Another "Top 10" List #Wellness #FitFluential

As my 44th birthday (technically my 45th; seems nobody ever counts their original birthday as 1, as it should be. even though i will be 44 years old, it is technically my 45th birthday) rapidly approaches (unlike the end off this sentence), I have decided to divulge some information about myself based on a list of "10 Things You Must Give Up to Move Forward" which I found on the interwebs that were created by someone much brighter than I am (as indicated by the fact that I cannot recall the source). <~~thought you'd never see that period, didn't you?!

10 Things You Must Give Up to Move Forward
1. Letting the opinions of others control your life
2. The shame of past failures
3. Being indecisive about what you want
4. Procrastinating on the goals that matter to you
5. Choosing to do nothing
6. Your need to be right
7. Running from problems that should be fixed
8. Making excuses rather than decisions
9. Overlooking the positive points in your life
10. Not appreciating the present moment

Worry not, intrepid reader. I will not be going through all of these in one fell blog post. Nope. For your continued reading pleasure I will drag these out for a few posts. Perhaps 3. Or maybe 5. You'll just have to tune in later to find out. Let's jump right in with number

5. Choosing to do nothing
This is, as present, nearly impossible for me to do. I am in motion most of the time, and when I seem idle, my brain is still trying to glom onto at least one or two of the ideas that are flying around in my head. This makes it difficult for me to fall asleep, or to return to sleep should I be lucky enough to awaken during the night.
This past Saturday I chose to try to do nothing of import and drove 30 minutes to go window shopping at stores that are 5 minutes away. My intent was to use the drive time and the different location as a mini-escape. Turns out that it was an impromptu lesson in doing nothing, as I had to stand around and wait 25 minutes for a nice mechanic named Mike to come along and rescue my keys that I had locked in my car for safe keeping. Good times.
In the coming year, I will, unfortunately, have plenty of time do do nothing. Which I will promptly put to use by working out more, being more creative, blogging more, and continuing to chase after that dream of inventing a perpetual motion machine (ok, maybe not that one). Does it count as "choosing to do nothing" if I schedule time to do nothing? I think it does.

As I have used up my comma quota (quotient?) for blogging today I will leave you with this: Which one of those 10 Things do you think would give you the biggest challenge? The least? Start with that one and work your way toward the biggest. I will be.

-Gene-

Why I am now 75 and not 42

Every year Tracey and I (aka Mr. and Mrs. Claus) try to take a trip to a shopping center that isn't the one we always shop at in an effort to find new inspiration for Christmas gifts. After this year's adventure, I think that next year we might do this in JUNE rather than waiting until December. It might actually extend my life expectancy.
Some background: short version is that on 17DEC07 I rolled my pickup truck after I hit some black ice on the highway. I was going maybe 45 mph at the time. If that. Anyway, I was headed south. In these pictures, you can see the what's left of the front end of the truck. It is facing NORTH. I spun, hit a snowbank, then guard rails, and cartwheeled along them before coming to rest. For those of you with kids who have toy cars, try to work out the "how the heck did THAT happen" with one of them. yea, i dunno either. Ok, here are the pictures before we move on. Since then, I have been a bit wary on wintry roads. oh, i just remembered the old blog. you can see more pictures here.

in this photo you can see where the truck cartwheeled (note depressions in snowbank along guardrail)

i had to climb out of the driver side window.

On with the story. So yesterday we'd been on the road for a while, laughing it up about Tracey starting her own blog, things the kids were into, crazy stuff like that. Travel had been slowed to no more than 55 mph for the better part of the trip. As we got closer to our destination, the winds were really starting to pick up. The temp was changing, so we had a nice 'wintry mix' falling; rain, sleet, snow. simultaneously. for those of you in the areas of the world who don't get snow, the road looked like this (courtesy of google images):

almost exactly like this. but less visibility. so i'm driving along with a nice firm grip, trying to concentrate. my lovely wife was riding shotgun, and had just finished a cigarette. (WHOLE other topic. moving along now...) she went to flick it out the window, and out of the corner of my hyper-vigilant eye i see the butt blow back into the car, bounce off her shoulder, and fall between her and the door. in slow motion.

she laughs as if nothing happened. I said, "you gonna get that?" 

"nah, it'll be fine", she quips. 

I said, "BUT IT IS ON FIRE!"

Unphased, she said, "i've got it under control" and she unbuckles her seatbelt, and then OPENS THE DOOR so that she can lean out so she can reach down and get the butt.

Folks, i'm fairly creative, but I swear that I didn't make that up.

If i could have seen me, I am 95% certain that I would have looked like this guy:

remove glasses for that extra 5%

Then she calmly closed the door, rebuckled, and acted as if nothing happened.
When I go to Denny's today (not really) for my free birthday breakfast (I don't know if they actually do this. PLEASE don't send me hate mail if you try it. No, actually, try it and let me know what happened.) I am going to ask for the AARP discount. I think i deserve it.
Have a great Monday. remember, it is a brand new week!
-g-