My Happiness Challenge–Part II

In Part I, I covered five happiness boosters: exercise, sleep, reducing your daily commute, spending time with friends and family, and smiling. I’m feeling happier already, but the article I read about happiness,  10 Simple Things You Can Do Today That Will Make You Happier, Backed By Science, obviously has five more ideas to try. Some of these are more involved and will take more time and effort to achieve.

Next up is getting outside. The American Meteorological Society found that 13.9 degrees Celsius is perfect. Being an engineer, I had to convert that to Fahrenheit…exactly 57 degrees, which makes me wonder if they didn’t measure in Fahrenheit and then convert to Celsius! I’m not sure I agree that 57 degrees is ideal, but it sure is a nice temperature for running. Aside from the recent Polar Vortex driving the temperature below zero (way below zero in Celsius), I live in a four season climate…maybe the average year round temperature is near 57, but it swings much colder in winter and much warmer in summer.  So, while I’ll enjoy my outdoor experiences more some times during the year than others, I need to get out more. 20 minutes a day is enough to improve happiness. I am certainly happier when I run or walk outside, even in bad weather, than I am when I use my treadmill. I’ve gotten in the bad habit this winter of staying inside too much. Part of this is the lack of available daylight, so I’ll try to get out at lunchtime during the week to soak up a bit of sun and fresh air. Maybe I’ll ask along a co-worker to add socializing and smiling (a triple happiness hit!).

It might surprise some people to learn that helping others increases happiness. So does buying something for another person rather than yourself. Even the gift of kindness makes us happier people. Doing these things on a regular basis can be a real happiness booster. As a mom, I wonder if doing things for your kids gives the same benefit. Parents are always buying things for their kids, helping them with miriad tasks, and teaching kindness by example. I surely hit the two-hours per week recommended in the article if I count parenting! I used to volunteer much more than two hours a week, but I’ve had to cut back in recent years. I think I can incorporate this idea in multiple areas of my life. At work, I coach and mentor people, and I will try to be more structured in making sure I’m helping and supportive. At home, of course, there’s all that positive parenting to do. Now I just need to find some form of volunteering that I can fit into my life again. It’s time.

Now it’s time to plan a vacation. Apparently this can lead to weeks of happy anticipation. After the vacation happiness drops back to normal, so the planning is key even if you don’t go on the vacation. I’m not sure about this one. I have planned quite a few vacations in the last several years. I don’t use a travel agent, and maybe that is why I find it rather stressful to plan a vacation. Anticipating the vacation is something else, it can lift my mood each and every time I think about my next vacation. My next step will be brainstorming where I’d like to go…that should do the trick.

For me, the next one is the hardest…meditation. I might need a hard-core class in this, or even a retreat, and I definitely don’t have that on my list of things to do…unless I plan my vacation around it. Meditation can have a tremendous impact on happiness right away and over the long run. I’d like the result, but I don’t know how well I can learn to meditate. I can’t be hypnotized, which might give you an idea of how hard it is for me to shut my brain down. On the other hand, perhaps this is the one skill I really need to cultivate. I’m torn. As we like to say at work, I’ll put a pin in that for now.

Finally, being grateful makes us happy. So, I will practice this by writing down three things that I am grateful for each day. As simple as this practice is, it is shown to have a very positive effect on well-being. To start things out, I am grateful that I didn’t have to shovel snow today. I am grateful that I brought my lunch to work today since I didn’t have time to buy one. I am grateful that the gas company admitted they are at fault for overdrafting my checking account (and that they will cover the overdraft fees). I need to work on this, but at least it has me thinking about the positive things in my life.

Find the Joy in the Journey…and in getting older as that makes us happier people too!

My Happiness Challenge–Part I

I’ve been thinking about how nice it was to have three weeks off from work and how hard it is to go back to work. Didn’t I have a nice, relaxing vacation? Well, yes, mostly. And now that I’m back to work, is it all sadness and gloom? Hardly, but vacation is better than work.

