morrowlife

Here are Andy and Mark playing KISS miniature golf, standing in front of a giant guitar. I don’t exactly remember how we found out about KISS mini-golf, but I’m certainly glad we did. The course is indoors in a building near the strip that also features some KISS (and many other bands) memorabilia – clothes, signed album covers, and even an old Porsche. Also the awesomest wedding chapel ever. Pretty much the whole place is lit with black lights, except the gift shop. Great Art courtesy of the exclusive iPhone-cam, taken a few days ago at the KISS mini-golf center in Las Vegas, and part of my famous Las Vegas, Machinery, and Statue series.

I contend that that giant guitar counts as both machinery and a statue. As usual, Loyal Readers are free to disagree in their own blogs.

It’s 2015! We had a great New Year’s Eve celebration! We went with 18 friends to the Westgate Hotel (the former Las Vegas Hilton) for dinner at Benihana and then an “old school” New Year’s Eve party. Our organizer told us the “old school” designation referred to 50s and 60s music, which I thought would be fun.

Turns out she was wrong. In reality, it referred to “old school” hip-hop music. That worked out to be way better. I recognized a few songs from the 70s and 80s, but most were more recent than that and therefore quite unfamiliar to me. I loved it all! I had no idea I was such a fan of old school hip-hop music. The crowd was fun, the music was great, the DJ was very entertaining, our table was close to the stage and dance floor, and we generally had a wonderful time of it.

Most of us snuck away to go see the midnight fireworks show on the strip. Apparently, seven or eight of the big hotels set off identical fireworks shows from their roofs simultaneously. We could only see three of them from our window, but it was amazing! Highly recommended.

Joanne and I spent the day together today, right up until just a few minutes ago. We didn’t do all that much; after a late start, we came over to my house, made a nice breakfast together, played several Wii games (we both won a few, which worked out well!), sat and chatted, made dinner together, ate dinner together (along with Mark), and then bid a fond farewell so Joanne could get her beauty rest before work tomorrow.

Plus, she has to pack this evening or tomorrow morning for our weekend trip to Denver. The plane leaves at 6:45 tomorrow afternoon, leaving her very little time to catch it after work. I, on the other hand, am planning a somewhat more leisurely day.

I hadn’t played on my Wii for quite some time. When I bought my TiVo, I had to unplug the Wii from my TV because it could only handle a single analog input. A few days ago, I ordered a Wii HDMI converter. It arrived yesterday, so I reinstalled the Wii today. It’s fun, although we only have Wii Sports and Wii Sports Resort. That’s been plenty of entertainment for me. I wish we had a Mario Brothers game, though. I don’t even know if they have one for the Wii.

I recently read an article by Leo Babauta, who writes the excellent Zen Habits website. Leo frequently writes about living a life free of goals. Rather, he emphasizes mindfulness and the establishment of habits. At first, I had a hard time seeing the difference, but I think I’m starting to get it. Living without goals and to-do lists doesn’t mean you excuse yourself from keeping commitments and completing things. Rather, it means (to me at least), you establish patterns in your life that result in accomplishing what you need and want to do, on time and under budget, without undue stress.

With that in mind, I am not making any resolutions (not that I ever really did), but I do have a few habits I hope to establish this year. Let’s look at my initial list, shall we?

Exercising regularly and early – My desire is to lift weights Monday through Friday, take a nice long walk on Saturday, and take Sundays off. I want to go to the gym at about 8:00 M-F. I appear to naturally wake up at about 7:00, so my current life without an alarm clock won’t be affected by this. Joanne drives to work at about that time, so I would like to chat with her on the phone during my drive to the gym. I have gotten a heart monitor and MVP account on MapMyFitness (thanks, Andy!) to optimize my workouts – and for the entertainment value, truth be told.

Writing daily – I love writing. I would like to improve my skills and perhaps even find a niche where I could grow an audience. I think that starts with writing every day, either here or on a different website that’s accessible to the public. I want to make essentially everything I write public. I would like to publish an article on this website every weekday and on my other websites on a regular schedule.

Reading meaningful content daily – I have always been an avid reader. I spend a large amount of time reading now, but I would like to make my reading more meaningful. To that end, I would like to seek out excellent books, both new and old, and fill my reading time with them. I also want to keep up with the news and other entertaining content, but I don’t want that to take up so much of my reading time that the good stuff gets forced out.

Eating well and in moderation – I would like to make and eat excellent food and to eat it in quantities consistent with good health and a sustained weight of about 180-190 pounds. While I love eating out on a regular basis, I would like to eat excellent food in reasonable portions in restaurants too. I would like to eat only when I’m hungry and stop when I’m not hungry anymore.

Beautifying and simplifying my environment – I love my home. I love the quiet, peaceful feeling here. I love much of the artwork and furnishings. I want to continually beautify my home and yard and continually simplify them as well, getting rid of things I don’t want or need. This will reduce the expense and effort required to maintain my household, make my environment feel more spacious and elegant, and give me an enhanced sense of peace and happiness.

