Me, Myself and My New Mojo

A long time ago in a galaxy far away, a blog friend of mine tagged me to write 7 fun things about myself. In case you haven’t ever heard of a “tag”, it is basically like “Tag, you’re it!” from elementary school days in the game of chase… only with keyboards and grown up girls who share their lives with the internet. And so I suppose we never escape the playground; which is fine with me.

I remember a time when blogging was new and I was a little less crinkled and tired. I had two less children and a lot less square footage. I loved the new world of blogging like a child might love a new puppy – and there wasn’t any holding back.

It was just me and a keyboard; and all the interesting things I could think of that day to say. Site meters hadn’t been invented yet. I’m not sure dirt was, either.

Sad that the longer you blog, the less it becomes just about the joy of writing. I vowed to get the joy back this year or quit blogging.

I told a friend of mine the other day, “I just don’t feel like blogging”. Partly because I am too tired to do much “living” that seems interesting – and partly because when I do get up and go, I’d rather just enjoy it and bask in it (than feel like I have to report on it). But I want to live. I want to blog. I want to do the hard things that require working at it. I don’t want to give up.

Sometimes to get through a rut (or writer’s block) you just have to see clearly what you really want… and then make your move.

My grandma would call that getting ‘fed up enough to fix it’. She was awesome with one-liners. She also had the best marriage advice I have ever gotten from anyone: “If you aren’t going to divorce him over it, why bother complaining? Just do what you need to do and ignore the small stuff that doesn’t turn out the way you dreamed it would. There are plenty of great things ahead.”

And that brings me back again to my word of the year: choice.

My goal for 2013 (and beyond) is to make good choices; to “seize the day”.

Funny, because I just bought a shirt from Snorg Tees that embodies my word for the year:

THE TIME IS NOW.

And so it is. The time is now to not just ponder, or make a list, or think about what needs to get done. The time is now to CHOOSE IT – DO IT – CHECK IT OFF. To follow through.

The time is now to love.

Love is now – here – a verb.

So I decided to lose weight this year. Spend more time PLAYING and CREATING and being PRESENT with my kids. Declutter the upstairs. Finish the taxes in February. Focus on paying off debt and budget. Drink 8 glasses of water a day. Purge the email box. Get loose ends tied up.

Dive in. Head first.

And you know what? I’m doing it.

One choice – one task – one challenge at a time.

Which brings me to the tag from Sheila that I dug out of my email while purging… which she posted on her blog in May of 2008. I’d call getting around to posting a reply five years later a major victory in my effort at #unprocrastination.

See, Sheila? I love you. And if you are wondering why you are just now getting replies to the emails you sent me half a decade ago (any of you), it’s because I’m busy with my 2013 Spring Cleaning!

SEVEN FUN THINGS ABOUT SPRITTIBEE
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1. My eyes start stinging at 1 AM. Never fails. Which is why the first half of this post was written before bed last night, and the rest of it was written today. It’s kind of like my internal clock… which used to not bother me until 5 AM when I was a teen. Now days it’s a good day when I’m in bed by 11pm, and a bad day when I’m creeping in to bed with bloodshot eyes at 2am.

I can’t stay up like I did in my 20’s. I used to be able to stay up until 7 AM without hurting really bad. If I tried that today, I would die. Twice.

2. In the 80’s I wanted to have hair like Cyndi Lauper. I never dyed it quite as bright but I did use a red wash-out that was only supposed to last for a week and it stayed in my hair for nearly three months – all during a time I was wearing a matching Pizza Hut uniform. I was epic.

Ellie Goulding is now repeating that hair style for a whole new generation of tween fangirls (albeit in bleach blond). Thankfully my daughter – although she’s loving Ellie – doesn’t want the 80’s punk hair. My girl is 150% more modest and responsible than I was at her age. Praise God for Jesus and homeschooling… and holy COW, my daughter is 14. I need a moment.

3. I LOVE spicy foods. My mother never comes to dinner and puts a single bite in her mouth without asking me, “You didn’t ruin this with hot stuff, did you?” There have been nights that I was the only one who was able to stomach the Spanish Rice.

I even like chili in my chocolate.

4. I’ve been known to hide sweets from my kids. A favorite spot used to be behind the monitor of my computer when I used a desktop. Now that I have a laptop, I’m having to get creative.

I get it honest, though. My great grandma hid Reese’s Pieces, and her mother hid the RC Cola in the stove. Sneaky, no? With my luck, if I tried that, I would blow up the kitchen.

5. Although I used to not be able to BREATHE without music, as a busy parent, I find that it doesn’t get NEAR the attention I used to give it back when mixed tapes were the fad. The digital age has left me listening to endless loops of the same ‘ol CD in the car – for six months at a time. Come to think of it, it may be why Coldplay moved to the top of my charts and stayed there indefinitely for the past eon.

I’ve been trying unsuccessfully for years to get ALL of my music on ONE device that I can take with me and play in my vehicle. I go through years of giving up on it, and then I sit down (like today) with a chest full of 600+ CDs and try to rip and burn and organize files. Currently I’m moving them to an external so they are portable and I’m going to delete my last iTunes library because I know it will create duplicates of every song and I’ll have to cry my mascara off again.

I fail to see how this point is “fun”… but it is certainly quirky (and somewhat pathetic) – just like my taste for certain crazy techno music from the 80’s and 90’s (according to my teenage son).

6. I love to laugh. My husband and kids both agree that my dry sense of humor is one of their favorite things about me. We love to joke about reality – because really – if you don’t, you’ll go crazy. There are a lot of things we crack up about which are completely unbloggable. In case you were wondering, I’m not politically correct, either. You probably knew that if you follow me on Twitter or Facebook. Without a sense of humor, I don’t see how ANY American hasn’t gone into a severe depression with the state of our “Union”.

7. My favorite color is orange. Orange is inspiring. Strangely, I have very few clothes that are orange, and there is only one room in my house where orange is an accent.

I went through a red and gold phase when we were replacing furniture after a flood; now we are stuck with red and gold (until I learn how to reupholster things myself – or we get rich, whichever comes first). I’m working on decorating my house in slow motion… one room at a time. Much to my mom’s chagrin (it’s her most hated color), I’m hoping to add more orange (especially in the kitchen).

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I’m not going to tag anyone, but link back if you write 7 things of your own so I can get to know you better!

Now I have to get back to my self-inflicted week-long project of deleting 10,000 emails from Gmail and ripping 600 CDs.

{ Pray for my eyeballs and spine if you think about it. }

 

Credits: Photos of Cyndi and Ellie are from Google and there’s no telling who took them. Paintings on my orange-accented entry-way wall are mostly from Etsy artists, and one is a greeting card, along with a sketch by my daughter.