I started to wonder what exactly makes life happy…what would make me happy more often than not. Then a friend posted a link on Facebook to a post by R&S in Science, called 10 Simple Things You Can Do Today That Will Make You Happier, Backed By Science. It makes a lot of sense, and explains how vacation can make me happier…and also how I can figure out how to bring happiness into my “real” life as well as into my vacationing self.

Tackling the first five, I know I’m on the right track. First off…Exercise more. Yes, that is very good advice. The article indicates that even 7 minutes a day makes a difference. I can say from personal experience that exercise is a major happiness enabler. On my vacation, I didn’t exercise as much as I could have, but every time I exercise, I can attest that I do end up with a greater sense of well-being.

Secondly, sleeping more means that you will be less sensitive to negative emotions. I know this one from many experiences. I long ago realized that I make very bad decisions when sleep deprived. I feel more “put upon”, more “wronged”, I feel as if I am in a hopeless situation…but I’ve learned not to make important decisions while sleep deprived…things always turn out to be much more optimistic when I’m well rested. I wrote about Sleep early on in my journey as it relates to weight-loss. Now I know it has even more benefits, so I have even more reason to get a good night’s sleep every night.

Third is to move closer to work. Well, in my situation, that is impossible. I live right, smack-dab, in the middle of work. Most of my colleagues live 20 or more miles away and to make matters worse, the commute can be brutal in bad weather. What the heck. living one mile from work I can’t really move closer. Those who live 20 miles away spend up to 45 minutes getting to and from work.

Fourth is to spend more time with family and friends. I love this one! I don’t live close to my extended family…they are scattered around the country. To make matters worse, I have never been very good at keeping in touch. This one I’ll have to work on. I have been spending more time with my friends lately, and that has been nice. I also work with a lot of friendly people which sure makes me happier than the alternative.  Mostly, when not at work, I spend my waking hours with my younger daughter. I know for a fact that this makes me a happier person. We get so much more one-on-one time than I ever got with my older kids, because now she’s the only one at home. I love hearing about her latest obsessions. I now know that the reason she wanted those skate shoes was because Naill (aka her favorite member of One Direction) has a similar pair. That just makes me smile…and smiling is another happiness booster!

I’m skipping ahead to number seven, which is to smile more. I really could use more smiling in my life. It’s important to use your eyes when you smile to really make it work…and of course, thinking about happy things that make you smile is even better. Perhaps I need some more time with my friends so I have someone to smile at and laugh with!

My challenge to myself is to try to implement all ten of the ideas and see what happens. I’ve covered five here and will cover the rest in a separate post. I’m already concluding that happiness isn’t about worklife balance, it’s about balance, period.

Find the Joy in the Journey…and the path to happiness as well!

Health and Happiness

My last post garnered more views in the first 24 hours than any other post I’ve written. On average I get only about 15 hits a day on my blog but I got 102 in the first 24 hours after posting The Elusive Goal. I have a very small following, but maybe it is starting to grow! Now, it’s not my most read post, but it hit number 12 in 24 hours, and number 6 within a few hours more, so who knows where it will ultimately end up. My most popular post, by the way, is My First De-Cluttering Project–The Mud Room.  Weight-loss/fitness and de-cluttering are my most popular topics.

In addition to getting many hits on my blog recently, I got 2 more followers and a few comments as well. I got even more comments privately. There were three themes…one:  that I should learn to be happy as I am, two: that I shouldn’t spend too much time thinking about losing weight, I should figure out my game plan and start already, and three: offers of advice, sympathy, and encouragement. I want to circle back on the happiness comment. It is true that I am not always a very happy person, but I’m no sad-sack either; I’m not a Pollyanna, I’m a realist. I was my happiest, in general, when I was thin. Why is that?