Learning to meditate – I want to learn what it means to be mindful. To that end, I want to learn how to effectively meditate. I believe this practice will give me increased peace.

These habits can’t all be successfully established at once, so I’m going to take them one at a time. I’m starting with exercising regularly and early. I went to the gym yesterday at about 8:00 and I’m going to do that again tomorrow. After I’ve been doing that successfully for a month or so, I’ll pick another habit and work on it until I’m doing it successfully too. I feel a strong desire to establish all these habits right away, so it’s going to be difficult to not try to do too much too soon. I’ll work to stay focused on one thing at a time.

Anyway, that’s my plan for this year, or at least the first half of the year. More habits to come as these get mastered.

And I’ll leave my Loyal Readers with this shocking food violence news: incorrect hamburger order shooting!

See you tomorrow.

Here’s an embedded street sign we saw during our recent trip to New Orleans. As I understand it, Bourbon Street is a rather famous place. All I know is that it was a madhouse the day we walked down it. A fun madhouse, but definitely a madhouse. I can only imagine how it must be during Mardi Gras. Great Art courtesy of the exclusive iPhone-cam, taken on the afternoon of December 13, 2014 on Bourbon Street in New Orleans, Louisiana, and part of my famous Vacation series.

Well, Christmas is over. The decorations have gone up and come back down. The presents have been bought, wrapped, and unwrapped. Andy came, stayed, and went home. I’m not feeling disappointed by any of that. In fact, I remarked to Joanne today that it feels great to put the Christmas decorations up and then it feels great again to take them down and put them away for another year. So there’s that.

But Christmas was very nice. We went to the Mob Museum as our Christmas Eve activity, preceded by a delicious lunch at the Triple George Grill. The museum was very interesting, if perhaps a bit bloodier than I would have liked. Then again, the mobsters were much bloodier than I would have liked. It was a bit short on artifacts and long on photographs, but I can forgive it for that. There probably aren’t a whole lot of artifacts to be had. And the pictures were fascinating. Those people committed lots of violence, mainly against each other. There were lots of pictures of happy families, followed by pictures of the family patriarch trussed up, shot, burned, and thrown in a lake. That sort of thing. Really got us in the Christmas mood.

Christmas day, the boys and I opened gifts in the morning, followed by a nice breakfast. In the afternoon, I went over to Joanne’s house to meet her ex-husband Hal and his girlfriend Rhiannon. They’re both very nice people, and I admire the good relationship Joanne has with them both. Later, she came over to our house so Hal and Rhiannon could spend the evening with the kids.

The day after Christmas, the boys and I went shooting with Ken. We went to the Clark County shooting facility, which is on the far north end of town and is very nice. Extremely nice, in fact. Sadly, it was kind of cold and windy, so we weren’t quite as  comfortable as we might have liked. It was great fun anyway.

And that pretty much brings us to today. We may be getting some snow tonight and tomorrow. It ought to make things in Las Vegas pretty interesting. They have no snow removal equipment. Joanne and I are scheduled to go to a fun New Year’s Eve party at the Westgate hotel with several friends. Let’s hope we can get there!

Probably no post on New Year’s Eve because of the party, so I’ll finish 2014 with this post. It’s been the most horrible, difficult year of my life and it’s also been a year full of exciting discovery and love. I’ve grown, I’ve learned how to take care of myself, I’ve learned how to lose myself in service to a loved one, I’ve learned what it means to love, I’ve learned how to survive. I miss Shannon. I miss my mother. I love my children. I love Joanne. I love Joanne’s children. I love my brothers and sisters. I love my extended family. I love my friends. I love my life.

Happy New Year.

I’ll finish with this exciting Morrowlife Employment Agency job opportunity: tormenting frog!

See you in January.

Today was my 36th wedding anniversary. There have been lots of important days in the nearly eleven months since Shannon’s death. Many of them go by without much difficulty for me. Maybe there’s a brief pang or a sad thought. Sometimes there’s a mental or even vocal monologue with Shannon. Other times there’s a happy thought or memory.

But our first wedding anniversary without her was a fairly difficult one. When I face a hard day, I often find it helpful to sit down and write. That’s what I did at about 12:30 this morning. Here’s what I wrote on Facebook:

Today’s the 36th anniversary of my marriage to Shannon Morrow and I’m feeling the sting of her loss a bit more than on most days. [A] wonderful little article on motherhood posted earlier by my niece Jessica Morrow really touched my heart.

Jessica started the adventure of parenthood relatively recently. I can tell by her Facebook posts that she’s crazy about her little boy and I can see that she has become a devoted, wonderful mom.

