Got back on a horse for the first time in many many years. I forgot how much I love to ride. 2 years ago

My cruise in October gave me the opportunity to do a lot of things. I’ve always wanted to go on a cruise but wondered if I would be sick the whole time or be terrified being out in the middle of the ocean with no land in sight. I went and am in love with it!! I have never been more at peace in my whole life. I saw dolphins almost every day, which makes me happy happy happy. I got to zipline in the rainforest in Puerto Rico, parasail in the Bahamas, snorkle in USVI and sit on 5 beaches in 5 countries in 7 days…

It was awesome and beautiful and a time of self-reflection and self-renewal like nothing I have ever experienced. 3 years ago

Man, my imagination, sense of adventure, whatever is just non-existent lately. No clues for this month either. I’m not sure what’s up with this goal anymore. 4 years ago

No ideas for this month either. I don’t think hitting a cow at 60 mph exactly counts, though it IS a new experience. 5 years ago

Still haven’t figured anything out for this goal this month. I’ve been looking around but nothing just trips my trigger so far. 5 years ago

Not sure what to do for April’s experience. At the moment I don’t have a single idea. 5 years ago

Dancing isn’t new by any means, but we went to a spanish club last night and I tried dancing to that style of music for the first time. Completely different dance beat than anything I’ve done. It rocked!! 5 years ago

I think I loved it!! I’ll tell you for sure after my body recovers from some it’s very sudden resubmursion into some serious exercise… 5 years ago

Apparently my March experience is going to be going to some practice skates with the local roller derby team to see if it’s “my thing”. I’m excited, terrified, nervous… 5 years ago

Got my tattoo and I’m ecstatic!!!! 5 years ago

...since I got my first tattoo, so I figure getting my second one will constitute stretching my boundaries this month….if only because I have been stagnant on doing the things I want to do or making commitments to anything with any permanence for quite some time. I’m taking this as my chance to reaffirm my commitment to living life to it’s fullest. 5 years ago

Haven’t really come up with any interesting ideas for this month yet. I feel like my brain is just “stuck on stupid” lately. 5 years ago

....so I need to decide what it is I want to do for February’s experience. I’m drawing a blank at the moment. My birthday is in February and I keep thinking I want to do something substantial. Although it wouldn’t necessarily be a new experience I’m thinking of maybe getting a new piece of my tattoo or a piercing…something to that effect. Just not sure. I kind of want to wait for tattoos for after I lose my weight and not sure what I want to get pierced first (belly button has been pierced for about 12 years but that’s the only one so far). Again, the weight thing is what I seem to be waiting on for that too. Maybe I should get an ankle bracelet tattoo instead of something on my larger tattoo piece goal.

Too cold to go learn to surf, too broke to do a lot of other things I can think of at the moment. Not ready to go do the obstacle challenge that I want to do someday. Maybe some amazing opportunity will just head my way… 5 years ago

Although I haven’t updated here I have been working on this one.

I can’t remember what the hell went on in October if you want to know the truth. I think that month was pretty much spent on doc appointments ect for my parents

November I went out of my way to meet new people and am now meeting up with them around once a month to go do something fun. We went to Mosley Street Melodrama in November, December was a wash due to holidays and all but we will get together again this month.

December really kind of sucked. I really used to love Christmas but every year it seems like I like it a little less. This year I really could have just done without it altogether.

January, This month I joined a spanish class and a tai chi class. I’ve done tai chi before and love it, but spanish is a brand new thing to me. Luckily taking french in highschool is making it easier for me to understand a lot of the rules of spanish that we just don’t have in english. I’m supposed to go out with some other new people later this month too and hubby and I joined a “spanish club” to help us meet other people we can hang out with to practice our new language. Looks like January is going to be about many things…meeting new people, learning new things, remembering to take care of our bodies…etc. 5 years ago

I guess this month’s attempt at this goal is that I have decided to explore my city and see what it has to offer. Just getting out of the house on a regular basis is a stretch for me. I have spent the last several years just kind of holed up at home. Time to get back out and join the land of the living… 5 years ago

I really like this goal, and I try to do it every day, but I think that I must give up on it now, since the big one that I was happy about adding hasn’t happened yet. While I’m still chair of the Faculty Working group, we haven’t had a meeting yet. We will, but I think that I need to focus on some of my other goals and keep stretching my boundaries in large and small ways whenever I can. 5 years ago

I live in the midwest. I’ve been to the coast twice and never managed to see the ocean while I was there.

