“Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.” – Soren Kierkegaard

Getting this out a little late this week, but better late than never. Last night I had the privilege of attending a fundraiser gala and the featured speaker was Eric Weihenmayer who is the first blind man to summit Everest. His story has always been inspiring to me and it was incredible to listen to him speak in person. He infused that room with encouragement and motivation about how change is difficult and full of struggle, but the end is worth it. We also each got a copy of is new book and I’m excited to read it soon and report on it here!

1. Encouragement and motivation. In addition to getting inspired from the talk last night, I’ve been feeling very encouraged and motivated in my writing recently from people I’ve been talking with. I’ll be honest, sometimes I feel embarrassed to tell people that I quit my job to write a book. Like, I’m not worth as much to the world because I’m not working. Or that I don’t deserve to not be working full time because I don’t have kids to take care of. But when I’ve told people what I’m doing, the response has been overwhelmingly positive. Most commonly people tell me that they are excited for me and that they can’t wait to read my novel. I think it’s easy for me to get stuck inside my head with what I assume people’s expectations are of me. When I actually get out and talk to people I realize that there are no expectations really. And that most people will celebrate the fact that someone they care about is happy and pursuing their dreams.
2. Late-summer cleaning. I’ll be honest, Tyler and I are not clean freaks by any stretch of the imagination. I guess that’s a good thing, given we have two cats and a dog running the house. I do my best on a daily and weekly basis to mostly keep a handle on the dirt, but it still builds up. I’ve also never been super into spring cleaning. I get the idea, after being cooped up in your house all winter you want to freshen things up. My problem is that in the spring…I don’t want to spend my time inside cleaning! But when it’s unbearably hot outside in mid-August? I’ll happily spend my days inside wiping down baseboards and cleaning out closets! To me this is a perfect example of managing time vs. managing energy. To keep me inside in the spring just to fit into the pattern of spring cleaning would completely zap my motivation. But a late-summer cleaning is the right match for me!
3. Empathetic pets. Earlier in the week I was watching an episode of a tv show that just hit my emotions hard and I started crying. All of a sudden I was surrounded by my sweet sympathetic animals who just wanted to make sure I was okay. One of the cats ran over to me and snuggled up next to me and the dog started nosing my arms out of the way so she could get to my face. Of course this ended with the dog trying to scare the cat off, assuming in her mind that the cat was making me cry. So it all ended in laughter but it was such a sweet moment with them.
4. This quick and easy dinner recipe. It was so easy to make, it’s relatively healthy, and it was SO YUMMY! I highly recommend for a weeknight dinner.
5. Jeopardy drama. I was THRILLED to see that Mike Richards decided to step down from being the new host of Jeopardy. The things that some journalists uncovered about him were so problematic. It was pushing me towards not wanting to watch the show anymore if he was going to be the host. I think there were a lot of other fans who felt the same way and Sony felt that pressure. Not happy that he’s staying on a executive producer…but I guess you take what you can get. On the edge of my seat to see who they end up selecting now!