Adventure! Who knew?

Quote of the Day:  Mommy, your blog is just going to get bigger and bigger. - sweet, sweet words from my encouraging sons

One look at my flag counter and you'll see - I really get around - the cyber globe, that is.  My most recent visitor was from Italy which excites me to no end as I've recently been awed by the beauty and food of Italy from watching movies like Letters to Juliet and Eat, Pray, Love.

When I was in college, I studied abroad in Germany for a semester and traveled around Western Europe: Italy, Austria - where I met the pen pal I started writing to in the 5th grade, Holland.  Our group had a long weekend in Prague which was a huge learning experience to be inside a communist country.  I visited relatives in Norway and Sweden (Hi! family from the old country!)

I determined that my word is Adventure!  In the book and movie, Eat, Pray, Love, Elizabeth Gilbert talks with her friends about how a place or person has a word.  Rome's is sex.  She thought New York City was succeed.  After seeing the movie with some friends, we talked about our word.  One gal liked saucy.  I didn't know until the next day that I'd named mine.  I had talked about my travels while in college, and how I'm getting out in the world again, traveling to PA in the fall for a writer's workshop.  I told them that I do have a sense of adventure.

My boys asked me about my first plane ride.  It was when I was 18-years-old.  I boarded the plane in Fargo, ND, and with a few stops along the way, ended up in Frankfurt, Germany.  How's that for your first flight experience!  That trip was mostly touring with a short home stay and meeting some families and students in a Gymnasium (Germany's word for high school).  My second big trip was back to Germany as a college student for a study abroad program.  I was there for six months.

My kids were shocked that I was so brave.  They see me as safety mom whose afraid of anything that goes too fast or too high, and makes them wear helmets and check in with me all the time - you get the picture.  So, when my oldest son heard about my adventures, he said, "Well, you like to travel.  When we're all grown up and gone I suppose you'll start traveling again."

I paused, "Yes, I think you're right.  That will just happen naturally because I'll have more time to do that, but it's not like I'm sitting around thinking, hmm, as soon as these kids are gone, I'm outta here."

Adventures can happen in big, long flights across the ocean, or they can happen when you venture outside your own door and move out of one comfort zone and into another one.

Today is my birthday - think I'll go have an adventure!

Photo taken at Aalgaard Studios by my grandpa Arne Aalgaard.

His adventure brought him from the old country to a new one, but that's a story for another day.

Journaling Prompt:  What's your word?  What is one of your greatest adventures?

Awards and Affirmations

Quote of the Day:  Hebrews 12:1 (New International Reader's Version)
1 A huge cloud of witnesses is all around us. So let us throw off everything that stands in our way. Let us throw off any sin that holds on to us so tightly. Let us keep on running the race marked out for us.

Received from Charmaine, Wagging Tales, blogger, Down-under.  So glad to know you!  Thanks for honoring me!!

The Honest Scrap Award asks for 10 Things about me:  This will be 10 more things about me.

1.  I grew up on a farm.

2.  My favorite food is chocolate covered strawberries.

3.  I make yummy stir-fry and even try new ingredients.

4.  My kids hate stir-fry.

5.  I think spring is both exciting and dangerous.

6.  Fall is my favorite season.

7.  I get excited about planning music for worship.

8.  I think I might have something that still needs to be picked up from the dry-cleaning.

9.  I'd rather be surrounded by too many people, than none at all.

10. The ingredients to a Good Morning include coffee, journals, music and/or poetry, grapefruit, and a cheerful "Good Morning" greeting from a loved one.

This one is from Laurel's Leaves.  She brings out the creative writer in ME.

I felt myself pulling back last week.  I was trying to get out of groups and activities.  I was retreating.  It's hard to tell, sometimes, are you retreating because you're tired and need a rest, or are you retreating because you don't feel up to the task?  Are you saying to yourself:  I'm not good enough?

I have a few people in my camp who won't let me say, "But, I'm not good enough." or "Who am I to....whatever - write, get published, play music, teach?" (fill in your own art/insecurities here).

Instead, these people say, "Of course you can, Silly.  Now, get out there and DO it.  The world is waiting.  Quit talking that crazy talk."

Thank you.

Journaling Prompt:  Name the people who are in your camp of confidence.  Write them a thank-you.  Write about a time when you felt lifted up.

Sugar Award

Many thanks to Shannon from Book Dreaming for my Sugar fix today!

Your words are sweeter than candy, smoother than chocolate!

She called me "insightful, encouraging, funny, and unpredictable."

I am all aglow with good feelings. (Quote of the Day)





Now, I have to reveal more secrets about myself.  That's how this award works.  I need to write 10 things that no one knows about me.  I don't think that's possible, so I'm already revising the rules in my mind to 10 things that most people don't know about me, and almost all blogger friends don't know about me.  I mean, really, I have two sisters.  They know everything, even when you're not in the same state anymore.  Plus, I go to the beauty shop and your stylest knows more about you than your ob/gyn.  You know she does!

1.  I am terrified of all amusement park rides.  (My boys will verify.)

2.  I try, but am not at all strict about bedtime. (Again, ask the boys.)

3.  My first kiss was in a sauna by the lake.  I was almost 12.

4.  I like Valentine's Day even though I am now single.  (I have four sweethearts for sons.  Plus, it's my little sister's birthday.)

5.  On good days, I think of myself as a unique flower in the weed patch of life.

6.  On bad days, I am a dormant seed stuck in the mud.

7.  I can come up with a song for nearly every phrase, conversation topic, mood, or event. (Some people have a photographic memory, mine is lyrical.)

8.  I can solve the Rubic's Cube. (My boys know this, too, and mess it up to distract me because they know I HAVE to fix it.)

9.  I am looking forward to the time when my boys start dating.  It will be nice to have a girl to talk to once in a while.  The cat doesn't count.

10.  In a future blog, I will describe how my alter ego is Catwoman.

11.  I thought this would be really hard, but I have a bonus one:  To me, dating after divorce when you're over 40 is like being pushed out of an airplane into a foreign country.  (I haven't really landed yet, still free-falling - Isn't that a song?) I'll blog on that soon, too.

12. (I'm on a roll.  Why would I stop at 10 or 11?)  Every one of those followers to the right are fabulous writers.  Each one is unique and amazing.  Knowing them, reading their words, is the icing on the cake of life.

Alright, fine, I'll pick a few, but don't you feel bad if you're not chosen today.  I love you.  You're the best.  I'm tired, and I can't pick everyone.  I'm going with surprises I found on the blogging circuit so far.

Texas Playwright Chick - How could I resist?  She gives me energy with every word.

JeMA - My artist friend that lives right here in the Brainerd lakes area near me.  I helped name her.

Singer-Scribe - We're mixed from the same ingredients.  Although, she's much more theological than I am, and she teaches music in the schools.

Journaling Woman - She's funny AND she journals, and she's quite crafty.

Whole Latte Life - I knew I'd enjoy this blog with my morning mug of joe.

The Block - You will be amazed at the experiences this woman has lived through and so vividly describes.

The Character Therapist - I could spend days here.

My journaling prompt is to encourage you to make your lists of little known facts about yourself.  It's kind of fun.  I might have even learned more about me today.