This has been a very quiet weekend – I have not had a weekend where I was doing nothing in FOREVER and I am not sure that I like that much time on my hands. I cannot give you all the details for this time of respite this week; but, I promise I will next week when I can give you the full story.

This past week has been busy – not – because it was Thanksgiving; but, because on Tuesday we supported our Annual Board of Trustees and 2013 Budget. This is the most important event that we do for the entire year and it must go flawlessly. This meeting is always held the Tuesday before Thanksgiving and is a 5 hour event. Our set up began on Monday with the entire day tables, chairs and microphones being installed, taped down and tested. The video conference was tested to the sites we would be connecting to and the streaming company made sure that we had a strong signal. Tuesday arrived and more testing was conducted, sites were connected via video conference, all microphones were tested and wires taped down. The combined conference room would hold close to 100 individuals, primarily Board of Trustees and the Executive Management of each of the hospitals. This meeting would highlight our accomplishments for the year and focus on the budgets for 2013. Other than letting you know how this meeting is conducted – why am I making it a blog this week? I am making it a blog this week because of the generosity of the organization I work for and the Trustees on our Board. As you all know we in the Northeast have suffered through Hurricane Sandy and then a nor’easter a week later. Many of us were unaffected except to be inconvenienced with no power for a few days or a couple of weeks; but, many more people lost their homes, their cars and some even their jobs.

At North Shore LIJ Management put a fund together for employees to make sure that they could live somewhere, have a mode of transportation and even borrow money at 0% interest to get their lives back together. What I did not know was that the Chairman of the Board of Trustees was asking the Trustees for donations to help the employees. A couple of them had run into employees who were at the hospital working despite having lost everything – and I do mean everything; but, the clothes they were in. The Chairman proceeded to announce how only 42% of the Trustees had donated to the Employee’s Fund and that he was prepared to make them very uncomfortable. The meeting proceeded and the budget was presented to the Trustees and approved; but, just before the meeting was adjourned one of the Trustees raised her hand – when she was called upon she told the Chairman that she and her husband had discussed and agreed to donate $500,000 to the Employees Fund and she challenged her fellow Trustees to do the same.

I was shocked as was my team to see this couple donate a half million dollars so quickly. I was also proud and honored to work for an organization where the Board of Trustees considers and supports the employees of the organization. I have only before worked for Fortune 500 companies and those Boards have only been concerned with the money they were receiving for attending the meeting and/or the value of the stock. This Board is totally selfless and truly cares for the employees and their livelihood. Every day I am honored to work for this organization.

Thanksgiving was quiet with just immediate family and the food was delicious. This year besides buying the pies, I also baked corn bread (fresh, no Jiffy mix here) and pumpkin bread – these are two things that Callum likes and I am always happy to bake or cook anything he will eat. As I said the rest of the weekend was quiet and I was pretty much limited to what I could do – but, that is next week’s blog and I will fill you in on the full story then.

For now – let’s be thankful for what we have and Stay Tuned.

Life has begun to get busy – and Thanksgiving isn’t even here yet. How many of you are beginning to feel the crunch? In November we have two birthdays in the family, my nephew and his father, my cousin. Gerard’s birthday was this past Saturday and I asked him when he wanted to celebrate – he said, Saturday. Friday I went food shopping and then that evening I found out that he had to take a class on Saturday so could we celebrate on Sunday. No problem. Saturday I took my two workout classes and bought gift cards that I needed for his birthday. That evening I set up the table and wrapped his gift. Sunday I went to Zumba, then to the bakery to pick up Gerard’s birthday cake. At home, cake in the refrigerator and all the pots, pans were out for when I needed them. Now some “me” time, I watched CBS Sunday Morning News with Charles Osgood – it was their “Eat, Drink and Be Merry” episode and one that I enjoy. I tape this show every Sunday morning since it comes on at 9AM and my Zumba class begins at 9:15 – it is a wonderful show and gives you vignettes of different things happening in the world, the nation both with a look to culture and just expanding a little bit of our mind. I wholeheartedly urge you to try it.

Now, it is time to get everything prepped. I made the salad and placed it in the refrigerator – the only thing I needed to do was to slice the avocado before putting it on the table. I peeled and sliced the onions for the mushrooms and onions I would serve to place on the steaks and I peeled and cut the potatoes and placed them in water to make mashed potatoes. Now I was getting one of the appetizers ready – I wrapped cantaloupe in prosciutto and scored with a toothpick, placed saran wrap on it and placed it in the refrigerator. I soon hear Ryan at the front door so out come the crackers, cheese and pepperoni on to the cocktail and the melon with prosciutto. I had bought Gerard the Sam Adams Winter Lager and Callum has decided he would like some chocolate milk and we are watching the Jets on the television. A wonderful afternoon with family.

Siobhan and Matt arrive not too much later and everyone has something to drink while we just sit and talk about the new house, Thanksgiving dinner – what are we having, who is making what (she is making turnips for her brother as part of his birthday gift); and, besides having purchased the pies I agree to make cornbread and pumpkin bread. We also discussed celebrating their father’s birthday – it is not until November 29th but he will not be in New York for it – so on Wednesday evening we will take him to Banzai Hibachi in their town. Today I ordered a birthday cake for him and I will pick it up on Wednesday on my way home from an appointment in the city. The remainder of dinner went fine with steamed vegetables, mashed potatoes and steak. Callum who loves cake and addresses all cake as “birthday cake” could not wait for us to bring it to the table. He was also the last one to leave the table as he ate his entire piece. Since we all enjoyed the cake – I ordered the same one for Gerry for Wednesday which we will have after our dinner at Banzai. I also picked up the gift cards for Gerry – I have some CDs for him; but, he has gotten a little difficult to buy for.

