Blog Hunting

I went on a blog hunt this morning.  Blog hunting for me is rolling through all the blogs I love, looking for inspiration in either the words written or in a photo.  I struck gold this morning.
 
Thank you Havi Brooks of  The Fluent Self, When You Need Some Destuckification! She has a post this morning titled Fewer than 33 things. That you might already know. But possibly not. About me.  She talks about a lot of things but the one that really resonated with me was this one:

I also don’t know what I do.  And I don’t care. Luckily I make very good money not knowing what I do, so I’ve given myself permission to stop worrying about it.


For the last few years I have been struggling with who I’m supposed to be! I’ve been incredibly frustrated, read tons of books and blogs and meditated and cried and come up with nothing that fits! How can just a few words unstick me so simply?

It makes me feel like I don’t have to be anything other than exactly who I am, right now, today. Tomorrow, I will probably be a slightly different version of who I am today.  And that's okay.  Wow!  What if I gave myself permission to stop worrying about it?  Is that possible?

Susannah Conway also inspired me this morning.  Looking through her blog I found an old post, that I'm having trouble locating now, that suggested coming up with manifestos for your life.  She allows that yes, she has found them to be a bit hokey when she has read about them before, but after trying it herself has had good results.  She says keeping it to about six words makes it easier to remember.  Then repeat it to yourself throughout the day and just keep it floating around in your head.  No chanting in the grocery store or anything!

So what if I were to combine Havi's and Susannah's wisdom?  My first manifesto will be

 "Be who I am today."

(Ok, wow!  My television is on in the other room, I can't see it, but as I typed my manifesto, I heard a commercial saying "What if you could just be you?" I don't even know what the commercial was for, but that was a little weird!)

Now the big question is "Who Am I?"  I will go back to Havi for some inspiration and tell you 33 things or fewer you may or may not know about me.

1.  I love shoes, but I am not willing to pay more than $100 for uncomfortable shoes, no matter how cute they are!
2.  Honesty is my favorite virtue!  If I can't tell you the truth, and you won't tell me the truth, we can't be friends!
3.  I love exclamtion marks!!!  Even though, I think it was Mark Twain who said "when you use exclamation marks, its like typing in all caps. It's as if you are shouting."  I disagree.  If I am very sincere or just excited about something, I like to use an exclamation point!
4.  I don't like to get pedicures by myself.  I will, if I'm desperate!  But, I would really rather not.  I might not talk to you much if you go with me, but I would really like you there!
5.  I like to eat an entire sleeve of Ritz crackers in one sitting.  I love the way the whole cracker fits in my mouth at one time.  This works for Girl Scout Golden Trefoils and Thin Mints, too.  I am very happy that Ritz now makes the smaller snack sleeves.
6.  I am late everywhere I go, but I honestly always think I have more time than I do!
7.  I went skydiving and what scared me the most was that it didn't scare me at all.
8.  Pictures of people laughing make me very happy.  I don't think I laugh enough,so I really love to see and be able to study someone's joy frozen in a photograph.
9.  I don't think there is enough time in my lifetime to read all of the books I want to.
10. I hate the word try.  Either do it or don't.
11. I try not to say should.  It's very judgemental and why is my way better than yours?
12. I am happiest when I am with my husband and three children.  Other people can be there, too!  But I feel most complete, when the five of us are together.  Unfortunately, that doesn't happen very often the older the kids get.
13. I love texting, because I hate talking on the phone.  Unless I have nothing else to do.  I like to give people my full attention.  If I can't do that, I will not answer the phone.
14. I am incredibly loyal.  I will do anything for my friends.  But, if our friendship is not a two way street, we cannot continue to be friends.  I will probably slip out of your life without telling you why.  If you can't figure it out, that's probably why it wasn't working for me.
15. My cat, Smoochie, likes to have a glass of wine with me on Friday nights.

Smoochie the Wino

16.  She likes dirty martinis, too, but not bourbon or champagne.

Dirty Girl

17. I'm 44, but as my kids grow up and move out of the house, I feel like I am getting younger.
18.  And the only way out is through.  Bad things happen, things we want to avoid or pretend aren't happening, but sometimes the only way to get to the other side is to walk right through the middle of whatever it is you're going through.

That's not 33, but that's who I am today.