All in Musings
I’m on vacation and I’m still doing laundry. The best thing about staying with family, other than they’re pretty damn great, is the washer and dryer. I can wash our clothes so when we get home we just have to unpack and put things away—no ungodly piles of laundry to deal with!
Just like everyone, I go through highs and lows. Sometimes life is smooth and steady—you have a perfect balance of challenge and comfort, you’re relationships are solid and your mental and physical health is in a groove. Other times, everything is a wreck—you’re stressed, exhausted, unhealthy, unbalanced and struggling to get back on track.
When I turned 40 I created a list of 40 things I knew for certain. I’ve added one to the list every year. So in honor of the most generic birthday one can celebrate, I present to you 43 Things I Know.
I was about 9 when my parents bought me an old upright piano and agreed to weekly lessons. Up to that point, most things I tried came pretty easy to me. I excelled at reading, buzzing through Dick and Jane books with ease and by that age I was able to follow a recipe well enough to bake brownies from scratch. I’m sure I assumed piano would be similar especially since my first grade teacher, Mrs. Cabrera, was also my piano teacher.
I’d like to pretend I’m a lioness (strong leader), a cheetah (fast), a horse (graceful beauty) or a shark (total badass) but in all reality, I’m that dopey golden retriever. No orca, giraffe or wolf for me—I’m an ordinary canine.
If you live in the Cincinnati area and haven’t heard about BLINK, you must be living under a rock. BLINK is a light, art and projection mapping festival spanning 30 city blocks from Findlay Market and crossing the Roebling Suspension Bridge into Covington. There are food trucks, live music, performance artists, murals, beer booths and lots of people. Actually, there are 1.5 million people projected to attend over the four day festival.
One of my favorite birthday presents of all time was the Hot Wheels City i received from my Aunt Peggy for my 7th birthday. Second only to Fisher Price Little People, Hot Wheels and Matchbox cars were some of my favorite toys. Still are to this day.
Just like every other 9-year-old in the world, I hated going to sleep. My brother, Jeremy, is 6 years older so he was allowed to stay up much later than me. When 8:45 rolled around and it was time to put down my book or walk away from the TV to brush my teeth and get ready for bed, I’d trot out my acting skills in an attempt to convince my mother that I was wide awake and should be able to stay up. This never worked.
Because of my own struggles with fitness, it’s unexplainable that I agreed to train for the Columbus Marathon with my bff, Molly. Sure, we were raising money for Leukemia Lymphoma Society (my mom’s a Lymphoma survivor and her dad succumbed to Leukemia) and the race was the day after I turned 30, but it still seemed like an unattainable goal. Speaking of goals, I frequently joked throughout training that I just didn’t want to be last place.
I’m convinced that happiness is not a proper goal. In fact, only pursuing happiness is the surest way to unhappiness. Preoccupation with the pursuit frequently leads to missing the organic moments of relief, comfort and joy that happen every day. As I’m working to live my life with more intention, I’ve become more and more aware of those bursts of happiness throughout my day.
I don’t understand boredom, never have.
Well, there was this one time in about 1984 when I uttered the word bored. Quicker than I knew what happened I was in the barn, ankle-deep in cow shit spending a hot summer afternoon contemplating all the fun things I could have been doing had I just taken a few minutes to find some fun instead of whining.
October is here!
By all accounts, yes ALL, October is the best month out of the year. Why, you ask? Well, I’ll tell you, but first I’m going to share my goals for this month.
