The Gift of a Goat

A few years ago, I was introduced to a true children's book about the chicken man. Basically, the man lived in an economically disadvantaged country, and he was having a rough go of it. Fortunately for him, a group came in and gave him some chickens. Those chickens reproduced, and now he is the largest egg and chicken supplier in his area providing a sustainable income to him and his family.

Fast forward to a concert I attended last November. My friend scored free tickets to see Lady A, so of course we went. While we were there, the groups were encouraging fans to donate to the group Heifer International. If you aren't familar with Heifer International, you can check out their website at http://www.heifer.org/. In a nutshell, H.I. takes donations for animals, and the animals are sent to needy families around the world. Not only do the animals provide food, but they provide a steady source of income. I'm all about this program because when you donate you aren't artificially inflating their economy. This is a way to help folks in need and teach them a skill. To me, it seems like a win/win.

After a season of reading a bunch of books on volunteerism, I decided it was time to send the goat. I set aside some money and was able to send a goat AND a flock of chicks. I hope and pray these animals make a noticeable difference in the quality of lives they come in contact with.

I've also been working on my 30 volunteer opportunities. As a teacher, each of us had to create a club this year. Since I have a passion for volunteering, I decided to start a Service Learning Club. So far we have made Christmas cards for soldiers and baked cookies at the soup kitchen. We also plan to send Valentine's day cards to kids with cancer and oragami flowers for seniors in a local nursing home. My hope is to get the kids out into the community as much as possible this spring, but for now we have a limited budget, so we're doing what we can close to home.

Since we're getting close to Christmas and people tend to be more generous, I'm wondering what your favorite charities/organizations are. I'd love to hear about why you are passionate about them!

30 Things Before 30

A month ago I turned 26. I'm not entirely sure how I got here, but I am on the downhill slide to 30 (remember when 30 was old?!). I pretty much epically failed on my last 101 things list not because I wasn't doing them, but because I wasn't blogging about them. I have decided enough is enough. I am now going to get back to actively blogging. I want to make the most of my my twenties before I get saddled up with more responsibility, so I made a list of 30 things to do before I turn 30. They are on the sidebar of my blog, but for those of you following on your mobile device, I will list them just this once here for you.

1. Finish my MFA in poetry
2. Finish my book
3. Travel to Iceland and see the midnight sun
4. Take a Yoga class on the beach
5. Try SUP (Stand up paddle boarding)
6. Compete in a triathlon
7. Visit and raft the Grand Canyon
8. Finish a 1000 things gratitude list
9. Backpack a week on the AT
10. Volunteer 30 times
11. Take a cross country road trip
12. Save a down payment for a house
13. Live somewhere else for a month in the summer
14. See Opaekaa Falls
15. Do a last minute trip somewhere cool
16. Create a new travel blog
17. Get a new stamp in my passport
18. Read 30 books a year
19. Send the Galax Goat via Heifer International
20. Participate in Relay for Life
21. Go on a mission trip
22. Splurge on myself!
23. See Third Eye Blind in concert
24. Zip line
25. Buy Christmas for an Angel Tree child
26. Learn a new instrument
27. Ride in a hot air balloon
28. Make a quilt
29. Get a tattoo
30. Spend my 30th birthday in Australia

Happily, I will be going to Italy in two days, so I will begin my list/count down with an amazingly good trip in the company of great friends.

Joseph Cambell and 101 Ways to be Blissed Out

I graduated high school on a hot and humid Virginia evening. There was heat lightening outlining a silhouette of the mountain, and rain drops splattered onto the top of my maroon cap. In order to protect our diplomas from being ruined by rain, the school handed out fake scrolls on stage, and we received our actual diplomas on a table inside the gym. On each scroll was the follow quotation:

Follow your bliss and the universe will open doors where there were only walls. -Joseph Campbell

At the time, this quote meant very little to me. I slid the scroll into the side of my white Pontiac door, and drove off into my unknown future. Over the past year, this quotation has become a light with which I view my life. Maybe it is selfish, but I have come to the conclusion that I don't want to spend anymore time doing what I find unpleasant. I want to do only those things that fill my life with joy and make me content. We only get one go on this ride of life, afterall.