This month I FINALLY SAW IT and it was FABULOUS!!!!

Actually, the entire trip was a major stretch to my boundries. Enough so that it may even count enough to make up for some of the time I have wasted letting my disease rule me instead of finding a way to live life anyway.

I went to Galveston, Texas and saw the Gulf of Mexico. I had stressed to the edge of insanity and a friend threatened to come and kidnap me and take me to her home a few minutes away from Galveston. Instead, I got in my car and drove down there all by myself.

The first boundry stretch occured the minute I was in the car and actually on my way. I have never driven a trip this long on my own. I had enough money to get down there but not enough to get home…and I didn’t care. I knew the money would get taken care of evenutally and I had three weeks before it would matter either way whether I was home or somewhere else. Normally these circimstances would produce so much anxiety that I would not have been able to do it so just making the decision, getting in the car and actually leaving was a big step for me.

My second boundry stretch was the drive itself. I had a blast. Anyone driving beside me probably thought I was insane. I sang at the top of my lungs, talked to myself…pretty much whatever seemed entertaining to me at the time was fine with me. My favorite part of the drive was driving through Houston. I had never driven through a town anywhere near as large and with as many intricate highways as Houston. I was very nervous about it but once I got there it became an extremely exhilerating experience for me!!! My second favorite part of the drive down was staying with my brother overnight in his town on the way down.

My third boundry stretch was meeting someone new. I’ve talked to my friend for two years but never actually met her before. Meeting her is one of my best things ever!! She is just as sweet, caring, loving and fun as I thought she would be, and her husband was exactly what I always thought too!!! Thank you for allowing me to find trust in a world where it seems that opportunity for truly allowing yourself to be open and vulnerable is usually license for someone to inflict pain.

My fourth and fifth boundry stretch. The morning after I arrived we went to the ocean. OH MY GOD!!!! I KNEW I would love it. Like in my SOUL I knew I would love it and I wasn’t disappointed. We weren’t on the beach very long before I saw my first dolphin!! It was gray on it’s back and PINK on it’s belly!!! It was awesome. Over the course of the trip I saw at least 30 dolphins. Some looked black, kind of a cobalt blue and the gray bottlenose dolphins that first come to mind when I thought of dolphins in the past. NOW it’s the pink one that comes to mind first. I picked up shells, dug my toes in the sand, felt the pull and tug of the ocean for the very first time, learned what it feels like to be hit by a wave….so many sights, sounds and feelings that I can’t even explain it all. I am in love and it won’t be long before I will find my way to the water permanantly.

My sixth boundry stretch. I rode a Ferry. I had never seen one other than on television, much less ride on one. I could spend all day long going back and forth on that thing. I loved the seagulls, pelicans and dolphins. I loved the feeling of the air and water in my face. I loved it all.

My seventh, and probably my most important boundry stretch. I learned a LOT about myself. I learned a LOT about what I want in life. I learned a LOT about what I don’t want in life. I found myself again.

This experience is in my top 4 life events ever. I am beyond glad that I went. Thank you M and F for a chance to find a quiet place to reset myself. I will forever be grateful to you. 5 years ago

I think I’ll do better to add a monthly goal that works within a more flexible schedule, so that if I decide on the 12th of the month to do something for 30 days, I can add a goal and track it individually. 5 years ago

I actually forgot about my challenge this month and had ice cream for a snack twice. But overall, I’m doing well. Not snacking much at all and fruit, veggies or pumpkin seeds when I do. 5 years ago

So, now that I’m not eating junk food or sugary snacks for the month of June, I’m really, really hungry. I hadn’t realized that my chocolates and handfuls of chips were actually related to hunger, not appetite. I just assumed that I was eating for emotional reasons or out of boredom. It turns out that my stomach rumbles without snacks. So the next order of business is to get some snack-ready fruits and veggies. I’ve got organic raw pumpkin seeds at work, which give me protein and energy. Speaking of which, I’m hungry right now! I guess my morning oatmeal is gone. 5 years ago

I’ve kept up with my online accounting classes for May. I just realized that the month is coming to an end, which means that my mad month of resisting snacks other than veggies, fruit and the occasional scoop of honey is about to begin. This is going to be a BIIIIIGGG stretch.

