Over the past few days, I’ve caught up on some podcasts I’ve been meaning to listen to.

Among the 5 or 6 I listened to (all excellent, by the way), I was struck hard by something I found running strongly through two of them. They were both unbelievably intense examples of doing the hard work.

One podcast was from The Moth. The Moth describes themselves like this: “The Moth features people telling true, engaging, funny, touching and eye-opening stories from their lives.”

I learned about The Moth while listening to “This American Life” podcasts. The storytellers are always amazing, the stories always moving. They’ve got a podcast of their own now.

This particular podcast was from Jan 18, 2010. It’s 16 minutes and 21 seconds long. It was called “Jerry Mitchell: Beneath the Sheets”, and here’s the summary:

“When a reporter uncovers unpunished crimes from the Civil Rights Movement, he begins to pursue the suspects, putting himself at great risk. Jerry Mitchell (is) an investigative reporter at The Clarion-Ledger in Jackson, Mississippi.”

Their website is www.themoth.org. I didn’t see a way to listen to it there, but you can subscribe to their free podcast on iTunes, and hopefully still download it there.

The other podcast was an interview by Terry Gross from WHYY. It’s aired daily on NPR. She interviewed attorney and author David Dow from February 8, 2010. Here’s Fresh Air’s description of the interview:

INTERVIEW TITLE: “20 Years Of Defending Death Row Inmates”
DESCRIPTION: Attorney David Dow has spent his career representing inmates who have been sentenced to death. Despite his efforts, many of his clients have been executed — and most of them were guilty. In his new memoir, The Autobiography of an Execution, Dow details what it’s like to become emotionally involved with the people living on death row.

Here’s a link to the NPR Fresh Air interview page, so you can listen to the story. You can also sign up for their free podcast on iTunes.

NPR: 20 Years of Defending Death Row Inmates

Some parts of this interview hit me so hard that while I was telling my husband the details today, I realized where I was physically on my run yesterday when I heard these details, was now stuck in my brain.

I could elaborate and extensively expound on what struck me so much about the interview, but mostly I want you to know that those reasons aren’t related to any views I have on the death penalty.

I would like to share one thing about the experience I had yesterday. If you do listen to the podcast, there’s a segment where he talks about how his son senses David’s mood, no matter how he tries to hide it. His son begins to have night terrors, which David feels somewhat responsible for.

Right after I listened to that segment of the interview, I turned it off, and went in the locker room at the YMCA to shower. There, moments later, I had the sh!tty experience I commented about on my status here yesterday. I witnessed and confronted a woman who was abusing a little girl named Rosie in the locker room. Rosie turned out to be her grandchild. Rosie was also overweight, but that’s a topic for another blog.

The irony of that sick juxtaposition, the feeling of opposite worlds colliding still has me feeling a bit shifted. The twisted attempts she made to justify her behavior, citing the little girl’s bad behavior, and telling me she had ‘permission’ to do this, right after I hear about the interviewee’s son’s night terrors, with a backdrop of knowing the backgrounds some of these inmates come from, definitely heightened my reaction to the interview and my aversion to that woman’s behavior.

Add to it the jarring plane crash you no doubt saw on the news. A stupid, angry man killed himself and an innocent IRS employee by smashing his plane into a building this week. He didn’t ask for help first. In fact, everyone’s baffled. There were no signs. He left his wife and child homeless by burning their home on his way out, too.

Exactly 7 days earlier to the exact moment he did this, I was attending a seminar in another Echelon building next door. I was on the first floor, too. The seminar was put on by two business colleagues I know. They’d put together and were sharing, some excellent, useful information and case studies so we could learn (for VERY little money) what PR was all about and how to take advantage of it. That building we were in was next door to the building he flew into. It was evacuated, and I think it’s one of the closed areas right now.

The senseless violent behavior of criminals, the broken systems in place to address crime, the attorney and reporter trying to do what’s right, the little boy with his night terrors, the overweight, frightened little girl, the mean grandma…

My head was and still is, spinning just a bit trying to process.

Then tonight, I talked to Heidi, my Dad’s Hospice Nurse. She’s been his primary caretaker for several months now, and I know for sure I wouldn’t have my Dad anymore if it weren’t for her. My Dad’s doing okay, although he’s very fragile. But Heidi and the Hospice group she works with had a rough weekend for other reasons. Eight of their patients died, and 4 more were hospitalized.

Heidi never, ever complains. But you could hear the pain in her voice tonight.

What struck me in all three of these situations is that these people aren’t just doing a job. They’re not just going to work.

