Chim

We have a client whose father had been addicted to gambling since the age of 18. Who knows how much money he wasted on his habit? Not only his own money, but a good portion of his two sons' finances, who were constantly bailing him out of trouble throughout the years.

Last November the father was diagnosed with a brain cancer of some sort. The family finally decided to step in and get a guardian/conservator to manage the father's affairs, something that would have saved the family hundreds of thousands of dollars had they set up the conservatorship 40 years earlier.

Our office spent an entire week doing all the legal work setting up an emergency and general guardian/conservator, which costs over 7k. Unfortunately, the father died a couple of days after the emergency guardian/conservator was appointed.

If you know anyone who cannot manage their own affairs, do something to stop them from wasting everything they have.

Our office has managed one file since the early 90's. When the conservatorship was opened the client was in debt for over 50K. Now his estate is somewhere in the neighborhood of 400K, even with the conservatee blowing through 3K per month.

My father-in-law is a huge believer in 'Dress for Success.' This means grey suits, white shirts, black shoes, conservative ties, and in the colder months, a khaki or off white colored overcoat. For Christmas my in-law's got me a Ralph Lauren 100% camel hair over coat. Few clothing items make me feel good this good about myself, but I feel like a million dollars every time I suit up in this coat. I wear it around the apartment.

My father-in-law told me at court (and other building with elevators) the people wearing dark colored overcoats will yield to the light colored overcoats getting onto the elevator. I put this to the test yesterday when I was in the Downtown St. Paul Courthouse wearing this bright luxurious coat heading to the top floor. I found that attornies older than me let me get onto the elevator before them!

I relayed the story back to my father-in-law and he said that his theory is that the courtesy is a subconscious yielding of the light, or good, over the dark. It is such a strange phenomena that his explanation might be right.

Anne and I got into a friendly debate at 2am the other morning about whether to go comfort young Lucy, who has gotten in the habit of screaming in the middle of the night. I decided to not go into her room to pick her up. She stopped crying after a couple of minutes. I feel like there is a real dilema there: if you get in the habit of going into their room every time they scream, that sends the child the message that they can get whatever they want when they scream. If there is a real problem, you should comfort the young one. The line is blurry to me, and it is worse when one is tired.

The next night Lucy was screaming but I had the foreknowledge that her molars were coming in. I was up for around an hour holding her upright because I knew she was in pain when she was lying down. But then I asked myself for how long am I supposed to do this? I am cracked out in a bad way today from staying up with her. I gave her some baby oragel before putting her back to bed and she cried for a couple of minutes before going back to sleep.

I don't know if this is universal in marriages but it seems like the woman errs on the side of caring too much for the little one and the man too little. If I hadn't known that Lucy was in pain because of her back teeth I probably could have gone back to sleep despite her screams, for the reason mentioned above. Maybe the answer is in attaining the mean in those situations with the knowledge you have to go on. Maybe there is no answer and the married people will solve the problem in their own way.

I've been thinking alot about this great thing lately. It seems like everyone has it in some aspect of their lives and not in others. I don't think I possessed discipline at all when I was younger, except maybe temporarily when I was trying to get something I wanted.

Training with the kettlebell, specifically the Enter the Kettlebell program outlined by Pavel Tsatsouline in 'Enter the Kettlebell!' has given me new perspective on discipline. I think discipline breaks down to these three elements: Have a specific and reasonable goal, do what you have to do to get there, and know when to rest. Most people go there entire lives without determing a specific goal, that was no revelation. The surprising element for me has been the third thing, to rest.

It takes alot of discipline to rest when there is something that you want that is moving you. When I first started with KBs I would pretty much workout every day. Not that that is horrible thing, but I have found that resting 1-2 days a week has counterintuitively helped my pressing numbers. More importantly though, the patience required to back off from doing something you love has transferred into other parts of my life.

I was thinking on the longest night experience I blogged about yesterday and I realized that I still have a long way to go, especially in the little things. I can recount several circumstances where Anne will ask me to help her out in some matter and I will go fetch some water or some other small thing first, and then go and help her. Even though the effect is small, there is some disorder there.

One of the most difficult and cliche things about having a brand new baby is the lack of sleep and the patience the situation requires. I pray to St. Joseph and the Holy Family often to ask for patience, humility, charity, and obedience. It seems to me that patience has been the strongest auxilary for juggling a couple of babies while my wife is recovering from her surgery and doing alot of work with the new baby all while operating on less sleep than you're used to.

Lucy always sleeps soundly throughout the night. Young Andrew sleeps well for a new born. Two nights ago neither happened. Andrew was caught in a vicious cycle of eating, vomiting, and being hungry again. Anne was beginning to lose her patience, and understandably so. After five cycles, Andrew finally went to sleep. After a week of broken sleep, Anne and I were ready to get a couple of hours before another day.

Then Lucy woke up crying. We thought she might be cold so I went in to put a blanket over her. She was wide awake and would not stop crying until I picked her up. I tried rocking her back to sleep but nothing was happening. I won't bore you with the details, but she ended up staying awake for almost two hours.

The whole thing was an oscillation between being patient and being on the verge of losing my mind. Anne had a great attitude toward the situation and that tipped the balance in favor of me remaining calm and helpful throughout the ordeal. Anne was extremely tired though and did something out of character for her, especially considering my crippling struggles in the past: she offered me some of her painkillers.

I think it was an act of love. She saw what I was going through and knew a couple of feel good pills would make me... feel better. If she wasn't so tired, there is no way she would ever tempt me like that.

I somehow reacted by thinking about Christ on the cross and the soldier offering him wine and gaul(?) to lessen His pain and suffering. My suffering at that moment obviously didn't come close to what He went through but I truly felt some kind of cosmic connection when offered something to relieve the situation.

Two nights ago I was lying awake in the night after the babies finally went down after an epic battle of wills. I was categorizing my life and came up with something that pleased me: My life is my family, my job, Christ, and strength training with Russian Kettlebells. I love these four things and having them dominate my day to day life has made me the happiest I have ever been. The unhealthy habits I used to live by have been gone for some time. So I decided I want to give my blog a little change and start posting primarily amount these four things that have become my day to day existence.

was born on the 23rd at 5:24am. 9 lbs 10.5 oz 22 in. 15 in. head

Mom and baby are back home and are healthy and happy. Lucy is adjusting well too.

Merry Christmas!

The night after my last blog, the day of terror, my father-in-law graciously and providentially invited Anne and I to go to First Friday mass and he would watch babechin. The priest saying this mass is by far the greatest priest I've ever seen. A sign of his holiness is that our lukewarm bishop moved him from the large parish at which he was assistant pastoring to a remote nursing home. Anne and I affectionately call him "St. Thomas." He was saying mass the night Anne and I went and the Holy Spirit was so strong during his homily that I started getting frightened.