Steve Oliphant’s Musings

There is an oldish adage “count your blessings” that seems to be very appropriate at the moment. I have been feeling down because of some slight difficulties in my life, but those problems pale in the large perspective of things.

“Count your blessings - name them one by one” I am not going to do exactly that, but I did want to put down some things that are very right and good about my life that I am grateful for.

1. I have a wonderful wife who is intelligent and wise and beautiful and sexy and loves me.
2. I have children who each have their own unique qualities and traits and who I love and who love me. I am proud of all of them for various reasons.
3. I have a very good - better than I deserve - family that I was raised in.
4. I learn things easily. I enjoy learning and thinking and appreciating the beauty around me, both God made, and that coming from the talents of others
5. Music
6. Literature
7. Income, high (very high by most of the world’s standards) quality of life. I am never hungry unless I choose to be, I have a home and (too many) possessions.
8. I have the ability to find something to appreciate in every circumstance I have ever been in. I sometimes forget this and pay with a bit of depression. But when I remember and act on that ability, I cheer myself up quickly.
9. A sense of humor. I can (when I choose - need to choose more often) find something funny about pretty much anything.
10. The ability to assume that others are doing their best to get along. I attribute slights and insults from others to misunderstandings and circumstances I am not aware of. I am probably often wrong, but I like living in this world that I have created with my outlook that is full of good people.

That is all for now - I am going to bed - how wonderful to have a nice warm dry comfortable place to lay my head each night!

Tomorrow is going to be an absolutely great day. No matter what happens in it.

I have a young son who is a bit behind his age group developmentally. One of his favorite things is to listen to me sing. Very sweet right? Well after two hours or so of the same song, it gets a little old. So I recorded myself singing the song into the computer, and then whenever he begs me to sing it, I can boot up my laptop, and put the song on continuous play, and he is happy and I can work.

Except like most things in life, it is not that simple.

Now whenever he sees me sit down with my laptop, he associates that with the song, and sits besides me, and demands that I play it.

Which seems kind of sweet also, I mean, I do like him to sit beside me. But one of the things I do for work is record screen shot – how to videos, where the screen is recorded along with my narration. And of course, I can’t do that while he is listening to that song.

So, I found another thing that is a favorite of his. Popcorn. We have a hot air popcorn popper and one of his favorite things is to watch a batch of popcorn pop. But even more, he likes to sit down and taste the bowl of popcorn.

Yes, I mean “taste” and not “eat.” That would be better.

You see, he has an oral aversion, which basically means that he has a really hard time swallowing things. We feed him through a special tube that is in his stomach wall. But he doesn’t mind putting things (like popcorn) in his mouth, he just won’t swallow.

The dogs in our house LOVE him. Because he tastes, chews, masticates, and thoroughly slimerizes his food, and then spits it out somewhere. If a dog is around, he gives it to them. (Unless I am sitting next to him, then I am his first choice.) But if not, he just spits it back in the bowl. This can make sharing popcorn with him quite an adventure. Is that extra butter? Or is it one that he has thoroughly tasted?

And so while I have distracted him from wanting that song played (over and over and over and over) he is sitting next to me trying to share his popcorn, giving me all the pieces he has tasted even though I tell him to give them to the dogs instead. It makes it hard to get things done. So I better type this while I can.

This was a wonderful Christmas, we were able to get each of our children the thing(s) they wanted.

And we were able to get the Christmas dinner dishes done without the usual whining and complaining.

We played the dishes game.

This is game is deceptively simple, and surprisingly fun. It works if there are at least 4 people participating, but the more the merrier. It makes the chore of cleaning up the kitchen and washing dishes after a big meal into a fun activity. Here is how it is played.

We use a pen and paper. One person is “it” or the writer. That person chooses a number between 1 and 100 and writes it down. Then everyone else takes turns trying to guess the number. The writer tells everyone after their guess if the actual number is higher or lower. When someone guesses the number, then they go start the dishes. Then a new writer is chosen and a new number is written and everyone (except the person currently doing dishes) takes turn guessing again. When someone guesses the number, they trade places with the person doing the dishes.

But here is the catch. If a number right next to the writer’s number is guessed, then the writer has to trade places with the person doing dishes.

So, if I was the writer and I wrote down “19″ then the first person guessed “50″ I would say “lower” the next person guesses “10″ and I say “higher”. If someone then guessed “19″ I would show them my written down number and they would go do the dishes. If someone guessed “18″ or “20″ then I would go do the dishes. After each change of the dishwasher, a new writer takes their turn.

It is more fun than it sounds, and it is a great way to avoid complaining and/or help out the host.

If you have more than 6-8 people, it works best to have 2 doing the dishes and rotate through them.

I learned of this game from my sister-in-law, and having grown up grudgingly taking my turn at doing the dishes, and watching my children do all they can to avoid the dishes, (I wonder who they learned that from!) I really appreciate the goodwill and fun it brings to a what has been a chore to avoid or complain about.