As you know, I started this blog to document my 101 things in 1001 days. Unfortunately, a lot of my 101 things had to do with someone who is no longer in my life, and so I stopped pursuing that list and instead pursued survival of the heart for awhile. Since the beginning of June, I've been considering what things would make my life full, and I started to write down all the things I'd like to experience and accomplish. I'm still working on it, but I have begun to establish a new 101 list. This time, each goal will be something for me because a person cannot base her life on making someone else happy. That's no way to live at all. I've found that making myself happy places people in my life who have the same interests and goals as I do, thus making my relationships with others more meaningful.

and isn't that what life is all about? Genuine connections and love for people on earth: Agape.

(101 List to follow. Stay tuned.)

Twitterpated

(I'm goin to geek out just a little, so please forgive me.)
Do you remember this term from the Disney classic Bambi? If we were to look it up in the Disney Glossary of Made Up Words, we might find this definition:
Twitterpated (adj) totally and completely smitten (as in "I am twitterpated over my new beau.")

and girls and boys, am I ever!

Montana came to Virginia and spent a fantastic five days at my house. We acted like kids and did everything from riding the ferris wheel to zipping down waterslides. I made him dinner, he fixed my dryer, we walked the dog, and in general did life together.

Most everyone in my immediate circle of family and friends knows about Mr. Brawny Man Fantastic Pants, but I was hesitant to post him as my fo' realsies boyfriend on FB because I was nervous people would think it was too soon for me to be in a serious relationship. Then I decided to say the hell with what other people think! I am following my bliss, and this guy adds so much dimension and vibrancy to my life. Sometimes he will say things, and I'll think "my goodness...that's exactly what was going through my head." He always gets my jokes, is a wonderful kisser, and he makes me smile like none other.

In the past, I've dated guys based on physical attraction. I even married the ex with physical attraction being 90% of the deal. With Montana it is different. Don't get me wrong, I think he is ridiculously handsome, and don't even get me started on those shoulders. . . but my attraction to Montana comes from our personalities being 100% compatible. He is active, likes to talk, and loves life. No surprise, but so do I!

I can't wait until he comes to stay again. Call me crazy (and if I'm wrong, oh well), but he might just be it.

My Next 25 Years

The other day I was playing a game of (Clean) Dirty Hearts with the gal pals, and I was asked where I saw myself in five years, then I went out on Sunday and was asked where I saw myself in ten years, and my boss wants to know where I see myself in twenty years.

My honest answer? I. Don't. Know. In five years, I'll be the dreaded thirty. Interestingly enough, it doesn't bother me. Won't it be refreshing to stand firm in the comfort of a solid identity? Or will I continue to ask myself where my life is heading? If you'd asked me a year ago (heck six months ago) where I saw myself in five years, I would have seen myself as a married mother of 3.5 children. But now I'm not sure I want that. I want to fall in love again. I know I want that, but who knows if that will be in the next five years or in the next eighty? I want to pulse with anticipation when a certain person pulls into my driveway (who will that person be?). I want to share the morning paper with someone over shitty cereal. I want to make out on a beach, on a ferris wheel, in the back of a truck/car/boat. I want to laugh with someone until my side aches. I want to do all of this and more, but I don't know if I want to marry again until I'm 50 (or ever).

and if I'm confused about where I'll be in five years, I'm even more at a loss with the ten year timeline. I'd like to have a Roth IRA that is performing. I'd like my networth to be over $100,000. I'd like to go to Greece, maybe get a master's degree, finish my poetry project.

I'm turning twenty five in a short 13 days, and I'm faced with this question again: what am I doing with my life? I keep waiting for an answer, for something to hit me in the face and say WHAM! THIS IS WHAT YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO BE DOING. But all I can focus on is the fact that I'd like to make and eat a chocolate pie. So that's what I'm going to do in my next 25 years. I mean, not make the pie (well I probably will bake), but follow all of my heart's healthy desires.

Thriving

As I sit on my couch tonight eating Krispy Kreme and listening to Say Anything (no judgement), I find myself thinking about Diane Keaton in Under the Tuscan Sun. I want to know why my divorced life isn't as glamorous as hers. How come I can't go off and have an Eat, Pray, Love adventure and let my soul sop up everything delicious and delectable and heal? Instead, I woke up this morning to my dog ralphing on the empty side of my queen size bed. Meh, I thought sleepily, I can't smell it. I'll just roll over. But then my alarm went off, and since there is no one to hit the snooze button but me, I went ahead and put my bare feet down on the hardwood.

