Making a list and checking it twice...

Today I'm going to finish up on CSL's interview questions...

So, how many of the things on your "checklist of good ideas" from the end of last year have you kept?

Ooh… what a good reminder! I haven’t checked in on that list in quite a while. As I look it over, though, I realize I haven’t been doing as poorly with my intentions for this year as I’d thought.

I have been spending more time with family and friends. Sean and I have been inviting people to dinner here and there, and we’ve been meeting friends out on the weekends pretty consistently. I haven’t seen my cousin’s band lately, though. Maybe I’ll give him a call.

I’ve also been sending real emails to my friends over the past few months. I haven’t been calling my relatives on Saturday mornings, though. Something else to do now…

I’ve been taking my lunchtime walks, and I’ve been walking around the lake on the weekends, so I can check off exercising. I don’t have time to be any more serious than that.

Hmm… I haven’t been keeping the brain sharp like I intended. No Spanish, no crossword puzzles, no reading lately. Darn. No belly dancing either. I need more hours in my days.

I haven’t started putting my photos into albums. But I have been cooking quite a bit. So that one gets a “check”.

Yeesh. I haven’t been creative every week. Did I really think that every week was feasible? More like every once in a while. I like to mess around with an altered book here and there.

It feels less serious than “I’m going to make a painting” or something like that. Plus, it kind of supplies its own ideas sometimes, depending on the words on the page.

I liked the words on this dog page...

I should really get back to drawing though…

I haven’t been typing the war letters in either. I have so much more to catalog, too. In addition to the letters, there are newspapers from 1945 declaring the end of the war, and lots of crazy postcards...

But I have been taking pictures every day and aggressively pursuing photography. Checkmark that one. Hopefully I can make it a full-time gig and quit the 9 to 5 like I planned.

Thanks for making me look over my list! I’d better get going on some more of these…

Do friends and family members read your blog, and if they do – does that shape what you choose to write about?

No, no one reads my blog. I wanted to start out with it just being my own, personal, secret place to log my thoughts and memories. I didn’t want the thought of an audience to influence what I write. I will probably let my husband in on it, though. There’s always more that we can learn about each other, so it might be a excellent catalyst for future discussions.

I asked someone else this too, and am ceaselessly curious about it as a phenomenon of the blog world: What is it that draws you to another person's blog and keeps you visiting?

Well I think there are several things that draw me in, as well as a few that keep me away. I generally stay away from the big debates, like politics, religion, abortion rights, gun laws. I’m usually on here while I’m at work, and I’m not seeking a break from the daily drudgery only to end up in a “heated exchange of ideas” (read: argument). I also usually stay away from some of the pop culture posts. I have no interest in what Britney Spears is doing this week.

I think the blogs I frequent represent people I could see being my friends “on the outside”, people that I can relate to in some way. They may have nothing at all in common with each other – one might make me laugh, while another makes me think, and another makes me say “I would have done the same thing” or “I’ve thought about that too.” My friends in the real world aren’t carbon-copies of each other, and they aren’t in the blog world either.

Sometimes it’s just one sentence or post that interests me initially, and that prompts my return for a few more posts or to read back through some earlier ones to get a “feel” for the blogger and what they’re about. I enjoy getting to know the people on here, and I enjoy honest exchanges of thoughts, ideas, and personal stories.

Thanks so much for the fantastic questions CSL! If anyone would like me to interview them, let me know in the comments :)

Next, on the the interview questions from The Dragon :)

Recuperation

I’m not sure what I’m going to do today.

It’s New Year’s Day, and I am home alone. My daughter slept at a friend’s house last night, my husband has already gone to work, and I am sitting here wondering what to do with this rainy cold afternoon.

I could take down the Christmas tree. It would be nice to get all of the ornaments and doodads back into the big blue bins and get the house back to normal.

I could look at that "list of ideas" (resolutions) I made for myself a few days ago. Email someone? Call a relative? Start cooking up something in my crockpot?

Nah… I’m officially declaring today a day of rest. Thank goodness for Ibuprofen.