When I was in my mid-to-late twenties, I was working out about an hour and a half a day and I had lost a lot of weight. It’s pretty simple why I was a happier person, despite the stresses that I was under back then (money issues, new-marriage issues, new-career issues, and infertility). Endorphins released by exercise have the known effect of making one happy. Finding that your body does what your mind tells it to do, to be coordinated and strong, is affirming. I also found that I could eat more, enough to satisfy my body and enough to satisfy my emotional-eating needs without gaining weight. I could go to the store and pull something off the rack and it fit and it looked good on me. All the exercising I was doing gave me emotional resilience, made me feel good, and made me strong and healthy. I want that again, and truth be told, we all would be happier if we had that level of health and fitness.

So, to my dear friend that told me to be happy with the body I have, I made some progress; I bought myself some clothes that fit and are flattering for my body the way it is now, not the way I want it to be after losing 20 pounds (a common mistake I make). To Melissa Robinson, (Fitness PhoenixX) a fellow blogger, fitness coach, and soon-to-be-pharmacist who told me “Don’t sit and think too long”, I finally heard my 16 year old daughter telling me she wanted to join a gym…and I signed both of us up this weekend. And to all of the people who offered me advice, sympathy, and encouragement…please keep it coming! I appreciate all you are offering me.

I’m still trying to figure out why I am my own worst enemy…but meanwhile I am taking a bias for action. I will have my moments of failure, those days when I’m laid low by bad intentions of others or more stress than I can deal with in a day, but if I let those days get to me I will choose to wake up the next day and get a fresh start. Happiness and joy are not the same thing, but I believe that if I am happier due to taking better care of myself…I will be more open to the Joy that is around me.

Find the Joy in the Journey!

Related Post: The Elusive Goal

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Journeys In Life

Although I didn’t relish the 11-hour round-trip drive to pick my younger daughter up from camp, I was happy that I could split the trip up by staying with my sister in the city. My sister has preceded me down this 50 by 50 path (although she didn’t call it that) and has emerged out the other side as her own best self. She is an inspiration and I was reminded of this during my stay.

Her apartment is Zen-like in its beauty and simplicity…evidence of much “letting go” of un-needed and un-beautiful objects. And she has conquered the fitness “thing”, being fitter than ever before in her life and far more fit than I (although, that’s not hard these days!). She recommended a book that really got her going and I immediately ordered it and read ahead as far as I could in her copy while I was there. It’s called, Younger Next Year for Women: Live Strong, Fit, and Sexy – Until You’re 80 and Beyond  by Chris Crowley and Henry S. Lodge M.D.

Her de-cluttering was both more difficult than mine and easier. More difficult because there were times when she was forced to go through all of her belongings. She moved overseas for a few years and sold her house in the US. That was definitely a time of getting rid of old things. When she returned, she had a horrible flood in her garage where her stored belongings had just been delivered, and lost some things of little import and some things of tremendous sentimental and historical import. Those were the difficult times. Moving several times since then, she winnowed things out as she went, with the ultimate result of controlling her stuff instead of it controlling her.

Me, I’ve just never let go of anything and now I have 30 years of physical and emotional baggage to deal with. That is tough. And some things were destroyed by burst pipes, three times, during our renovation. That’s when decisions were made for me…and I don’t like to be so out of control. We did move out and back in again, but I’m afraid I didn’t get rid of a thing back then! I was clinging to my things as if to my life and each of those moves was sudden.

It was Christmas-time when we moved out. We had time off from work and were finally able to find a place to live…but we had all of 3 days to pack up and move. I anticipated having more time to move back in and get rid of some things in the process, but that was not to be. Before our home renovation was complete, our contractor sold the rental we were living in. We had to move back in as suddenly as we moved out! Additionally, while putting a new roof on our house, the builder moved all of our items stored in the attic first to one end of the attic, then to the other…hopelessly mixing things up and damaging some things in the process.

As I drove home, I didn’t feel very fit or younger. But that’s why I’m on this journey. It took us longer than usual to get out of the city and then things just seemed to poke along and my daughter dozed off and on. About four and a half hours after setting off, we stopped at a nice restaurant I knew about and had a real sit-down dinner instead of zipping through a fast food place. We both enjoyed our meals and I caught her up on all the twists and turns of a TV show that my daughters and I like to watch together.

