I’m back! – sometimes real life gets in the way of these challenges. Today I will sort out those that I have finished and get updates written up. After all these challenges are not going to do themselves.
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when you are giving speeches and writing books.
I’m back and about to do some more challenges… I have a few that I’ve mastered.. I’m signing off on the meditation challenge (I must admit it’s my own version of meditation but I am doing for 45 mins, 3 times a week and I’m loving it).. and I’m about to start what may be the best challenge of all – Raising money for an amazing young girl to go to camp bon coeur (a summer camp for kids with heart conditions). She is amazing and you will all fall in love with her just the way I have.. information is coming soon, and video…
What I’d really like is some 5 minute challenges that I can do on video… is there something you want me to do / to attempt ?? Let me know by leaving a comment and I’ll give it a go…
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Although for the past few weeks I have been completely buried in ‘book writing world’ I have still had time to work on a couple of challenges…see you’d thought I’d forgotten. Here are some of the updates and some stuff you can do to be part of the challenges…
I went last weekend to watch a rugby match at UL. Photos will be uploaded soon. It was a beautiful sunny day and I must admit it felt like being in England again. The shouts from the crowd were just as humorous and pointed. The team played really well and won by an excessive margin. Photos coming soon.
I have also been working on my weight loss and fitness goals. I have lost 10lbs so far (since March 1st) and am loving how it feels. Thirty-five to go. Aiming for sometime in July to complete this goal. Feel free to hold me to this! I have been working out most days and writing down everything I eat. I have been using ‘Lose It!’ on my iphone (a free app) and it’s keeping me on track. I put in everything I eat, even the stuff I shouldn’t be eating. It keeps track of calories and protein/carb/fat ratios. I’m a sucker for information.
I have updated some other goals as well. My business plan is complete, and a few other things are started.
I have just started on the 45 healthy meals and have decided I need help. Do you want to send me your favorite healthy meal? I’d love to publish it. I’d put it together in a free ebook and give you credit (and a link). I think it would be fun that way…
I’m about to start raising money to send an awesome girl to Camp Bon Couer (a summer camp for kids with heart problems)- stand by for more info about this. I know who she is but haven’t met her yet.
If you have any fun, quick challenges I’d love to hear from you. I need some more to complete 45.
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As you all know I have been neglectful of these challenges for a while. Sometimes life happens, sometimes it teaches you things. Every now and then we need to sit down and re-evaluate our lives. Being sick really knocked me sideways for a while and made me realize what my priorities are.
I’m loving doing these challenges and intend to continue with them. Some won’t get done. At the moment my knees are preventing me from even training for the half-marathon but I’m going to lose weight and get fit and see what happens from there. The 45lbs weight loss is still something I intend to acheive.. I’m heading in the right direction.. slowly.
I’m not sure the horse-thing is going to happen, sometimes life gets in the way of the person who challenged you too. I know Maritza has become incredible successful and busy (and engaged) and it may be something we have to do another time. I know we will end up doing something together, probably speaking. She is a dynamic presenter.
I did complete most of the talk to strangers for 45 days challenge, I just couldn’t keep bringing myself to write the blog posts. I felt increasingly like I was betraying my conversation. I wondered how those people would feel if they read about themselves online. I did learn a lot from it though – I learned that starting a conversation with anyone, anywhere is quite easy if you are geniune. I learned that if you look for the positive in people you always find it. Ok, maybe I didn’t learn that, but it was reinforced. I’m going to count this challenge as complete. I have notes on all the encounters if you want to check. If I ever get to write the great American/British novel I already have a great character list.
There are a few other things happening at the moment. I’m going to meet with the people from Camp Bon Couer soon and see about fundraising. I am also going next week to give a speech at the local hospice. I am working on some of the others, getting closer to the meditation goal (post coming up on that sometime soon).
So this week I’ll look at all the goals, re-evaluate where I am and what I can do. If you have new goals for me I’d like some fun, but quick ones. I’m 100% committed to writing my new book at the moment and have to put that first, so any challenges that take a short time and bring some fun would be welcomed. I will commit to posting more. I know many of you are following along with this journey. Maybe this is a chance for us to all take a step back and look at what we’ve done and what we intend to do.
Thanks for reading and I look forward to getting a challenge from you. I challenge you.
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It’s been a tough year so far. I have been out for a few weeks just exhausted. I went to the doctor. It’s only the second time I’ve been to a doctor in the last 7 years (that tells you I was sick).
He ran a whole load of blood tests, looking at my kidneys, my thyroid and of course (cos I’m THAT age, my hormones).. all the tests were clear and good. It looks like what had floored me was down to a major vitamin D deficiency (and some other minor things) Wow. I got a shot yesterday and took a supplement today and I’m already back. I actually have some energy and focus. Vitamin D is activated through sunlight and it’s been a cold winter (for Louisiana), we also, these days, have make-up with built in sunscreen, more protective clothes.. we need Vitamin D. We get it from Oily fish, egg yolks, cheese and foods that have D added (cereal, milk etc). I’m no expert but have been shocked by how bad this had made me feel. I intend now to learn a lot more about my body, and what it needs. Big wake up call.
