Monthly Archives: January 2013

family vacation, FDR resort, Jamaica, nanny, vacation karaoke

If We Can Afford To Do IT …

3 Comments

 

…then we can afford not to do it.

As we traveled this past week, this came up in my head many times, but it was highlighted on the morning we had a reservation for horseback riding.  We had already delayed our original reservation one day because A wasn’t up for it.  On the second morning, we asked ourselves why push her and us.  She was exhausted, and didn’t even mention it when asked what she wanted for the day.  She was panicking over very small issues, and despite her loving to ride horses, we didn’t really want to risk her panic while riding.  So we decided we should cancel the plans, even if it meant losing the $200 it was supposed to cost us.  If we could afford to go, certainly we could afford to not go.  With MS, I always plan on it being me who is sick, but the treatment and mindset needs to remain the same for whomever.  Luckly, the staff at FDR  (http://www.fdrholidays.com/) managed to keep us from being charged at all.

All in all, our trip to Jamaica and the FDR was incredibly nice.  The staff there were generally the nicest group I’ve ever encountered on any trip.  I don’t know how to express how far they were willing to go out of their way other than to tell the story of a conversation my wife had with our nanny (yes we had a nanny because the resort provides nannies for the guests’ kids) on our last full day.  She asked J how she liked the resort, and my wife answered bluntly as she always does, “This place is great.  It would be perfect if only it had a decent bed in the master bedroom, because ours has left me sore every night.”  When we came back to shower before dinner, they were carrying a new mattress upstairs.  If only we had asked after the first night…Seriously, how many places will replace the mattress the day of a complaint.  It’s just one example of how far the staff at the resort regularly went to make our trip pleasant. 

J and I got to go on dates each of the last three nights as our nanny took care of our kids.  We went on more nights out in 5 nights there then we had gone out in the prior year.  On the last night we even sang Karaoke.  I was asked in college to never sing again, but I was easily talked into singing my tune killer, Puff the Magic Dragon when J saw it in the book of possible songs.  With 6 of us there, it’s not like I was singing to a crowd, and it’s not like I didn’t warn them.  It’s the tune I sing when songs get stuck in my head and has been for decades.  What I loved and will keep in my head was the back and forth with J singing, “You are my Sunshine” to which I answered with “There Must be 50 Ways to Leave Your Lover.”  Of course J got the final word in singing about the 51st way with “Goodbye Earl.”  Yikes!

Anyway, here are a couple pictures from  my favorite of our family vacations:

 

Share
acceptance, MLK, Mountaintop, MS

Have You Been to the Mountaintop?

5 Comments
  Take my Hand…The song Martin Luther King requested be played just before he was assassinated.
Martin Luther in his last speech spoke of the time he lived being the one he would choose. If offered the chance to live with and see the great philosophers of Greece, or see Lincoln sign the Emancipation Proclamation or even hear the speech where a president of a struggling country declared “We have nothing to fear save fear itself,” still he would choose to live in the last half of the 20th Century. He felt as if he had a duty having been allowed by God to see from the mountain top. He spoke of encountering the hoses and not fearing for he knew water…He was able to accept his lot, his role in life. He spoke with a sort of a acceptance of hardships inflicted upon him and those he loved. He even accepted the threats and the injuries, and ultimately he was killed, but as I listened to his last speech I never got the impression he was giving even an inch of himself away in his acceptance of what fate decreed. To see the speech,
Acceptance is something I’ve not come close to achieving. A large part of me looks at my MS and tries to pretend it’s just another obstacle to be ignored and denied until I can no longer do so. For what it’s worth, this attitude drives my wife nuts! I understand why, it’s just if I stop when I first feel signs of my body stressing, I may as well stay in bed. For me, stopping to ask for and receive help for every inconvenience would require me to stop being whom I wish to be.
Why define yourself by what you can and can not do? My first thought was “Well then how are we to define ourself?” The best I can come up with is “Why not define yourself by your dreams, what you attempt, and by whom you inspire?”
Remember, so much can be and is done by those who never stopped to consider why they couldn’t.
I wish I had MLK’s view from the mountain. For now, I’m happy to live now with the hindsight of history to let his words and deeds along with the words and deeds of all those who came before me inspire me.
Have you ever stopped to think who makes up the mountain of your inspiration? Parents, holy men and women, and thinkers of by gone eras have all added to the mountain I see before me. Thinking of the view I imagine if only I could climb it. However, I find myself more often than not wandering through the darkness holding a torch hoping to find others to ease the loneliness of the dark. http://thelifewelllived.blogspot.com/2007/07/year-into-it-all-when-i-first-began.html
I envy MLK’s dream and vision. I also find it interesting to think MLK’s I have a dream speech is the one for which he is most famous when I think the mountain top speech is every bit as good and significant.
Share