Dinner was detour number one, and it turned out we had another ahead. It was about an hour and a half drive home, now in the dark. I don’t like driving in the dark because I have poor night vision. I can still see, but I see a lot of glare and it gives me a headache. I got off at the usual exit, but I must have missed the signs, due to focusing on the road, that the north-bound ramp was closed and we got dumped onto the state route going the wrong way. I could see a two mile back-up going north, so decided not to turn around and instead to go around…long way home, but I’d rather be driving than sitting in traffic!

And that is life. There are disappointments, unexpected losses, and many detours. Just like a home renovation project, you cannot predict how long things will take our how much they will cost. You have to use a rule-of-thumb, such as, everything will take twice as long and cost 20% more than expected.

If you keep that in front of you, you will be just fine and you will Enjoy the Journey.

Loose Ends

There are so many loose ends in my life, and they cause so much stress, that I really should focus on dealing with them once and for all. Years ago, I read a book by Cheryl Richardson called, Take Time For Your Life. The one thing I really remember about it is the advice to get things off of your to-do list that are really nagging at you and causing you to worry about them. She calls these undone, incomplete and unresolved items “energy drains” and provides a checklist to help you identify them all. You can actually read the book on Google Books, and here is the page where the checklist starts. Through my 50 by 50, I’ve been ticking off some of these things…although my list of projects to complete is practically endless; at least I feel that I’m finally making some progress and moving forward with my life.

I also use a method to list absolutely everything I need to do in one place. I have been doing this faithfully for a few months now and it really is helpful. As long as I’ve captured it on paper in a place I will refer to often, my mind stops constantly reminding me of these undone things. What a relief! I have been ticking things off this list faster and faster and I really do feel better!

That said, I could fill up the composition book where I keep my list if I sat down for a few hours and thought through everything. And, I don’t mean adding such every day things as pay the bills, wash the dishes, do the laundry, take out the trash, etc. I mean real tasks that I won’t do otherwise or that are one-time things that I might forget to do altogether. The undone things on my list include using up gift certificates to various places, knitting baby sweaters for girlfriend’s babies, replacing the ceiling fan/light fixture in the family room, hiring a plumber to fix some minor issues, hiring an electrician to fix some minor issues, touching-up paint in various rooms, painting more windows, painting the stair and hallway trim, painting the stair and hallway walls, backing-up the data on my laptop, doing board/committee work for a non-profit, and on and on and on…

Then, there are the things that I’ve identified as I’ve worked my way through my 50 by 50 on this blog. Things like, replacing the door-stop disk in the mudroom (that also needs to be painted), replacing the threshold between the mudroom and the house, putting in a latch for the mudroom window…and that’s all to do with my very first de-cluttering project!

So, this weekend, I’ve decided to go back and clear up some of those loose ends that I’ve left on my earlier projects. I replaced the threshold and door-stop disk in the mudroom and I’ve put together the first aid supplies in a separate basket and labeled it clearly with a big red cross.

I also just sat back and admired how much I’ve been able to accomplish around my house in the last couple of months. The linen closet and the mudroom look awesome! My desk, well it’s pretty messy, but nowhere near as messy as it used to be. I’ve managed not to bring any new papers into my bedroom, so it’s maintained its lower clutter level and I’ve maintained it as a “no work” zone!

I reflect that I’ve been to the thrift shop about once a week, clearing-out winter wear, unneeded bedding, and my younger daughter’s recently outgrown clothes. I’ve even been up in the attic making a small dent that makes me think I can clear it out and organize it eventually.

It’s hard to maintain my motivation and momentum…sometimes I have to force myself to keep it up. When I have a lot of work coming at me, I am especially discouraged about working on my personal agenda. I’ve got a non-profit board retreat this week, a quick and exhausting trip to Mexico (flight leaving before 6:30 a.m.), and the great fun of going to a once-in-a-lifetime concert. So, I’ll focus on the fact that I can get some pleasure reading done on the flights and I can enjoy spending time with co-workers that I rarely see. Of course, I will enjoy the concert, which is an 18^th birthday present for my son that my husband and I will enjoy just as much as he will!