How I love and miss my mother and, today even more than usual, how I love and miss the mother of my children. It seemed like she always knew just exactly what to say and do to help our kids feel loved and happy and to keep them moving in the direction they needed to go. She was their friend and mentor and, for Andrew Morrow and Mark Morrow, their schoolteacher from the very beginning right through their graduation from high school. She never stopped teaching, she never stopped encouraging, and she never stopped loving each child. Her influence on them is immense, as I know it will remain through the rest of their lives. We talk about her frequently, we think about her constantly, and the aching in our hearts goes on and on.

I am so grateful for the wonderful life Shannon gave me, for the wonderful children she gave me, and for the endless, tireless labor of love she freely gave as my wife and our children’s mother through her entire adult life. She was devoted to each of us and put her whole heart into making us happy. I know she was proud of the kids and would remain so today. I am who I am today because my mother gave me a great start and then my wife stood by my side and strengthened me and taught me how to love.

I promised Shannon I would move forward happily, and that’s what I’m doing. I am deeply grateful to have the companionship of a wonderful woman, Joanne Marie Richards Parsons, as a big part of that happy life. We’re both recovering from the loss of our spouses this year. Our relationship is fun and exciting, but we’re also there to comfort and understand each other as we go through the difficult, seemingly endless grieving process. Thank you, Joanne, for making it so easy to love you and for accepting me as I am. And thank you, Shannon, for loving the children and me deeply enough to give us the strength to go on without you. Happy anniversary.

Life’s good and it’s getting better. I can feel my heart get stronger and happier all the time. So the bit of grief I felt today wasn’t a setback. It was just a natural, normal part of my healing.

I love my life.

Here’s a much younger version of me, sporting a classy bow tie and sweater. Check out the family coat of arms there! Great Art courtesy of some photographer and copied by the exclusive iPhone-cam, taken when I was maybe five years old or so, and part of my famous Event series.

Yeah, I know I’m kind of pushing it by calling it an event, but having my picture taken was technically an event. Besides, none of my other famous series relates in an way to this Great Art, so it was my only choice. Don’t like it? Get your own blog. Tough love.

We had a very nice weekend in New Orleans! We didn’t try to do too much, so it was relaxing and peaceful. There were millions of things we would have enjoyed doing, but maybe there will be other trips there, possibly longer than a weekend. As it was, we managed to get to the French Quarter on Saturday, where we ate some very good Louisiana-style food and walked down Bourbon Street, which is just as insane as they say; and we visited a Creole plantation on Sunday, where we had an interesting tour. Sadly, even though the plantation is on the Mississippi, we were unable to see the river due to the levee. Darn flood control! It’s simply not good for tourism. Except for the fact that it keeps everything from being washed away, that is.

So anyway, the only glimpses we got of the actual Mississippi were from bridges. Next time, we’d like to take a riverboat cruise while we’re there. Then we’d see the water for sure.

Our flight out to Louisiana was delayed in Las Vegas for about two and a half hours. On the good side, we had no connection to make. On the bad side, it meant we arrived at the New Orleans airport at about 2:00 AM. Then we had to get a car and get to the Worldmark resort in the Garden District. We were checking in at about 3:00. Fortunately, we had no early plans on Saturday morning. Our departing flight had a one-hour connection in Houston. Fortunately, the first flight was just a few minutes late, as was the second. We arrived home in Vegas pretty much exactly on time.

Weekend trips can be exhausting and frustrating because of the lack of time. I’m very happy to report that traveling with Joanne is just the opposite of that. We had a lovely time.

I have a few work-related things to accomplish this week. Our annual forensics conference is in February, which is fast approaching, and we need to be ready. Better get my eye on the ball, my ear to the tracks, my shoulder to the wheel, and my nose to the grindstone.

I’ll leave my Loyal Readers with this shocking food violence news: bad cookie shooting threat!

See you tomorrow.

Here’s a statue of a dog looking around a corner. Scary! Great Art courtesy of the exclusive iPhone-cam, taken during our June trip to Laguna Beach, and part of my famous Statue and Vacation series.

Extreme Short Shrift today. It’s very late.

Joanne and I went to our friend Kelly’s organization’s awards banquet and silent auction tonight. We had a very nice time, although we didn’t know who any of the people were, didn’t understand what they were talking about, and didn’t really feel a need to learn any of it. It was still interesting, the food was good, and the people we sat with were very nice. So I’m calling it a win.

I was busy all day long, but I’m not entirely sure what I accomplished. I did manage to wrap a very large box for Joanne. I also found the one additional gift I’ve been hoping to find for her. I ordered it and now I’m happy. I think. I also did a bit of work, with much more ready to be done now. I made a quick trip to the pharmacy during the day. Tomorrow’s trips: the bank and Best Buy (shudder) to pick up a gift I already ordered and paid for.

And I’ll leave my Loyal Readers with this exciting Morrowlife Employment Agency job opportunity: Aston Martin-eating dog!

See you tomorrow.