They have done and are always doing truly hard work; gut-wrenching, heart-breaking, depressing, difficult work.

Money isn’t the motivating factor for them. They are driven to serve the people who need them to do this work.

They do it in spite of the cost to their health, both mental and sometimes physical.

They each have families, and those families are important to them. You can hear the struggles they’ve been through in their voices; struggles and heartache from trying to balance what they do with who they love.

They try not to impact their families, but they are unable to turn away from the hard work that calls them.

In the case of the men in the podcasts, I didn’t sense political motivation. Absolutely they’re zealots if being a zealot means you dedicate your life and heart to a cause you believe in. But they didn’t use ranting, unreasonable, righteous language. They didn’t rail against a system or point fingers. They see both sides, they have a very specific goal in each case. They lend their time, their resources, their energy completely.

And then they took the time to tell the rest of us about it so we can learn about they’re facing, what they’re doing. They don’t offer this up in a self-serving way; instead in each case they were thoughtful, careful, informative, realistic.

And as for Heidi, while she would say she’s not taking on the world in the way these two men are, she’s caring for our loved ones at the end of their lives. She’s shown far more concern about my Dad’s well-being than just his physical care.

After everything she managed this weekend, she took the time to talk to me about his happiness. We discussed possible ways to get him more company more frequently because I’m so far away, we talked about my uncle who entered hospice this past week, too.

When my Dad was recently hospitalized, she was frustrated with herself, thinking she should have realized what was wrong earlier, even though there’s no possible way anyone WOULD have guessed what was going on. I know she lost sleep over it, too. She’s truly present, always there for both my Dad and me. And I know for sure she’s there for all her other patients in the same way.

All three of these amazing people are opening their hearts, knowing they’re going to be broken, knowing the number of times things will go well will be far outweighed by the number of failures they’re going to suffer. In two of the cases, a failure ends another person’s lives.

But regardless of the cost to them and the high failure rates they endure, all three of these amazing people want the ‘right thing’ done. They want care taken, and they have taken it upon themselves to be the ones who care.

When you ask them how they do it, how they stick in there, they don’t really have an answer. When you ask why they do this, the answer is clear. It’s because they must.

The causes they support, the beliefs they have aren’t what this post is about. What I admire, what has moved me so much I had to share, was how much each one of these people has sacrificed, how much they give.

Each one found their unique ability, their passion, and despite the hard, thankless, mostly joyless tasks it takes to follow their path, they don’t shy away from it. Instead, they show up, they roll up their sleeves, and probably their pant legs as well.

They are each humbling examples, and powerful inspirations. They’ve given their all doing the hard work.

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• made some cut
• been hired for a desired job
• received a contract for a coveted project
• or been told ‘yes’ for something else that’s important to you

‘No’ Happens. What are you gonna do? (I admire what some people in Austin did…you’ll see at the bottom of this.)

When you’re rejected, when you aren’t chosen, it doesn’t feel good, especially when what you didn’t get, or weren’t able to share in, something that truly mattered to you.

In fact, when it came to TEDxAustin, I know quite a few people who didn’t even apply. They didn’t want to risk feeling rejected or said they didn’t agree with the exclusivity.

Likely that ‘no’ is even harder not to take personally when the people making the choices are peers and sometimes friends, when other peers and friends around you heard ‘yes’.

And in these days of open online communities, it can feel like salt in a wound when other people are excited, participating, planning and talking about something you don’t get to be a part of.

I know how ‘no’ feels; I’ve definitely heard ‘no’ plenty of times in my life, including for TEDxAustin. I applied for it, excited about having the opportunity to attend something that’s on my life’s Bucket List. But then I wasn’t chosen. In fact, the links I submitted to prove my worthiness weren’t even clicked on.

When you think the reason for ‘no’ is because people don’t believe you’ve got what it takes; when you’re just sure they’re missing what a big thinker you really are, that can be hard to swallow. You can feel helpless and vulnerable.

Whatever story you tell yourself about that ‘no’, you can’t really know what the reason was.

Yes, there is always the possibility that the reason you and I heard ‘no’ was because someone acted out of ulterior motives, competitive slights, personal agendas or even vendettas. Maybe they didn’t take the time to consider and look closely when you think they should have.

But there is also the very real possibility that it was just circumstances, a lack of resources to say yes to everyone, a business decision, and that, at this moment in time, you just haven’t done enough or don’t stand out enough in the way they were seeking, to hear ‘yes’.