I am finding the Joy in my Journey…and it is the exact thing to get me through the tougher times!

No Regrets…Please!

A friend recently shared a link with me about the five biggest regrets people have when they are dying. I found the original piece about it in this blog by Bonnie Ware: http://www.inspirationandchai.com/Regrets-of-the-Dying.html. I read through her blog thinking that there are many things I can do so that I don’t have these regrets on my deathbed, so here are my thoughts on them as they relate to my 50 by 50.

I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me. 

That one is powerful! I don’t know if I really knew what was “true to myself” when I ventured out into adulthood, but I certainly didn’t let others tell me what to do! I jumped right into a rigorous engineering field at a rigorous university and struggled mightily for the first two years. I used to regret that I didn’t study something easier, especially since I don’t work as an engineer, but I’ve come to appreciate that I am who I am in part due to that experience. So, to me, the regret I need to ward off isn’t one of trying to live up to other people’s expectations. My danger is to just go along doing what I’m doing because it’s what came my way and what I’m used to. The real work here for me is figuring out what it even means to live a life true to myself. What is my true self? A little voice inside myself is screaming, “Writer! Writer! Writer!”, so I guess I’m making progress on this one!

I wish I didn’t work so hard.

Ok, that’s a really nice one! I seem to have been combating that one by making sure there is more in my life than just work, but that hasn’t led me to a balanced life at all. It has led me to over-commitment which I don’t think is the idea here! To me, this is about making sure I am present in my own life, that I am spending meaningful time with my loved ones. It also means to me that I need to have time for my passions even if that means cutting back at work.

I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings.

Not sure at all about this one. It makes me kind of uncomfortable to tell you the truth. It can really be looked at in two ways…Expressing positive feelings or expressing negative feelings. Do I express negative feelings? Or do I hold back for fear of hurting the relationship? I think I do that to some extent. I made a conscious decision several years ago to be more honest with my feelings with my husband…it certainly was a change in our relationship, but he seems to have taken it in stride, so I guess that it’s a good thing.

As for positive feelings, I brought my kids up telling them I love them all the time, but as they’ve gotten older, I say it less frequently even though I feel it just as often. I don’t go around telling my friends that I love them either…that would seem weird, even though I do love them. I guess I need to be more aware of my feelings and try to express them honestly at the appropriate times.

I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.

I think there are many times in my life when I’ve lost touch with friends. Leaving home for college was the first. I went away to a different city where I knew no one. I did find new friends, including my soon-to-be husband, but it was difficult to keep in touch with old ones. The next was leaving college for graduate school, even though I stayed on at the same university, everyone else left. Thankfully, newly married, I had a built-in friend with whom to enter graduate school. Then, just two short years later, we moved to another new city for its employment opportunities.

Some of the friendships I made early on, I still treasure. Some friendships have been more situational, but no less real. As I’ve moved from life-stage to life-stage and from one position at work to another, I’ve made many friends along the way that faded when I moved on. I still think of these people as friends, and love running into them or having an occasional lunch with them. What’s really special about these friendships is that they are with women, and the occasional man, of all different ages. Sometimes I’m in the role of mentee and others as mentor. But, I’ve not been very good, despite occasional spurts of focused effort, at keeping in touch. I do regret losing touch with some of these friends.

In my 50 by 50, I will really think through these friendships and see how I can be a good friend. I am not a person who has a lot of friends…so while I am never one to turn away a friend because I’m “too busy”, I will make an effort to reach out to some of these women with whom I confided at critical times, or whom I admire and to whom I want to be closer.

But there will be at least one larger separation ahead…retirement. Whether I move away or not, it will behoove me to keep in mind that I need to keep my friends close. I suspect that this last separation creates the real regrets of most people on their deathbeds…they jumped at the chance to move someplace warmer and more conducive to retirement living without realizing the enormous price of leaving behind their friends.

