Neil Diamond / National Compliment Day

            Normally, by this time of the year, I would be out hiking, but the pneumonia that I went to the hospital for after New Orleans is hanging on as a cough inside of me. The picture below is my lung from when I went in the E.R., and yes, the white is pneumonia. 

            Message for life and how to live better: Don't wait like I did.

            If you'd like to read my trip to winter waterfall wonderland Rickett's Glen in 2015, that's HERE.

If you'd like to read last year's winter hiking with waterfalls, that's HERE.

            As a result, I’ve been running the humidifier and hitting the Vick’s rub. I do miss being out, and it will be nice to find time to take a quick walk around the Ephrata Rails to Trails later this week, but for now, it’s been nice to build puzzles with my dad. Both Sunday and today were marathon stretches with 2 different puzzles, and even though neither finished the endeavor, it just felt good to zone out on the crazy colors and to build.

            Other than that, my wife and I are going all Tiffany Haddish and doing the Groupon thing. If you’ve never been on Groupon, it’s national site where you can buy vouchers / gifts for local food, businesses, and activities for deep discounts (half or more usually). There are also services, travel, and items, so you definitely want to check it (and her Youtube video out) to learn more (than Jada Pinkett Smith knew about Groupons for alligator tours south of NOLA – coincidentally, they went out of the same place we did over our vacation). 

             By the way, Ms. Haddish actually is the Groupon spokeswoman because of this little bit that went viral. On that note, we at Chateau Glass find her hilarious... so here's hoping that compliment inspires you to check this out.

            For my wife and me, we went to a stained glass class, which was a lot of fun. Now, my wife is all into stained glass, as she bought her own and set up the dining room as her art room. I’m down with her doing that because: 1) she’s happier when she’s creative and 2) we’re going to make more stained glass together. My first time was a little difficult, but a lot of fun as we made sun catchers (cutting, soldering, piecing together), and mine was good, though hers is better. When it was done, I did my pre-National Compliment Day (WHICH SHOULD BE ALL DAY EVERY DAY, BUT IS TODAY) online favorability rating with review on how good Lynn was at helping both of us (and all the other people). She even provided help techniques for steadiness with tremor, so yeah… life is good.

            As for compliments and reviews, I always try to leave positive ones. Whether it’s for waitresses, Wal-Mart employees, tour guides, or all the people who helped my wife get through her ACL debacle in 2015 (out in Vegas), people need to hear the good things.

In my 50 of Life’s Learning statements, I wrote: If you have an opportunity to applaud someone for his / her work, do it. If you have a chance to tell said person’s supervisor about what’s right about that person, do it. If you have a chance to put out a glowing recommendation in public, do it. If you have the opportunity to slam someone for his / her mistakes, think about it first. Is it really a wrong or did you not get what you wanted? Then, think about this quote: “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.” If you’re still wronged, tell how to fix it in the response and say why it’s wrong. Don’t trash a person’s life to seek revenge. Remember, punishment is about rehabilitation, not ending a person. Yes, sometimes, people can do true evil, but that’s rare (and requires different actions altogether). Like many of you, I’m working on this.

Today, I applaud a person and a group of people.

1)      Neil Diamond. Thank you for your bravery in coming out as a Parkie. I hope you can continue to do great things for our healing and helping movement.

2)      Neil’s fans. They supported him, and many even gave concert ticket money from refunds to charity. Now that’s just too cool, so I hope it spreads like wildfire.

And that’s a good reason to compliment Neil’s song “Cherry, Cherry,” which is just fantastic before I watch Saving Silverman (starring him, Jack Black, Jason “the pie guy from American Pie” Biggs, Steve Zahn, and Amanda Peet, as well as R. Lee Ermey).

Have a great day, readers! Let me compliment you on your choice of spending your time reading my writing. I really value that…  A LOT!!!