Control

Well, thanks to the Canadiens and Rangers and no thanks to the Bruins and Flyers, the Panthers were officially eliminated from playoff contention last night. Over the past couple of days I have started to think, why do I care? I guess I have been thinking more about the bigger picture, and question why I put energy into a sports team that always seems to find a way to dissappoint in the end.

Cheering on a sports team is something that gives one a great escape for a couple of hours, days, months, however you want to look at it, but, once again, the outcome is out of an individual fans control. Just because I drink out of my Panther coffee cup, or someone else has their lucky lunch, each individual can not effect the outcome of the game that night.

While thinking about the idea of a sports team, and how that is beyond my control, I of course stopped thinking about the idea of sports, and started again focusing on other issues that are occuring, or have occured that are either in or out of my control.

For instance, one huge thing occuring in my life right now is something that really bothers me that I have no control over. No number of lucky coffee cups, or lucky lunches will have an effect, the only thing I can do is hope and pray. My Mother-in-Law is currently battling Leukemia. She has already gone through two rounds of chemo, and is getting her counts back up over the next week or two before moving to Moffitt in Tampa. I am extremely concerned, but the only thing I can do is let Brenda spend as much time with her while I stay home and make sure the kids are taken care of. I feel terrible that I have not visited her yet, but once again, it's more important for Brenda to be there. I have also signed us up for the Light the Night walk, which occurs in October. If anybody would like to donate or join my team at the walk, please visit http://pages.lightthenight.org/pb/BocaRatn09/studyaid. I do appreciate the help and support we have received so far, the people at light the night said they would send Brenda information. Additionally, I just received and e-mail from Kathy putting us in contact with a friend of hers that has gone to Moffitt and come through with flying colors. I'm just glad that Barbara is such a fighter, so I'm hoping for a positive outcome.

Another thing that I realized was out of my control, was that I have a friend that was working through some things. The only thing I could do was be there and listen. I hope it helped, but aside from my control of listening, whatever they decided was their own decision. Right now, it seems like they made the correct one, and once again, I hope for the best.

I can't control the economy, but I can do my best to control what happens at my company. For instance, we are coming out with some great looking titles that cater more towards grades 5-8, and I like to think it's because we all agreed that this was a logical step for the company. By the same token, I didn't think that expanding with a new product in a new market that required deeper discounts was the best move for us right now, especially because the person requesting it could not show the research done, or the viability. I did agree to let them do a test as long as it didn't cost us too much money, but I still believe there are other places to expand without changing our business model.

Bringing this back to sports, the last thing that I realize I can control is learning how to skate and learning how to play hockey. I want to do this for me, and to also allow me to let my son teach me something. I went to the open skate at Incredible Ice on Wednesday evening, and found out that the public skate is $6, but for $10, I could receive a lesson during the public skate and get a free drink at the end. I think I may try that out so I can learn to skate properly. Glacier also offers an adult learn to skate program on Tuesday evenings, but I have to wait until Brenda's semester is over before doing that. Once I can get my skating down, I plan to learn to play.

I don't have anything else, I have to take a shower and go to the doctor who once again will tell me I'm too fat(even though I exercise every day), which is one other thing I can control.