Solid Gold Dreamer

When I was young, I just knew that I was going to be a dancer or a singer when I grew up. Most likely a Solid Gold Dancer. I took dance classes from the time that I was 5 years old. And every June we had the big extravaganza up on stage, where each class would perform a dance in their little matching costumes.

I had no doubt that I would be a dancer someday, because that’s what I really wanted. And back then I had the power to really believe in myself, and believe in my dreams.

Somewhere in middle school or high school, my dreams changed. I wasn’t really sure what I wanted to be anymore. My grades were fabulous – off the charts. But I didn’t have direction anymore. I really didn’t know what I wanted to do.

After high school graduation my uncle stopped by our house, and he noticed some sculptures in the kitchen that I had made. He was fascinated. “You made these?” “Yeah.” “You know, you have a real gift,” he told me. “A talent. Not everyone has a talent like that. I know you get good grades and everything, but you should consider using your talents. You might want to take some art classes in college.”

I listened to him, but only in part. I did take art classes, but I also entertained the possibility of being a chemist, or maybe an engineer. I needed to translate all these good grades into a career of some sort. I was afraid that being an artist wouldn’t make me any money. No one aspires to be a starving artist. So I didn’t follow my passion with true conviction.

College was cut short by the birth of my daughter. And staying home for a few years and taking classes here and there, I went back to work and started climbing up the corporate ladder. And so here I am, working for a big corporation but entertaining dreams of doing something else. Something creative.

I am trying now. I’m a photographer on the side, and hoping to cultivate it into a business that can replace my 9 to 5. But it’s so easy to doubt myself.

I wish I had the certainty and the confidence that I had back then, when I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that I was the best dancer up on that stage.

Checklist of Good Ideas

Well here I am, in the final days of 2006. The blank slate of an entire year is beckoning. What do I want to do this year? To see? To accomplish?

I find New Year’s Resolutions a little daunting… they are usually about diet and exercise and they are usually trashed long before Valentine’s Day. I think last year they met their untimely demise a few days shy of Martin Luther King Jr. Day, in a afternoon-long frenzy that included Toll House chocolate chip cookies, Strawberry Glazed Dunkin Donuts and a McDonald’s Number 9.

I have a slight aversion to ultimatums.

Perhaps I shouldn’t use the word “Resolutions.” It sounds so final, and so highly unachievable. Like I’m suddenly supposed to be some unholy combination of Martha Stewart and Carol Brady.

Maybe I’ll just refer to it as my Checklist of Good Ideas. And I will post it in blogland and refer back to it when I need to be reminded.

Here’s what I’ve come up with:

Spend more time with family and friends
- invite someone over for dinner once a month
- make plans to go out with friends on the weekends instead of just going out the two of us
- go see Dennis’ band

Keep in touch better via email or phone calls
- on the first of the month (or soon thereafter) go through the address book and send a real email (not a “forward”)
- call a relative every Saturday morning

Exercise regularly
- walk during lunch hour
- walk around the lake
- exercise that butt and those abs
- maybe buy a fun exercise video for the weekends, one where they’re dancing (something not so boring)

Keep the brain sharp
- Learn something new - maybe a “how to” video? Play guitar? Or piano? Bellydancing? Hee hee... yeah, maybe bellydancing
- Brush up on Spanish
- Crossword puzzles
- Read more books (when I can’t sleep, lunchtime, etc)

Put all my photos into albums (this will take all year)

Cook more real dinners
- family dinner night once a week
- cook something big on Sunday night to be leftovers for the rest of the week
- try some new recipes, and try out the crock pot and the quesadilla maker

Be creative every week (creating something… anything!)
- Drawing
- Collage
- Painting
- Scrapbooking
- Altered books

Get those war letters into the computer (four years of correspondence between my grandparents circa WWII)

Take photos every day!

Aggressively pursue photography until it becomes a full-time gig and I can quit the 9 to 5...

Well that looks like enough to keep me busy. Wish me luck!