Rows set 1, then rest. This was an intense routine this morning.

Well, that’s it for today. Happy Father’s Day everyone!

See you at the finish line!!

Dave

 

Daily Ramblings – Workout Routine – My New Torture Device

Tags

Achievement, Bodybuilding, Cardio, Exercise, healthy living, motivation, Persistence, Stair Stepper, workout

Today’s workout was interval training. I chose the stair-stepper for this routine’s cardio source.

20 minutes of interval training. 1 minute intense, 2 minutes slow. Great workout and a good sweat!!

See you at the finish line!!

Dave

Daily Ramblings – Spiritual Saturday – Losing a Pet

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Crossing Over, Leaving this World, Losing a Pet, Loss, Mourning, The Next Adventure, Transition, Weezer

My sister’s dog Weezer passed yesterday. The Vet diagnosed him with a brain tumor and she decided it was best to put him down to ease his suffering. The little guy lost all of his energy in recent months and over the last few days couldn’t walk or negotiate stairs.

Losing a pet is no fun. You spend a good majority of your time with them and then, suddenly, they’re gone. What was interesting with the little guy was that he wanted to follow my sister everywhere she went toward the end of his life. It was frustrating because he had a bad habit of sitting right behind her on the floor when she was cooking. I think it was his way of spending as much time with my sister as he could because he knew his time was coming. He wanted to be as close to her as he could, since his time was fleeting.

Pets, like us, realize at some point when our time here is up. With dogs they sleep more. They dream more. In my religious path, we use these dreams or experiences to ease one from this world to the next with as little shock as possible. My sister said Weezer went easy. He didn’t fight. He just went to sleep. This happens when we slowly let go of our attachments to this life and prepare for the next. If we pay attention, the same will happen for all of us when it is our time to go.

Weezer, we will miss you. You were a great companion to our family, and you were always a welcome addition to our home when my sister had to travel. Goldie will miss you too. Even though you got on her nerves when you were here, she will wonder what happened to you when my sister comes the next time and you are not there. Wherever you are, buddy, I know you will run after balls and enjoy yourself in the next life. I wish you well on your journey my little friend.

For any of you that lose a pet, know they are in a good place, filled with love, and doing the same things they did here. They are on their next adventure and continue their journey back to God. Like our pets, our time here is temporary. We will all pass over too. As we age, we too will sleep more and dream more, to make our transition to our next assignment in the worlds of God easier.

I wish all of you a terrific Saturday!

Until next time…

Dave

Daily Ramblings – Workout Routine – Legs and Abs

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Calf Press, Calves, Decline Crunches, healthy living, Leg Press, Quads, Weight Training, Weightlifting

I’m finally back! Today I started a new workout routine. It is intense and I love it!

Here you go, folks!

Planet Fitness, Ft. Gratiot

Superset: Leg Press and Calf Press combined with a pyramid

• Leg Press 1x50, 1×40, 1×30, 1×20, 1×10, 1×10, 1×20, 1×30, 1×40, 1×50
• Calf Press 1x50, 1×40, 1×30, 1×20, 1×10, 1×10, 1×20, 1×30, 1×40, 1×50

If you’re new to lifting, a superset requires one set, followed immediately by another. In this case, you do one set of leg presses, followed by a set of calf presses on the leg press machine with no rest between. Once you’ve completed an iteration, you take a break. That’s it in a nutshell. The pyramids involve starting light with a set of 50, going heavier at 40, going heavier at 30, 20, 10 and so on. Then, to complete the pyramid, you start at 10 reps and increase 10 reps each superset back up to 50. So light down to heavy, heavy up to light. I enjoy pyramids because they insure you work the muscle group hard.

 

Decline crunches 5 sets to failure.

That was it for today, folks.

See you at the finish line!

Dave

Daily Ramblings – Funny Friday

Tags

Chuckle, Funny, Giggle, Happy, Hilarious, Joke, Laugh, Pun

“I couldn’t figure out why the baseball kept getting larger. Then it hit me.” – Unknown

Provided by: Pun.me

Daily Ramblings – Thankful Thursday – Thank You Followers!

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Blessings, Blogging, Content, Grateful, Gratitude, New Followers, Ramblings, Thank you

Today’s edition thanks you, my followers. I really appreciate all of you who follow Daily Ramblings and hope to continue to provide great content in the years to come. Like all blogs, evolution is continual. We find a topic we enjoy writing about and our followers result because of the content we are discussing.

I really appreciate the comments you provide. I also appreciate you spending time reading my postings. I try to keep these postings brief out of respect for your time, but will hit pockets that spur me to write much longer postings.

Blogging has been freeing. It allows me to write daily and contribute to this forum. It also allows me to record my thoughts and feelings daily, which fluctuate over the days and months that precede a posting. Sometimes my posts are impacted by the news, a holiday, or an event in my life that is meaningful. At other times, I just write and the topic develops itself.

I hope all of you are having a terrific week! We are enjoying some rain today. It is really relaxing to look at the rain from my office chair and relish that I’m inside, warm and cozy. In my Army days, you couldn’t escape the weather. It always seemed like whenever we went to the field, the weather turned sour. In reality, the weather didn’t change at all. You don’t notice the weather until you are in it and have no means of escaping it.

Yesterday, I fired up my grill for the first time this year. I enjoy a good steak fresh off the grill. Today, I’ll be pan frying my food, as the rain won’t allow me to grill today. For those of you who have the opportunity to grill today, enjoy! The food tastes so good on the grill.

Well, that’s it for today, folks! Have a great Thursday!

Until next time…

Dave