No doubt TED’s business model of creating the impression of scarcity, its reputation of exclusivity created by choosing its participants, has increased its brand value.

We can’t know the real reasons we were politely told we were on the waiting list instead of receiving an invitation to sign up. The fact remains that you and I got rejected, while 300 others didn’t, whether it was personal or not. And it’s not fun to sit with that knowledge.

The truth is that you can’t choose what ‘they’ do.

You can only choose who you are, and you can only choose your actions in response to what’s around you.

You can be angry, you can vent and rant, you can curl up under a bridge. You can pretend it doesn’t matter, too, even though it does.

But these choices don’t serve you, nor do they create anything positive around you. And don’t they just prove the rejectors right?

Instead, you can choose the high road. Instead of looking at the rejection as a slight, look at it as an opportunity to grow, learn, be stronger. Look at it as a solid piece of motivating incentive to improve enough to make whatever cut you want to make.

Take that high road; think bigger, work harder, do more, even find a new path by starting your OWN whatever-it-is ‘they’ said no to. Or maybe if you ARE a big thinker, and you’ve done all these things, consider whether your light may just not be shining brightly enough.

But remember to make your way with spirit and pride, good intentions, sincerity. Travel down your road with an open, understanding and, if necessary, forgiving heart. Never mind allowing bitterness and spite into the mix; that kind of cancer will rot your own heart and mind long before it claims any other victims.

If you can do that, it will serve to improve your own life in ways I bet you don’t even realize or can’t imagine, while simultaneously making the world around you a better place because you’ve contributed more with thinking even bigger.

Oh, and plus? It will provide the amazing reward of proving your detractors completely wrong.

That’s a win-win in every way.

As far as TEDxAustin goes, it would be dishonest of me to say I was fully okay with not being there. But I’ve made a life-long practice of viewing things that go wrong as important lessons, and ‘no’ as one of my strongest motivators to succeed. It’s served me marvelously so far.

And I smiled this afternoon when I saw that some of the other people who didn’t make the cut found a way to succeed and be ‘there’ anyway. They’re gathering at Conjunctured to watch a simulcast of the presentation.

That speaks well of the organizers who allowed that simulcast to happen. But even more so, it absolutely speaks volumes about the people who didn’t hear the ‘yes’ they’d hoped for. They found, arranged and attended an excellent solution; a way to deal with the ‘no’ by finding a ‘yes’.

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I posted the blog below on my SparkPeople page. It’s about Sleep.

Then, I was in my car…and heard a song…and I liked the beat. So I used Shazam (one of my favorite iPhone apps) to tell me the name of the song, and it turned out to be Sleep Lessons. Interesting.

In any case, here’s the blog about Sleep.

My #1 Goal this year, above everything else (including strength training) is to get a handle on the SLEEPING thing.

Here’s what I know to be true:
If I sleep enough, I drink enough water.
If I drink enough water, I work out.
If I work out, I eat better.
If I work out, I also sleep better.

It’s a cycle.

I’ve been focusing on sleep recently. There’s a great WNYC Radio Lab podcast about it.
bit.ly/wnycsleep

Janet Gershen-Siegel, wrote this for the Examiner:
bit.ly/exsleep

There’s an iPhone App called Sleep Cycle that I started using a few days ago to help wake me up more refreshed. (you should SEE my deep sleep cycle!)
bit.ly/iphonesleep

Here’s a gadget I’m hoping to have a chance to review for my Gadget Girl column (does anyone have one of these?)
bit.ly/ggsleep

My baseline goal is 12:30am. That’s what I can commit to (ridiculously easy goal? Turns out it’s not!) I WAS 2-4am, so this is already a big improvement. Each week, I’m going to shorten that time by 15 minutes with the goal of 11pm.

I went to bed at 12:30am every night since the New Year. The goal is to get 7 hours of sleep. I woke up READY for my day at 5:30 this morning! I went to a breakfast meeting, and saw an inspiring speaker who rode his bike from Austin to Calgary (Canada) – 2300 miles, him and his brother, to raise money for some non-profits they support.

Go Bobby!

But still. While that was TOTALLY worth it, I WANT that 7 hours of sleep, but my brain will NOT shut off! I’m not insomniac. I can’t even wind down to lay down in the FIRST place. Once I do? Boom, boom, out go the lights!

Here’s how you can help me and anyone else who reads this:
What articles, resources, sites, tools, etc. do you use or know about related to sleep.
What tricks, tips, suggestions do you have for me?
What sleep struggles have you had?
What role do you feel sleep plays in your weight loss program?