It's not so much that I miss going to bed with someone. Sleeping with a partner is overrated. Someone inevitably snores, or has bed sweats, or funky-fied morning breath. (I, myself, am a self-professed cover hog, and I tend to flail like an octopus. No lie, I tuck the blankets under my body like a caterpillar so they can't be taken away. I dare you to try and unroll me from my cocoon. You will get a karate kick to the face.) No, I don't miss co-sleeping. I miss the hours before sleep: the comfort of sharing a meal with someone, the two hours of t.v. and minor arguments over what should fill the screen, the kiss after quickly brushed teeth... oh and relying on someone else to be the last to turn off the light.

But now? Now I flip the switch and run from the darkness into the comfort of my empty bed. I wake up some mornings and reach, but no one is there. On those mornings, I'm filled with an emptiness that not even a whole sleeve of Ball Park Hot Dogs can erase (did I mention I'm eating like crap?). On my worst days, I hate him for leaving me to pull too-full trashbags from undersized cans. Or I scream his name like a cuss word when I hit my finger with a hammer trying to hang something on my bare walls in the apartment that I really don't like. I put "You Outta Know" on repeat and belt it so loud that my neighbors quiet their t.v. to listen. I sleep too much, or too little. I wish his little internet skank the clap. Or herpes. Or crabs. (I know it's not Christian... but thinking about her itching open scabs makes me laugh.)

But most days, I'm talkin' 5 out of 7 days, I wake up to my yellow comforter (yes, yellow! No more neutral man-pleasin' colors), and I smile into the anticipating face of Margot. I go to the store to buy groceries, and I do that thing he always hated (I talk to EVERYONE at the check out and find out their life story, tell them mine, make friends with strangers, and generally hold up the line). I spend my nights reading smutty romance novels, painting (then repainting) my toenails. I put Margot's hair into a mohawk and then into a ponytail, drink a bottle of wine and sing Hank. I go to Bible study or the gym, watch my girl's play soccer, fantasize about Marcus Flutie or Bo Duke or Edward Cullen or . . .

I write a poem, go out with the girls, have a date, shop the farmer's market, analyze my net worth, count the days until my next vacation, flirt with available men, count the number of times I blink during a commercial, make play lists for days of the week. I drive through this strange town with the windows down and let the hot, yellow sunshine dance on my newly darkened hair.

I listen to that old brag (I am, I am, I am), and I rest assured that this is for the best.

#20-25

#21 I am the assistant coach of a varsity soccer team where I work, and I must say that I am so thankful to have the privilege of being a part of this team. The girls always make me laugh, and hanging out at practice and at games gives me a good way to take my mind of things.

#22 Baby lotion. It keeps my silky smooth 24 hours a day. Let's hear it for pretty skin!

#23 People who say they will be there for you, and then are there for you. That's what commitment is all about. Showing up.

#24 I am thankful for asparagus. It is the one vegetable that I always get jazzed up to eat.

#25 Hope. Even if nothing comes from a situation, the hope that something might is worth getting up for in the morning.

Have a fantastic Tuesday night!

*Mic Check*

Is this thing on?

First, let me apologize for going on a three month hiatus. I am going through a redirection period in my life. Without going into details (for fear of hurting the guilty), I've moved to a new town on my own. (I do have the love of my life, Margot the wonder dog, with me.) I have a cute little apartment a few minutes from work, and I'm making friends and thriving.

I've been thinking a lot about happiness lately, and I'm realizing that happiness is not an end result but rather the journey. I don't want to focus on reaching the summit and miss the hike. As goal oriented as I've been in life, I'm learning to relax and take each day as it comes. I may wake up alone in my bed, but there's a tub of strawberries sitting on the table callin' my name and mine alone. Abundant rays of sunshine cascade through my windows filling my house and soul with light.

Naturally, my blog needs to change. Many of my goals were founded in someone elses happiness, and that has to change. What I've decided to do is to continue the Gratitude List I wanted to begin at New Year. I feel an overwhelming sense of gratitude to God for His amazing supply of gifts. So stay tuned for my Abundant Life: a 1000+ Gifts.