In short, I’m back – prepare for the challenges to resume.
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He asked me the time. He had two mobile phones and he asked me the time.
I told him, thinking it was completely strange. He’d had conversations on both phones almost continuously since he’d entered Starbucks, dropping one call to take another or asking the person to hold. He was jumpy, nervous, and he asked me the time.
I know we all do this from time to time but I made up a story about him. He was the getaway driver for a bank robbery that was taking place at the time. I’ve always had a vivid imagination. He was getting updates from different lookouts planted around town. He asked me the time because I was to be an alibi for him. He was slightly built with a leather jacket that probably fitted him 25 years ago when it was trendy. He wore straight leg jeans a few inches too short and a belt that was on the last hole. I couldn’t tell if it was a disguise or just really bad taste.
He left the coffee shop and sat in his car talking on one of the phones, the door open and his leg hanging out into the empty parking space beside him. He waited there for at least 20 minutes. I began to write this (totally imaginary) description of him and he must have left at some point. There were no bank robberies reported on the news that day.
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This may be the toughest challenge I have done yet. I’m still doing it, even though my updates may be a few days late.
Today’s stranger was a boy in a bookstore.
He wanted to know where I was from. That question starts many conversations.
He had floppy teenage boy hair, the way mine looks when I need a good haircut, and piercing blue eyes that he didn’t quite know the power of yet. He told me he wanted to go to London more than anything and asked questions. Are there really lots of cool bands and pubs and street markets. Does it rain a lot, are people friendly, do they like Americans, do I think they’d like him. He picked up a book of London photos and asked if I’d seen the stuff in the book. He listened to Oasis, had I heard of them. Did I think he’d ever go there.
I think I answered ‘yes’ to all his questions. I know I left the store smiling to myself and missing the city I love.
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It’s amazing how often we are approached by strangers each day, I have never noticed it before.
Today I was shopping in target when a middle-aged woman approached me. It’s funny how middle age gets older as we do.
She wanted to know if I’d tried the chips I’d just placed in my basket.
“You see”, she explained, “my daughter in law is coming in tonight and she looks like you, and I wondered if you liked them”.
I wanted to laugh but she was deadly serious:
“I only met her at the wedding, and she was busy that day. I want her to feel at home, she’s from Ohio and I’ve never been there and I don’t know if they have those chips there. You look like her, you’re not from Ohio are you?”
I shook my head no, and told her the chips were nice. Healthy. That I thought her daughter-in-law would like them. A bit of me wanted to hug her and tell her that she’d be ok simply because she cared so much. Instead I smiled and I noticed her making a mental note of everything else in the cart. I smiled again. I hope her daughter-in-law likes strange food.
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This is a tough challenge. I work from home a lot and spent yesterday designing a banner and writing at my desk. Not many strangers there.
It feels strangely stalkerish to go out and deliberately talk to a stranger, and have a surreptitious motive for it. It’s definitely not comfortable. I feel like a Jonny-no-mates, or the woman who waits in the longest line in the post office just to have someone to talk to.
Having said that yesterday I had to do just that. Set out on a mission to talk to someone to complete the challenge. Until…
the phone rang.
Aha! It was a sneaky move but yes, I have time to answer your survey about something I don’t want and have never heard of. I always feel sorry for telesales people. Please don’t read that as I’m always happy to talk to them. He read the script, not even bothering to slightly act like he was not reading it. I couldn’t resist – I answered in my most ‘I’m reading this” voice something like this:
“I am happy to answer all generic questions about ‘insert product here’, I appreciate your company and their research, and am looking forward to the bargain that you will offer me at the end of this conversation”
He faltered, shocked at the response.
He asked me my age group and I paused, I began counting up the years, whispering, from 1964 onwards.. 1964,1965,1966,… I heard him stop breathing, if you can hear that.
And then… nothing.. the phone went dead. I had won.
I’m sure this wasn’t what was intended when I was challenged to talk to strangers, but I’m counting it – just this once!
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I imagined that she was of great intelligence, she had ‘that way’ about her, like she was translating her amazing academic thoughts into a language that I could understand. It wasn’t that she spoke down to me in any way, it was a very ordinary conversation about coffee, but that there was this slight hestitation as if she were analyzing me before she answered. As if the world that she came from wasn’t quite the same place as I lived.
She was immaculately matching even down to the gloves. The kind of gloves that came in fabric bags to protect them and every shade and color possible. The kind you bought from shops with wooden shelves and glass cabinets. She smiled easily, but not fully. I felt she was guarded, as if happy may be the stuff of lesser mortals.
I wanted to follow her, see where her day went and how she found herself in a coffee shop in Lafayette, LA. I found myself making up my own answers, none of which were realistic.
If I’d have seen a photograph of her, I would have given her an English accent, the kind you overhear when in Liberty while looking at flower prints. I would have imagined her drinking Sherry in secret at 5pm. She would have been called Dorothia or Elizabeth Jane and her name would never have been shortened, no one would have dreamt of it, ever.
She left, with little steps that made her slightly clunky shoes look more dainty and a latte in a cardboard cup. I hoped it was for someone else.
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