Now, it’s off to the Y, NOT for a nap, but for a class called Pure Strength. (shhhh….I am NOT strength training!)

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CJROMB – SparkPeople Blog

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This year I’m adding a nickname to the mix, too.  2010 will be “The Year of The Dog” for me.

Here’s Snoopy.  He’s a Sharpei Rescue doggie.  His military family in Ft. Hood couldn’t keep him anymore, so they turned him into a shelter in Killeen.  He’s been loved, you can tell.  No heartworms, healthy, clean ears and clipped nails.  But something changed in his owners’ lives, and one day, without him having a clue what was coming, his world was permanently altered.

Snoopy doesn’t care.  He’s still wagging his tail, sniffing other doggies.  He’s crazy curious about what’s next, pulling on his leash, looking around everywhere, ready to run.

It’s so amazing to me how doggies just start a new life.  They might be a little nervous about it, a little uncertain, sometimes even downright frightened.  But they put one paw in front of the other, and they just get after it.  Three days later, it’s all good and they’ve fallen in love with their new surroundings if they’ve landed in a good spot.

I bought a book while I was in Colorado recently called “The Lazy Dog’s Guide to Enlightenment”.  As I start my planning for 2010, I’ve been thinking a lot about how I want to be more like my doggies.  I’m humbled by their amazing ability to adjust to change, live simply, and happily wag their tails even when their world’s completely changed without them having a bit of say in it.

We don’t have much more control than our doggies do, but we sure spend a lot of time pretending we do.   This next year, I’m going to work towards making time to be happy, and part of that  will be spending less time trying to control things I really can’t.

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A few years ago, I made friends with a woman.  Sure looked like we had a lot in common:  A love of gadgets, a desire for effective, efficient short-cuts, a perfectionist streak and high standards for what we expected and many many more valuable gifts to give each other, fearlessness in a crowd and on stage.  I felt like it was TIME for me to have a close girlfriend, so I started opening up, started getting closer.

But then?  I saw things I couldn’t live with.  A selfish side that was interested in a conversation…as long as it was about her.  She took credit for ideas I had, wrote about things as if they were original thoughts when they’d come from me.  The meta-data I got from her about how she resolved relationship issues with others, the jealously I saw in her when someone else succeeded…these patterns and tendencies weren’t things I wanted in a friend.  So I backed away.  It was hard because she was a client as well.  I tried to retreat from the friendship without damaging the business relationship.  In the end, we decided it was best to go our separate ways on both counts.

At first, I thought maybe I wasn’t meant to have girlfriends like that after all.  Close, almost daily kinds of friendships perhaps didn’t make sense for me.  So I retreated back to my networking friendships.  But then I started to make friends on Twitter, and SparkPeople, and I realized, gosh darn it, I LIKED having an almost daily friendship.  I enjoyed the comraderie and back and forth that a friendship could offer.  I wanted that.  I learned from the failed relationship that even though this wasn’t the right friend for me, friendship was something I enjoyed and was willing to spend time fostering.

And as it so often turns out, once I realized what I wanted, there it was.  Once I opened my eyes, I SAW that I already KNEW fantastic women with whom I could have magnificent friendships.

They were there all along, but I hadn’t been looking.  Maybe I couldn’t look until I’d had this other experience first.  Maybe it worked better to have that friendship so I could see the possibilities.  I know I wouldn’t have appreciated these friends as much if I hadn’t opened myself up to the concept of a close friend with the other woman.  And maybe I wouldn’t spend the time I’m spending now making sure things go right and fit if things hadn’t gone wrong with that friendship.  This previous friendship made me more aware of how important give and take is as well.

I saw this woman at a breakfast a few weeks ago.  It was an awkward moment, because more than anything, I wanted to gush with gratitude for our friendship, which opened my eyes to the possibilities of friendship.  And even more, I wanted to thank her, from the bottom of my heart, for what I learned from the failure of our friendship.

These past few months have been extremely trying for me.  And I can’t imagine where I’d be if it weren’t for my new, close friendships, friendships that fit my heart, friendships that were right there waiting to be enjoyed, friendships that probably wouldn’t have blossomed without the fertilizer of the failure of this other friendship.

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There’s a few examples of just fun fleeting moments, and then there’s some examples of paths crossing that ultimately had a profound, lasting and sometimes daily impact on my life.  And then there’s my hope for the future.  I’ve met a few people in the past month that I’m completely excited about what might be next.  Inspiring people who I’ve learned from already, just by the way they live their life.  I hope if I reach out to them, I’ll have something they can benefit from as well.

