I started into this past weekend with only general plans and it developed into a wonderful, refreshing two days were things got accomplished and I spent time enjoying the great company of my friend Shannon and my husband John.
On Saturday, Shannon and I met at Third Street Stuff to work on putting together a web site for her. She is an amazing artist and she needed a place to show off her portfolio. Well we sipped coffee…. and I may have had a brownie…. and a couple of hours later, voila!, she has a brand new web site. Check it out! http://www.shannonjohnsonart.com/
We then decided to celebrate the new web site by grabbing John and heading to Joseph Beth Booksellers to have dinner in the cafe and to browse through the books. It was the perfect way to wrap up the day.
On Sunday, John, Shannon and I got up at 7:30 a.m. and headed for the Red River Gorge to enjoy the beautiful weather we were having and to get in a hike. We decide on the Indian Stairway Loop Trail and after a nice little climb up the face of a cliff, we got to enjoy some of the best views in the Gorge.
We even got to see a plant that apparently only grows in the Red River Gorge and is protected, The White-Haired Goldenrod.
The hike was wonderful and it felt great to sweat a little and get in some much needed sun and exercise. I managed to come out of the woods without a scratch on me and then I stepped off onto the highway running by the trail and immediately tripped and fell on the asphalt. I am now sporting some minor road-rash and bruises. I spent the whole morning climbing rocks and stepping over tree roots and then step on a perfectly flat surface and tripped over myself. Good grief!
Exactly one month ago I wrote an entry about the things I want to do in this life and one of those things included a trip to Fairbanks, Alaska to see the Northern Lights. I have heard before that writing down your goals, illustrating them with images or simply visualizing yourself attaining those goals is a good way to make them happen. Since I wrote that post, I have checked prices on tickets, sent for a travel guide, planned the dates I want to go and even started thinking about how to get the money to make it happen.
Here is were things get interesting. While reading an entry on one of my favorite blogs today, I decided to check out the comments and then clicked through to the blog of one of the commentors and, lo and behold, she is leaving this weekend for a roadtrip to Alaska! She has the whole trip all mapped out in google maps. I sat forever clicking through the stops marked along the way, all the time getting more excited about my own journey there, hopefully in the beginning of next year. The other thing this discovery did was to give me other options than the ones I had limited myself to in my mind. Plane tickets are expensive and I had not even though about a possible road trip. It may be just as expensive but then again it may not. At least I have opened myself up to other ways of making this dream happen.
But wait there is more! Yet even later tonight, I was checking my flickr account to see if any of my contacts had updated their photos and one of my contacts that I don’t follow closely had indeed uploaded some new photos so I thought I would quickly scan them. Well…. He is Alaska right now. I’m not even making this up! Yea, a lovely landscape photo of Denali National Park just looking up at me from his photostream.
And finally, I have managed to land a couple of extra freelance jobs just in the past month that could potentially pay for a couple of plane tickets to Fairbanks or gas and hotel room costs along the way.
Maybe I’m super hyper to all things Alaska right now and am therefore seeing things that were there before and I had not noticed until it became an interest of mine, sort of like when you decide you want to purchase a particular car and then you see it everywhere. I’m going to say there is something way more cosmic going on here though. I think I have become open to the possibility of a great adventure and therefore it is making itself achievable. Isn’t life interesting?
I woke up this morning full of wonder, wanderlust and excitement about all the things I haven’t done and seen in this life and so thus begins an ongoing project for me to start listing these things here to capture them so that I can start marking them off my list. Because I’m going to you know! I am!
Travel to Fairbanks Alaska to see the Northern Lights.
Learn how to sew my own curtains and shopping bags (Must buy sewing machine!)
Learn how to screen print (maybe get a gocco)
Travel abroad for at least a month
Go to Iceland… Some friends just went there and their photos make me drool!
Build a compost bin and acquire rain barrel(s)
Go to New York City.. I have never been… and see a Broadway play
Bike to work regularly
Become a Yoga diva
Become a better runner. Maybe do a 5k or something. I need to find one and start training eh?!
Focus on shopping local.
Some of these things on the list scare me and really push me out of my comfort zone whether for money reasons or just the unknown or the fear of trying them and failing. Yay! That is exactly why I wanted to make this list. My comfort zone has recently started to smother me.