Social media has been condemned in part for creating false intimacy…but I can attest that it is also a wonderful way to reconnect and stay connected with long–lost friends. The best, though, is when it facilitates a real, in-person reunion. Such was my recent reunion with two of my college roommates. And at the same event, I reconnected with a former classmate and am now connected with her via social media too.

I wish that I had let myself be happier. 

This is really my number one. It’s a bit of a revelation to me that you have to decide to be happy. Who would ever choose not to be happy? But, apparently by not choosing to be happy I have by default been not too happy for much of my life. I have let adversity get the better of me even though, on balance, I have a very blessed life.

I’ve noticed lately, more literature on happiness. There have been books and movies about the subject, and one recent book, The Happiness Project, is integrated with a blog and a project kit on doing your own happiness project. I think I’ll look into that…

Because, at the end of the day, or rather I should say, at the end of your life, living a happy life and spreading happiness around you are very worthwhile goals indeed.

Find the Joy in the Journey!

Memories

I find it ironic that I love memoir, autobiography, and biography so much given that I have such a poor memory of my own past. I have a friend who has an amazingly acute memory of her childhood. I’m the opposite; I can remember some things vaguely and other things not at all. Every once in awhile a song or a fragrance will bring back vivid thoughts and memories, but if I try consciously to remember things, I don’t have much luck.

The other day I attended my younger daughter’s year-end Junior Girl Scout ceremony. After reciting The Girl Scout Promise, they recited The Girl Scout Law. This brought back memories of my own early Girl Scout years. The Law is as meaningful and universal today as it was back in 1912 when Juliette Gordon Low created the Girl Scouts of America. I doubt that this law alone shaped my ethics, but it was consistent with my upbringing at home, school, and church. Without realizing it, it is something that I strive to do each and every day, so I was stunned that I could almost recite it along with the Girl Scouts and that it made me feel connected to these young scouts and Girl Scouts everywhere.

The Girl Scout Law

I will do my best to be
honest and fair,
friendly and helpful,
considerate and caring,
courageous and strong, and
responsible for what I say and do,

and to

    respect myself and others,
respect authority,
use resources wisely,
make the world a better place, and
be a sister to every Girl Scout.

Living by this law, on the whole, is beneficial. There was one time, though, in the dark-days of my early forties, where living by the Girl Scout Law created a big problem for me. I trusted a neighbor who, meanwhile, lied about me to the other neighbors, used his pull in city government, and waged a secret campaign against me that caused my bank and builder to freeze in the middle of a major rehab on my home. Needless to say, this was disastrous! It was only by luck that we survived without losing our home, our marriage, or our sanity. And in the end, I am at peace with my own behavior which parallels The Girl Scout Law. It’s the only peace I can find about the situation, but it really did affect me in ways I’m still uncovering. I do think that “That which does not kill us makes us stronger” (That’s Friedrich Nietzesche…what is it with me and German references lately??), but it’s an awfully hard way to live. It made me bitter, angry, and fat (those things go together, you know). I know that forgiveness is a path through that pain…but frankly I prefer to find a different path…Perhaps, “time heals all wounds” is what I’m after. I have to hang my head every time forgiveness is the topic in church…because I’m not there…and much as I think and pray about it, I don’t know that I’ll ever be there.

But, for the most part the Girl Scout Law is a very rewarding way to live. I don’t claim to live up to it perfectly, but it is there as a standard in my mind to help me along the way. So, now that I’ve rediscovered it and laid it out in front of me…what does it mean to my 50 by 50? I think this is where “mission statement” and “vision” come along. So, I’m putting these each down in my 50 by 50…a personal mission statement and a personal vision for my life. Those aren’t quick and easy things to do, but they will lay cornerstones and guidelines for me that will help me live a life that is consistent with my values. And maybe, just maybe, they’ll help me solve the forgiveness riddle.