I’ll put some examples out here today, and the rest out here tomorrow. I hope you’ll be inspired to tell me about your Random Good Fortune…plus, I hope you’ll go out and find some more yourself!

I met someone who worked at Jamba Juice.  She gave me a taste of Pumpkin Smash.  ‘Not so much’ for me, I didn’t really want any more, and with a wrinkled nose, I told her that regardless of how it tasted (which was yummy), the look of it reminded me of sweet potatoes all smashed up and nasty.  You know the ones they hide under marshmallows at Thanxgiving?  We had a great conversation where I learned about Garnet Sweet Potatoes, available at Central market.  You slice them about 1/4″ thick, bake them in the oven with a little butter, salt and brown sugar and then have some asparagus with them.  I told her how I fix asparagus.  I put it on a little bit of foil so it doesn’t stick to the pan, drizzle olive oil and put feta and shredded parmesan cheese on top of it.  I put that in my toaster oven on 375 for about 6 minutes.  Now?  We both have a new idea for dinner, I got a taste of Thanxgiving from that smoothie and we had a good giggle over Asparagus Pee.

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Who knew, right?  Random Good Fortune.

It started me thinking about some other random fun I’ve had in my recent past.  A few times it was just a quick exchange, a fleeting moment, an interaction I knew would never be a friendship or anything more than that 30 second exchange.  But there’s been a few other times recently when I just had a feeling that something much, much bigger…a Game Changer…was about to occur.  In fact the phrase Game Changer?  Came right straight from someone I met this past week.  And the cool thing is that we might end up being exactly that for each other.

I’m not really a believer in a lot of the things from books like The Secret.  I’m not inclined to subscribe to the thinking that things happen for a reason either.  I believe they simply happen.  And then WE can assign the reason.  If we want them to have purpose and meaning, we have the opportunity to turn them into just that.  If nothing else, we can enjoy life by reaching out in that moment and enjoying the random interaction and the fun we can share by just being nice to each other.  In other situations, we can reach out and ask for what we really want; a chance to meet again in some capacity; an opportunity to share, be heard or listen, exchange.

IleenieWeenie and I ended up emailing tonight. 140 characters just isn’t enough, as @amoyal and I were talking about earlier in the week.  I believe the 140 on Twitter, and the communication on Facebook and other online communities with quick updates is a start.  It’s a way to meet, a way to catch up, a small way to share. It can grow into a larger conversation if the tool allows.  I’ve been on SparkPeople for a few years, and have formed some deep, wonderful relationships (with random people I’ve ‘met’ there) because we can express ourselves using as much space as we want.  I love it when a random beginning deepens into another dimension, another form of communication.  I’m looking forward to meeting Ileenie, too, and to what might come from our random beginning.

I played a little game with myself after we got done emailing.  I made myself think of as many random interactions I either enjoyed or wanted to grow to something more than a fleeting moment.  I’ve been aware for a long time of how randomness drives my life as much or more than purposeful action.  As I write down these random beginnings to relationships or fleeting fun interactions, it renews my commitment to continue reaching out and being open to others as I can in my life.  The value far outweighs any cost I’ve ever paid from the times it didn’t go as planned.

Over the next few days I’ll share the examples I came up with.  I know I’ll have big fun thinking and writing about this over the next few days.  Do you have a meeting, a piece of Random Good Fortune? I’d get a kick out of hearing your story.

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I intend to keep this personal, but a little more public if that makes any sense.  In other words, I’m much more comfortable now with putting myself out here in a real way, having conversations and sharing what’s in my head.  So that’s what I’m remodeling this space to be.  There’s things on my mind I’d like to ‘talk’ through and thoughts, resources and ideas I’d like to share.

I’ve learned a lot, and I have much more I’d like to learn.  More than anything, this insatiable desire to learn and share is at the core of nearly everything I do.  Perhaps you will tell me things you’ve learned in exchange.  I’m also planning to work out some life projects here, a piece at a time, as I come up with new ideas, find solutions, discover resources.

Although I won’t be pigeon-holing myself into one particular topic for now, I suspect there’s some general themes that I’m interested in (read obsessed with here in some cases) that will show up here over and over.  The topics below are fairly general and somewhat neutral, but they’ve given me many rich moments peeling back the layers and discovering all the variations and possibilities.