Is it terrible to say that I am looking forward to Friday? I will sleep a little later than normal since my High Performance 30 class isn’t being held and the balance class is not until 10:15. Since Thanksgiving is so early I will not be putting up my Christmas decorations – I will wait until the end of the next week and do it then. Instead I will watch some of the Christmas shows I have DVR’d since Lifetime and the Hallmark Channel decided to air them right after Halloween. Then because we are now in full holiday season I will look to take three (3) workout classes on Saturday – my only problem is that since two of them are Zumba classes I will have to wear a knee brace on each knee – they are beginning to hurt in some classes and I need to start protecting them. Surprisingly on yesterday’s CBS Sunday Morning News they announced that the average weight gain in the 6 to 7 weeks of the holiday season is only 0.8 pounds not 5 to 7 like most of us have thought. Doesn’t mean we can indulge – but, does state everything in moderation.

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving with your families.

Getting back to normal – I think that is what all of us want in the tri-state area. For some of us like me that will be easy to do – for some 40,000 others in this area; what is normal? What will their futures be? Will they continue to live in this area? I have been working from home for the last two weeks, as a result of this I have not experienced sitting in line for hours to get gas. I had filled up my tank the Sunday before Hurricane Sandy hit and in these past two weeks I drove to the gym and the grocery store; along the way I would stop at the cleaners, bank, Post Office and Home Depot. Today I topped off my tank although I was only at half a tank – I am so glad I have a Honda CRV which is excellent on gas. I have been able to work from home these past two weeks; projects are on schedule, meetings have been held and daily I have spoken to my team. But, tomorrow it is time to get some normalcy – I will go into the city for a meeting, Tuesday I will go into the office and then on Thursday back into the city for another meeting. I will only need to drive out to Long Island for one day and this will certainly be easy for me on gas since it is over 100 miles roundtrip. Do you realize that in 11 days it will be Thanksgiving? As a family we have chosen a day to celebrate it – this year it will be on the actual day, Thursday. It will just be the family as we are a small group it will only be 9 of us at the dinner. As always I will buy the pies, the Godiva turkeys for the family and I am thinking of baking a couple of bread loaves to bring.

My gym, Club Fit is collecting coats and food for the Thanksgiving season. I brought a coat in last Monday and tomorrow morning I will drop a large shopping bag full of food. This is the time of year to acknowledge how fortunate we are – and to help others have a good holiday season.

I am expecting that when I get back into the office we will have notification on the family we will have adopted for the holidays. We will receive an email with what they need and what the children would like for Christmas – as usual I tend to go overboard and will look to buy them everything on the list. I can’t state enough how much the holidays especially Christmas is for children and there is no greater joy than to see them get excited when they receive a present.

This year one of our hospitals was chosen by Cisco, one of our vendors for their Santa Program. We are all excited about this – on December 10th Santa will come to the hospital, we will stage an area for him and then he will video conference with the children at the hospital. We will look to set up a small video conference system in the play room where the children who are active can sit down and chat to Santa; for those children who are bedridden we will bring an iPad into their rooms and they will be able to chat with Santa from the iPad. Every single one of us are excited to be working on this program – it again personifies the holiday season and I have been told that there will not be a dry eye amongst us. This is normal – to be thinking of the holiday season, of Thanksgiving dinner with the family and how to help others who are not as fortunate; but, who are entitled to a wonderful season also.

I hope that for most of you – you are back to normal. At this time, please think of those that normal is an unknown.

Be Thankful

It is difficult for me to write this week’s blog without even knowing how many of you have survived Hurricane Sandy. I can say that in my lifetime which is just over a half century I have never experienced anything so devastating and that includes 9/11. To give you an update my family and I are fine and so are our homes. The worst we experienced was lack of power for a couple of days and having to throw out what was in our refrigerators and freezers – no big deal all of that can be replaced.

I still have friends who are now on a full week of no power and are looking at their second week of no power; but, they still have their homes and cars with no damage. I do have some work colleagues who I understand have had car and home damage; but, none to the extent of the individuals who lived on the shores of Long Island, New Jersey and Staten Island. I cannot even mention the folks from Breezy Point in Brooklyn who lost their homes to flood and fire – 111 of them.

In a few weeks we will be celebrating Thanksgiving – a truly traditional American holiday. A holiday that it does not matter what your ethnic background or religious belief is; because we are Americans honoring the first families who came to this land and gave thanks for their freedom. So although we may have to wait in lines for gas, may not yet have our power or cannot find our favorite food on the store shelves – let’s give thanks that we have a roof over our heads, we have a car that we can use to get us to places and that this too shall pass.

As we give thanks – let’s think of ways that we can help and support those families which have been less fortunate than us. Can we provide clothes, food to them and can we place pressure on our local and federal government to ensure that our fellow New Yorkers, New Jerseyans and Connecticut neighbors receive the aid that they are due.

Being an American means helping others – this time let’s help our own.