Can’t wait to hear how everyone did with their May challenges! 6 years ago

It’s the 18th! I need to come up with something. New and challenging…hmmm. I’ve gone blank. Oh, wait! I signed up for and have completed the first lesson of my first-ever online class. It’s two classes a week for six weeks. It will be challenging, to judge by the syllabus. I’m going to work hard to do the assignments in the week that they’re assigned. It’s an Accounting Fundamentals class, which should teach me what I need to keep the books for a small business. It may not sound like much, but to me, it’s a step toward a new career.

I think June’s challenge will be no snacking on anything other than fruit, vegetables or whole grains. I will allow myself the occasional scoop of honey, fresh from the honeycomb that I get at the local Farmer’s Market. That should be an interesting challenge. 6 years ago

A new month, a new stretch. I’d like to be bolder this month. Bolder in movement, bolder in speaking my mind, bolder in enjoying my life. This month I’ll work on cutting free the contstraints that I tie to myself. At the end of May, I want to be a charging bull racing down the corridors of my life. Another abstract stretch, and I like it that way! 6 years ago

Don’t really want to say what it was specifically, but it was definitely something that stretched my boundaries. :)

I’m now on the lookout for something challenging to do in May! 6 years ago

I’d take the “no bloody way” side, myself. :( 6 years ago

I guess I’d better get cracking, huh? There are so many things that are more fun than editing a novel. I do think that once I’ve gone through it this once, I’m done with it. It was good to get the first behind me but I want to concentrate on the next, on which I plan to spend more time and craft more carefully. I guess an outline and some character descriptions are my first step. Oh yeah, and deciding which of the stories I want to write I’ll tackle first. 6 years ago

I discovered as I was editing my novel that I managed to forget that a hatchback would have a side panel over the rear wheel. That required some rewriting. I’m a little less disgusted with it today. I was thinking that if I write a novel every year or two, they might start being good before I’m 50. That’s not bad at all. It takes time to make a writer. I’d like to get these changes in the computer before I go to the studio tonight and edit another eight pages there. I’ve got 75 pages total, so I’m keeping up a good pace. It lacks depth but I’m not going to spend too much time rewriting it. I’ll get it edited and move on to writing the next one. It’s just my first. It’s almost destined to be bad. 6 years ago

There were some sentences in the novel that were so bad they made me laugh out loud and then wince. “It was windy outside.” Really, not inside? There was a paragraph that I wrestled with for about 20 minutes before I could get it to make any sense at all. Most discouraging, there just wasn’t much there to keep my interest. The main character seems a little dumb. But I got through eight pages and I’ll keep going. I have Friday off, so I’ll be able to get some done then. A little overwhelmed, but determined. 6 years ago

My challenge for April is to edit my entire NaNoWriMo novel. I did the first two chapters and stopped. I’m going to start carrying it around with me like some pretentious art school git and work on it whenever I have a minute, as well as making it a regular part of my Tuesday ‘stop by Mr. Man’s studio’ routine. I picked up part of it the other night and just catching sight of a character’s name was enough to make me run from the room, almost literally. I think this will be a good exercise for me and I’m hoping it will kickstart my inner writer, who seems to have been smothered by my not-so-inner chick-in-love. 6 years ago

Become a better housekeeper. This is actually one of my 43 Things as well, but I need to get on it. It’s just been sitting there in my goal list collecting dust. I got two books to get me started, because I am a woman who cannot do anything without a book to guide me. I got Organic Housekeeping and Martha Stewart’s guide to taking care of your house or whatever it’s called. Don’t laugh; it’s a very helpful book. So, my specific goal for this month (April) is to implement three key suggestions from Organic Housekeeping to dechem (i.e., my word for removing the toxic chemicals from) our home and lives. Also, I want to make a yearly schedule for maintenance for our home and large appliances based on guidelines Martha gives. I’ve never had to take care of things like this before because I’ve always rented and who cares about increasing the life span of a refrigerator not your own? I think if I can get these baby steps done, I will be well on my way to godliness. 6 years ago