​The fitness facility I attend (Wisconsin Athletic Club – WAC) has an annual grease board they put up on a door for Thanksgiving so members can write what they are thankful for during this season. It’s a great exercise. I have contributed both of the last two years.

The phrases posted by others are enlightening, touching, amusing. In the spirit of thankfulness, I will print what others have written, covering the gamut of our human condition. It says a lot about who we are.
 
What are you thankful for? Anything in parentheses () is my comment as an elaboration:

• Leg day over!! (workout focused hardcore on the legs)
• My health
• Jim
• My girls! One firecracker & one sourpatch!
• That I don’t live in Ukraine, Haiti, the Middle East, Venezuela
• Trump
• Immigrants
• The WAC
• My family
• My health
• My dad’s salsa – GOOD (written in a strange form of hieroglyphics)
• Healthy and family
• Chocolate!
• Leaked feet pics
• My CN (don’t know what that is)
• God (followed by a cross)
• Cancer free for 3 years!
• My kids
• 4eva (In think that means “forever”)
• My bike
• My health (seems to be a favorite)
• My family (heart) X2 (times two, I think)
• The best GFM in the biz! (no idea what GFM stands for)
• Hot dog pickles! Our cats Lucy + Henry
• Doggos (followed by smiley face)
• Family (with a heart and cat face)
• My health
• Fightin’
• Sweet (heart) potatoes
• Myself, for never giving up + always staying true to who I am
• Tyler Van ….., trainer extraordinaire and now he’s a dad; maybe he’ll be nicer during training
• Palestine (with six heart signs)
• MHBE? (I’m a question mark on this, too)
• Family
• FI (????? Financial independence maybe?)
• The gym
• Disney, Disney (with bad drawings of Mickey Mouse)
• My health
• The life I’ve been gifted allows me time to try and make a difference in others!
• Kids, granddaughter
• Navados here (I’m assuming a Spanish phrase?)
• Stable income
• Monday morning Body Pump Warriors !!! (Triple exclamation points; must be intense)
• Dual nationality
• Bianca
• My granddaughter (REALLY BAD handwriting)
• My health
• Cheese! (my personal favorite and it made me LOL while I was stretching)
• Food
• Wrestling season + my boyfriend
• Coach WK
• The love of my life (with a heart)
• My family
• My clients, my job, the WAC community, and of course my family + health and kickass energy (lots of hearts and smiley faces)
• Workout buddies
• My health and my relationship with Jesus Christ
• My health
• The game MOUTHWASHING (no clue what this means -- small images drawn with the post that make no sense to me)
• My health

 
Thankful on Thanksgiving and throughout the year. Write yours down. Save it.

​Though prices have risen on staples in our lives the past 5-6 years, there are still good deals. These are the forgotten items we seldom consider because they serve you in life consistently and with little fanfare.
 
Take the bar of soap, for example. How great is it?
 
Been around for centuries. Easy to make. Cheap. Lasts forever.
 
Not only can you bathe with it, but in a pinch you use a bar of soap can wash your hair, do your laundry, clean your dishes (okay, your food or drinks may bet a bit soapy taste, but what the heck, you have to sacrifice somewhere).
 
What does one cost? Well, if you purchase in bulk, you can easily get a bar for less than 50 cents. And that gets you more than a month’s worth of body cleaning. Well worth it. A bargain.
 
In 1982, when I bicycled across North America, I brought one bar of Ivory Soap. Bathed with it, washed my clothes with it, shampooed my hair with it. What a deal. I forget how long it lasted that summer, but it sure earned its keep.
 
How about white undershirts, the classic tee? If you buy a package, you probably get each individual shirt for under a buck. That’s a steal.
 
You can work in the yard in that white tee shirt. Wear it under your dress shirt. After it’s become ragged, turn it into a cloth rag for washing your car. You can lift weights or run a marathon in the white tee.
 