I’m sitting here listening to Tapestry, by Carole King. This is one for my song list…it reminds me of my older sister when she was a teen…she used to play it and I was enthralled. I am finding that the riddle of figuring out what songs to pick, then listening to them, is opening my childhood back up to me. And this song, in particular, resonates with my “patchwork quilt” of a life. It’s a rather mournful song by the end, but the beginning is what I particularly remember:

My life has been a tapestry of rich and royal hue
An everlasting vision of the ever changing view
A wondrous woven magic in bits of blue and gold
A tapestry to feel and see, impossible to hold

So, I will listen to more music and have more memories and strive to connect on a deeper level with those around me.

Find the joy in the journey!

Getting Started

As I try to think through what my 50 things should be I find myself drifting into what I’ll do for others. I think that I’ll help my son with his transition to college and help my older daughter through the college application process. These are two great things I can do, and I will do them. But, they do not belong on my 50 by 50 list because they’re not about me.

One of the hardest parts about this process is separating me from my current situation. Finding the Laura I was before I took on the roles of adulthood; finding the Laura that had hopes and dreams and recalling those hopes and dreams.

If I go back to my early memories, I find a girl who wanted to be the next Louisa May Alcott. I also find a girl who wanted to work at the UN as an interpreter, having mastered numerous languages. I must admit that my writing aspirations were the product of being a late, but then prolific, reader and finding that my favorite writer when I was 9, Louisa May Alcott, shared my birthday. I also found solace in learning that Margaret Mitchell didn’t publish Gone with the Wind until the ripe old age of 35 and didn’t earn her Pulitzer Prize until 37. Unfortunately, I’ve left both 35 and 37 in the dust.

And the whole UN thing, I think, came from an old movie called “Gidget Grows Up”.  Now, Gidget didn’t get a job as an interpreter, she only had 2 years of college and got a job as a tour guide…but somehow that movie introduced me to the idea that one could sit in the UN interpreting speeches for the delegates (how cushy is that!). Unfortunately, my public school didn’t offer languages until high school, so I had my first French lesson just before my 15^th birthday…long after my “language center” had been hard-wired for English, and nothing else!

I also look back at what I enjoyed doing as a child and the top things were reading, playing guitar, listening to music, and making collages and scrapbooks. I wasn’t exactly an out-going kid! I spent every bit of my allowance on books and often re-read the same series of books over and over, particularly the Little House books by Laura Ingalls Wilder and The Chronicles of Narnia by C. S. Lewis. I picked up guitar in middle school and later loved learning to play tablature and playing from a piano score. I’ve since lost all that knowledge, but what fun I had one day when my Mother thought she was listening to her Christopher Parkening recording of Romanza and it was actually me playing the piece!

When I told my older daughter what I was doing with this blog, she said, “Oh, you’re making a Bucket List”. No, I’m not…because this is more short-term, not a list of everything I want to do before I die. And it’s also not a “To Do” list. Now, some of the things on my 50 by 50 list will also be things I’d put on a “bucket list”, such as “learn French” and “write a book”…and some are things I’d put on a “To Do” list, although I’m resisting those as well as I can. But in the end, it’s more of a, “let’s not forget who I am” list and a “let’s be the best I can be as I move on to the next stage of my life” list.

So, I’m starting to build-up my list with such ideas as write a book, learn French, read 50 books for pleasure, choose 50 songs with special meaning or memories and put them on an iPod (and here, I’ve inadvertently identified one already, Romanza), pick up my guitar again and play, and put together a scrapbook or two.

I’m also thinking, these are really time consuming things! You’ll notice, too, that none of these things has to do with being active and fit. I think I should put a priority on the song collection because then I can listen to inspiring music while I start a daily walking program (I’m all about synergy!).

I don’t know at this stage if I’ll come up with more than 50 things and “count” the 50 I manage to accomplish or if I’ll struggle to come up with 50 and not get anywhere near through them all. But, here’s to finding joy in the journey!