I’ll definitely talk about my weight loss journey.  In about less than 2 years, I’ve lost 50 pounds.  As I get asked quite frequently how I did it, I suspect that what I learned along the way might be of interest to some people.  I’ve learned not just about weight loss, but also about behavior, motivation, change, commitment, community and collaboration (please note: the word ‘diet’ is missing from this entire paragraph, except in this sentence.)  Additionally, I want to spend time appreciating and sharing with you what happens when you get rid of the ‘Fat Blab’ in your head.

I’ve always, always hated doing things more than once (which is interesting since I tend to be a bit obsessive.)  I seek shortcuts for everything.  2009 has found me obsessively filtering out behaviors, situations and sometimes people that aren’t a fit form me.  I’ve been seeking patterns and meta-data that I can use to automate, and then using it to do just that.  2009 has also found me studying habits and establishing routines.  While these two may seem like opposites of each other, seeking ways to stop repeating things, while figuring out how to have things repeat effectively, they’re really all part of the same goal – efficiency.  I’m interested in a substantial increase in productivity throughout my life and my business without an increase in labor, either mine or others.  In other words, I’m trying to create time.  There’s a difference between organization and efficiency and I’ve spent a good deal of time this year reflecting on that as well.  I want to be efficient.  I don’t care about being organized.  Sometimes being organized is part of what it takes to be efficient, but that’s only a part of it.  And sometimes it’s not involved at all.

I’m fascinated with how people interact with each other and the world around them.  How do they fit together, what determines popular vs. unpopular, powerful vs. weak.  I’m interested in figuring out how people can find common ground to communicate when the world-view glasses they are wearing are so different from each other that they often can’t even begin to see it, or figure out how to hear or be heard.  Why do some friendships break up when the things they have in common seem to make them a natural fit?  And why do some opposites compliment each other in such a magnificent way that they create new colors and opportunities that neither one could have brought to life on their own?

I have found in my life that there’s some critical skills necessary to avoid repeating mistakes.  It’s not just about discovering and fixing the mistake.  It’s about analyzing why it happened, learning from it, and putting things in place to change the path so it doesn’t happen again.  The minute something goes wrong in my code or in my life, I begin looking for the lesson.  I’m not saying we have to be happy about what went wrong, but if we don’t learn from it, we’ve wasted an opportunity.

I’ve been thinking alot about the object of a service company and about finding ways to productize service company offerings.

I’m not religious (or dogmatic in the other direction either!) And I don’t really believe things ‘happen for a reason’.  I’m not really a believer in manifesting things in the way it’s been marketed recently.  However, I DO love coincidence and serendipity, and I do believe you can find opportunities in change randomness that can add up to life-changing experiences.  We think we control our destinies, but in fact, my life has been littered with random happenings that altered the course of it for worse and for better, more than any plan I ever tried to move forward on.  I’ve done LOTS of pondering on this topic in the past few years.

I haven’t watched TV since 1992, but recently found me soothing myself by watching 4 seasons of The Office on Netflix, a show I would have never considered watching except in the circumstances in which I found myself.  I’ve also found myself struggling with new thoughts about mortality, our finite time here to make a difference.  Accompanying this is a good deal of wondering what for?  Why am I, and everyone else I’m around, in such a hurry?  Where are we going anyway?  And is this question a function of my age? A natural progression?  I watch older people with seemingly no real reason to live, enjoying every moment of it.  Is this an adjustment that comes from many moments like I’ve had recently, and have yet to come, adding up to realizing the truth is that it’s just about having a good time?

Speaking of fun, on a lighter note, I love music, working out, and my silly doggies.  I love living on 5 acres of land in the middle of nearly nowhere on the side of a hill.  I love scuba diving and mountains and travel.  I’m still head over heels in love with an exchange student who lived with us a few years ago.  And I’m newly head over heels in love with some new girlfriends I finally stopped being afraid to let in.

If you’re interested in any of these topics, I hope you’ll come back to visit.  I’m okay musing on these things by myself.  I think it will give me some clarity and help me think some of them through in a useful way.  But as I learned from SparkPeople, a website I’ve been hanging out on for 2 years while losing weight, it’s alot more fun with friends.  I’d love to hear about anyone else you know who’s interested in these topics.  If they write a blog or have a book, please share.  And your opinions are always welcomed.  I want conversation, or I’d write this in a notebook near my bed….

or perhaps I wouldn’t.  It’s a lot easier to type than write for me after all these years.

I’m looking forward to getting to know me better here.  I can’t wait to make new friends I’ve never known before, and I hope I get to know some of the friends I already have better than I do right now.  And more than anything, I hope this new change of space turns out to be big fun whatever it has in store for me.

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