Yesterday marked a departure in my annual Constitution Day festivities. For the last 3 years I’ve gone to one of my kids’ elementary school classrooms and thrown a birthday party for the Constitution complete with cookie cake, candles, patriotic plates and napkins, party favors and a brief presentation about the honoree. Kids know birthday parties so it’s fun way to highlight and celebrate the Constitution while piquing their interest in the subject. I always leave feeling renewed and excited about the possibility and potential of helping our kids – “Liberty’s kids” – to learn to love these things. And seeing their faces light up does a mom’s heart “good”. All is not lost if we look for fun and innovative ways to celebrate our country’s unique and exceptional heritage. I believe there’s a document that reminds us we have a duty to do these things but it’s birthday is in July!
Noteworthy
Personal insights and notes while I “Do the work.”
Personal Note: The Second ‘Near Miss’
Ty strikes his best Karate Kid pose! (Anne says he looks like a pink flamingo!)
In my haste to draw conclusions from our ‘near miss‘ at Lake Austin a week ago, I think I may have missed the most important lesson; the second ‘near miss‘ if you will, or in in the mathematical sense: ‘near miss squared‘ (the near miss of the near miss). Sorry, my meticulous nature gets the better of me occasionally! This occurred as I was relaying the incident to Roger’s great aunt at a family gathering a few days later.
My history of sharing scary kid stories with Aunt Ginger goes way back as we’ve both had terrifying, health-related issues with a child at a young age. This is the bond we share. After I relayed the incident, Aunt Ginger looked squarely at me and stated: “Well, it wasn’t Ty’s time because IF it WAS, He wouldn’t still be HERE!” Light bulb!
That’s the take-away . . . as mere mortals we are not in charge! And Ty’s near miss was a startling reminder of this fact. Now I know the existence of The Creator, God, is a matter of opinion that is accepted on faith by believers, of which I am one. But it IS worth noting that our founder’s belief in the equal, natural rights of all human beings forms the moral foundation of our nation. And so religion, like the Constitution, is just the expression of how we choose to govern ourselves in accordance with that belief.
Benjamin Franklin summarized religion like this:
“Here is my creed: I believe in one God, the Creator of the universe. That he governs it by his providence. That he ought to be worshipped. That the most acceptable service we render to him is in doing good to his other children. That the soul of man is immortal, and will be treated with justice in another life respecting its conduct in this. These I take to be the fundamental points in all sound religion.”
Amen.
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Personal Note: 12″ from The Worst Day of My Life
Have you ever had one of those ‘bad karma’ days when things were just off? Our family has them occasionally, when things are out-of-sync. Ours are usually marked by 3 “near misses” or close calls. Friday was one of those days . . .
Vacation this year consisted of staying close to home with some day trips to local area lakes for boating, as our spring break trip to CPAC in Washington D.C. (more on this later) consumed most of our annual vacation funds. The kids had been wanting to get wake boards so my husband located a couple of used ones in Austin. We’d pick up the boards then spend the day on Lake Austin.
En route a compartment of our boat sprung open – first incident. Luckily my husband is in the habit of glancing in the rear view mirror frequently when pulling a load. Disaster was averted and no permanent damage done just some minor repairs to be done during the off season. After making it safely to the boat ramp and launching our boat it began making funny noises. A brief inspection revealed the culprit was low power-steering fluid. Not a show stopper but still enough to qualify as incident two.
Still unaware that we were in the midst of ‘one of those days’ the kids began piloting the wake boards. First Jack, then Anne and rounding out with Ty, our 9 year old. Like the other two, Ty got up on the board immediately and skimmed across the water with relative ease. After tiring he wiped out and we were preparing to go back and pick him up when incident three commenced . . .
Never taking my eyes off Ty floating in the water I see a jet ski with 2 people come in to view. Moving closer and at a high rate of speed I notice they’re traveling in our wake and heading straight for Ty. I watch from the back of the boat – frozen – as they lunge ever closer never changing course. Closer, CLOSER, it occurs to me that they don’t see him and are going to run over my kid right in front of very eyes! Feeling like I’m about to jump out of my skin I go nuts . . . screaming, jumping up and down, helplessly flailing my arms in the air. Then literally within a foot of striking Ty the man riding shotgun on the jet ski reaches around the female driver and turns the steering wheel sharply, missing my youngest by inches! (Later, Ty said all he saw as he turned around was the white bottom of the jet ski ‘near my face’!) If it had been any other type of watercraft it wouldn’t have had responsive enough steering to avert disaster!
The next moments remain fuzzy to me. The jet skiers stopped and apologetically waved from a safe distance. But I was so hysterical that no one, least of all the would-be offenders, would come near me. My reaction was visceral and left me in a contemplative funk for the rest of the day.
How fragile life is! And so, living thankfully and purposefully is a good thing. As Americans we are in possession of one of life’s greatest blessings – the liberty brand – which relatively few people in human history have experienced. May we acknowledge and faithfully accept our stewardship of “The Original American Brand” so we can bequeath the American Dream to our children in the tradition of our forefathers.
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Personal Note: Tax Day 2013 – “The Perfect Storm”
I don’t know when I’ve felt this unnerved about anything in the recent past. For the first time in 20+ years my husband and I filed a tax extension this year. Our tax filing proved especially challenging because we underestimated our withholding and changed an investment strategy from “pre-tax” to “post-tax”. Additionally, the small company another mom and myself started two years ago miraculously turned a “profit”, at least in an accounting sense. These three factors combined to form a staggering tax liability that left me “gasping for air” when I opened my accountant’s email several days ago. I refer to it now as “the perfect storm” both for the shear size of the amount owed and for the way it’s made my stomach churn since learning the news.
I want to cry but I know it’s as useless as “crying over spilt milk”. Plus I don’t want to worry my three kids. Like any kids, they get especially freaked out when mom cries. The thing that bothers me the most is that my kids are the reason I started the company. Several years ago I began worrying – almost to the point of anxiety – over the direction of our country. Deciding that I needed to take action, I started a small company called The Liberty Brand Co. with another concerned mom. We’ve worked tirelessly, without pay, for the last two years because we are devoted to our cause (Liberty’s kids) and convinced of its importance. We’ve funded our enterprise solely through personal savings. Needless to say, due to the ignorance of accounting principles on my part we show a profit, despite the fact that we’ve spent far more than we’ve taken in. The thing that astounds me the most is that it increased my personal income taxes by more than the “profit” we produced! For all that work, I only made matters worse.
I look at my kids and know I won’t give up but I’m discouraged. I answered “the call” and have tried to steward it faithfully and to the best of my ability. To date I’ve fallen short. I just wonder if these are some of the feelings the founding fathers had when they “mutually pledge(d) to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor ” on a hot July day that was the antithesis of today – “Tax Day”?!
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