Hello again...

Now that it's once again dark before I leave work and there's snow on the ground here, I have no more excuses for putting off any of my writing work! So here I am; hopefully I won't disappear off the blogging radar again for quite awhile. While my summer was not very adventurous, I have some plans coming up that bring me back to my writing. (For instance--since Henry has decided this is the year for me to stop stalling and learn how to snowboard, and I fall down even when I'm not flying through the snow on a waxed board, I figure I should keep this up to give everyone a little more amusement!)

I've had a few adventures, both good and bad, over the last few months. Rather than going through the scattered details in my head, I figure I'll summarize with some photos.

Cooper, my parents' new golden retriever puppy, showed up!

We went to the Renaissance Fair. Henry got soaked.

Henry and I took a long weekend in Chicago and ate a lot of pizza and hot dogs

I spent a few days helping my family clean up from a flood

Steamboat Willie and I moved...we now have our own front door, grilling area AND washer and dryer!

And now that it's winter again, it's time for the holidays, birthdays, snowboarding and a bunch of new adventures!

New Year's Plans

I hate New Year's resolutions. To me, they seem like plans that you make knowing that you will not follow through after the first month. (Unfortunately in Lakeville, people seem to hold on for three or four months...making January through April at the gym unbearably busy!) So, as a rule, I don't make New Year's resolutions that will not be finished by the end of January.

But, every January, I still make "plans." Somehow, not calling them resolutions makes them a little more palatable to me, and makes me feel more like I will follow through. This year, I should have the opportunity to cross a few things off my bucket list. I'm also hoping at this early stage to have the follow-through (for a change) to finish a few projects.

1. Take a gondola in Venice
2. Plant a garden
3. Learn to make malva pudding
4. See the Sistine Chapel
5. Visit Versailles
6. Really learn programming, enough to be able to create something myself
7. Complete the website for my hometown church and my family's business

Undertaking an Adventure

When I graduated college, one of my professors told me that the hardest part about adapting to life after college was learning how to live with a life that wasn't divided into semesters. At that point, I was thinking about how I was going to miss summer vacation, winter break and spring break. Since then, I've figured out the real problem; my life is no longer automatically refreshed with new interests, people and schedules every four months. I spend eight hours of the day doing the same thing and, while I do learn new things most days, there's almost never a complete shift in focus.

I'm bored.

Through the first twenty three years of my life, everything was focused towards the single goal of learning more, doing more and becoming more. When I graduated, everything I had lived my life for so far was achieved, and I'm still floundering around, trying to find something new with as much meaning, interest and change. In short, I'm looking for the adventure that's going to be my life. Whether it's through achieving the goals on my "bucket list," trying new experiments or just chasing change, I'm here to write my adventure book. I hope for the sake of everyone involved that it's a great story!