As its whiteness deteriorates, it takes on great flavor to impress your friends with how you’ve lived the past four years. “That’s where I spilled my Bloody Mary during the Bears game at Lambeau Field. That spot first appeared two-and-a-half years ago when I splashed coffee while we were vacationing in Uba Tuba. Those grass stains come from our annual Thanksgiving football game down at the local high school.” And, so on.

The white tee shirt tells a story. It explains how you’ve lived.
 
How about radishes? They are a steal.
 
Inexpensive, tasty, great fiber. Perfect to munch on before dinner, you can get a large package for under two dollars. They can help lower blood sugar and are a source of antioxidants that might help protect against cancer and lower inflammation. Radishes are also a rich source of magnesium, potassium and vitamin c. Give me five right now.
 
I’ll end this value list with hooded sweatshirts. Not only does the hooded sweatshirt provide multiple functions and serve you well through fall, winter and spring in Wisconsin, but you can have fun and funny logos on it, like “Cycleologist,” which puzzles people and initiates conversation.
 
On those in-between temperature days, who cares if you forgot gloves because you can slide your hands into the front pocket. Similarly, it doesn’t matter if you forgot your hat when it’s 40 degrees out because you have the hoodie whenever you need it. All those functions and years of use for $50.
 
These are all good deals. If only you could live with a bar of soap, radishes, white tee shirts and a sweatshirt. It would be a simple and sweet life.

​A couple of weeks back, I passed a car with a license plate that read, “I Know.” For some reason this stood out to me.

I thought, “Hmmmmm, I wonder what they meant?” Did this individual have some answers to the world’s problems, to some of life’s eternal mysteries? Was this person indicating agreement with you, saying, “I know what you mean?”
 
My questions cannot be answered. But, then again, this driver already “knew” that because they know.
 
Those mental machinations of mine amused me for a bit, and I jotted down some thoughts to write this column, because what came to me afterwards is a bit about how many people today have hardened opinions and say “I know,” like it is “I know more than you do.” There’s a one-upsmanship with this concept.
 
Somebody watches a news program and after 17 seconds of images and 13 seconds of a voice-over by the announcer with no substantiating evidence, the viewer may come to believe they “know” what is going on regarding that issue, incident or policy. When they really don’t.

Instead, they don’t know. They’ve gotten a taste of what’s going, but that’s about it.
 
This past week, I was struck by a lengthy piece in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that revolved around the current status of illegal aliens committing crimes in the United States, how they are being pursued and deported, which agencies are responsible for which actions, where money is being funneled to address the issue, and so on. It was complex. It was lengthy reading. There was/is no quick and easy solution.
 
Instead, like most of life, what is going on regarding addressing illegal aliens committing crimes in the U.S. is very nuanced. Many steps are being taken. Progress is being made. But, many people don’t want to hear or acknowledge that.
 
More needs to be done, but rather than focusing on what positive steps can be taken next, dialogue tends to focus on “I know.” Political candidates in their desire to push your emotional buttons, boil issues until they singe your mouth. They burn you with short bursts of misleading or incomplete information that inflame viewers.
 
People rage. Their blood pressure rises. They point fingers. All because they “know” what is going on and someone else doesn’t.
 
Really, all this comes down to is the processing of information in our brain cells, and where that information comes from, and how accurate it is. The struggle today is taking the time and making the effort to dig in. Shovel all that data. Make sense of it.
 
We humans are emotional creatures. We don’t like to be wrong, much less admit we didn’t know what we thought we knew. How often have you admitted to a friend, colleague, neighbor or relative that you were wrong on something? Or, that you had incomplete information and you wanted to receive more before coming to a decision?
 
What typically happens, I believe, is the hair on the back of your neck stands up when we are challenged and we stick to, “I know.” Instead of, “Hmmmm, tell me more.”
 
I like not knowing things. Then I can ask questions and learn more. And that, fundamentally, leads to better decision-making.