It’s Friday! I decided to post on the lighter side today. Here’s a list of things I want to accomplish before I die. Some of them are perfectly realistic, while others will take a lot of legwork. I hope that I can see all of these things manifest in my lifetime, and I will do what I need to to make that happen. So, without further ado, here’s my list:

1. Become a skydiving instructor
2. Travel to at least one country on every continent
3. Run a marathon
4. BASE jump in New Zealand
5. See my boys become men, husbands and/or fathers
6. Live on a small island for a year
7. Meet the Dali Lama
8. Find the love of my life
9. Have my own orchid greenhouse
10. Scuba dive in Belize
11. Meet Jack Johnson
12. Become involved in the movement to improve drinking water conditions around the world
13. Swing through the canopy of the Amazon Rainforest
14. Find the cure for cancer (ok, not really. I’ll leave that to my super-duper best friend)
15. See a world at peace

So, I could go on, but I’ll stop there. These things are not in any particular order or importance to me, although the first one is the first thing that came to my mind. It obviously holds a certain amount of significance for me.

As you enjoy your Friday, are there things that you have in you mind that you hope to accomplish before you die? What are they? Which ones can you achieve now and which ones involve preparation and planning? Creating a list like this is a great way to work your mind and your imagination. It also can get you motivated to make something happen that you might not have otherwise!

Enjoy your weekend…

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Our most basic human goal outside of survival, is happiness. Everything we do is an attempt to enjoy our lives. A big part of happiness I think, is contentment. I’m not talking about complacency or apathy; rather, I am talking about being able to get through the day and feel peaceful about life. I am always striving to find balance to achieve contentment without becoming complacent in my life.

Contentment with continued growth is a difficult balance to strike; so much so that as soon as my life slows down and I find myself not worried or concerned about things, I have a tendency to take on a new responsibility. A new pet or hobby, is a good example. I think it’s a reaction of feeling as though since I’m not struggling, I am in danger of becoming stagnant. The thing is, I always end up with too much on my plate to devote an adequate amount of time to everything. Without boring you with the details, I can assure you, there are too many things for me to get done in an average day, and as a result, something always gets left behind. Lately it’s been the gym (sigh).

We often accumulate things in an effort to be happy. For some of us, it’s a weekly trip to the mall for new clothes, or a couple new games every month for the gamer. For others, it’s exercise classes, volunteer work, or a second job. The question is, at what point to all those things stop bringing you enjoyment, and instead make things more complicated?

A coworker said something to me yesterday that was the inspiration for this post. She said that during a recent retreat she went on, one of the speakers said that although we often try to fill our lives with things to achieve contentment, the real path to being content was to remove things from your life. It makes perfect sense doesn’t it? Removing aspects of your daily life that aren’t fulfilling you will ultimately make things simpler; in turn you will directly effect the level of complication you deal with each day. Eliminate complication and ah ha! You have contentment. It made me think about my life and how I have over complicated each day by trying to fit in more than I can handle. I would love to simplify my life by removing some of the most unpleasant things (like extra jobs I do here and there for extra money), but sometimes those things are a requirement for our current situation, so this “life purge” is sometimes easier said than done.

Maybe the trick is simplifying your life by taking the steps necessary to allow you to remove the things you want. For me, it would be changing my spending habits and resolving some debt so that I won’t have to do any of that pesky side work. In your own life, think about all of the things you do each day, and ask yourself if each one of them is fulfilling you, and bringing you joy. If it isn’t, then why is it there? How can you make some changes in your daily life to get rid of it?

I truly believe my friend’s right; in this case, less is definitely more. Identify what you don’t want in your life and get rid of it! Continue this purge process until you feel content with your life; every one of us will experience contentment at a different moment. For some of us, we might only have to release one thing, for many of us it will be more.

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Platonic relationships with the opposite sex can be incredibly fulfilling and rewarding. Some of my best friends have been men. Many people debate the idea that a man and a woman can have a true friendship; with nothing else in the mix. I’ve learned now that while I still think it’s possible, it really depends on the two people involved. I have experienced both success and failure.

I have been friends with a guy that I’ve known for a few years now. We’ve always been very close and he’s a wonderful guy. Through the years he has made it known to me that his feelings went beyond friendship, but I never acted on them. While I don’t want to say that I know for sure, I speculate that the feelings started very early on in our friendship. Our friendship didn’t suffer from this really, with the exception of a few moments here or there where I was uncomfortable.

A few months ago, I began to notice my feelings changing for him, and I said something to him about it. We ended up on a week-long journey of casual dating and by the end of that week I had realized that I had made a terrible mistake risking our friendship. He and I were not a good match. Our difference in age (he is 8 years younger than me) and difference in emotional placement in life would not allow us to have a healthy relationship. I ended things and explained truthfully to him why I felt that this could not work. We tried to go back to being friends, but many things were different.

Moving beyond friendship was a point of no return- for both of us. For me, I can no longer be his friend and stay “blissfully ignorant” to his feelings, and for him it seems difficult to shut the door that was opened when we dated for that week. The question is, was this ever truly platonic? Could it have ever been or remained that way? I believe that as far and he and I are concerned, sooner or later it would have happened (because he’s a wonderful person) but the conclusion would have been the same. Whether I choose to regret it or not, I wouldn’t know the things I know had I not made the choice to try a more intimate relationship.

I don’t deny that he is a wonderful person; he is one of the most caring and compassionate people I’ve ever met, but unfortunately you can’t choose who you love, or who you don’t. I have no doubt that he will make someone very happy in life; unfortunately, that just isn’t going to be me.

The answer to my question, whether or not platonic relationships are possible… I suppose that I think now that they are and can be, but maybe not forever. Isn’t it likely that if two people spend enough time together, one of them is bound to develop feelings beyond friendship? I think it’s probable, and maybe that isn’t a bad thing. Maybe that is just part of the journey; part of the experience you are meant to have with that person. Maybe if you’re lucky that friendship turns into something wonderful for both of you, but if not take what you can from the experience and apply what you’ve learned.

I can in many ways thank my friend. Because of this experience I realize that I want some specific things with the next relationship that I get into, and more importantly I learned that I am strong enough to make the right choice for me and be patient for what I want.

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All animals in nature do it; they prepare for the long winter by getting their home or den ready and then settle in until spring comes. We typically talk about spring cleaning- the time to cleanup our lives after the long winter. But, what if we were to prepare a little bit before the change of season? Maybe spring cleaning wouldn’t be such a chore, and winter would be a little nicer. Winter is often when we spend the most time at home and I find that getting organized beforehand often makes winter more enjoyable. Here are some things that I do to get myself ready.

• Take time to Give. This doesn’t just help create space and organization, but it helps other’s too. This is the time of year that I go through the closets and find everything that I know I’m either not going to wear this winter, or won’t want to keep around for next summer. I go through my closet, and then I go through all the kids clothes too, since they’re always outgrowing things. I also look for toys and gadgets and anything that I haven’t used in a while. Another great place to look for things is in your storage areas (i.e. your basement or storage shed). My general rule of thumb is if I haven’t taken the box out in the last year, I don’t need it. Once everything is piled up in boxes I load up my car and take them to my nearest charity. Did I mention that the timing of this gives you an added bonus? I collect receipts for the things I give and then deduct it from my taxes.
• File Away! This is a good time to get your bills and filing in order. I am what’s known as a stacker. I have stacks everywhere. I generally stack all summer, and while I know where everything is, the stacks will get out of control if I don’t do something with them. Every fall (ans spring), I sit down with my files and bill stubs and I put them all away. I get rid of the older stuff (say, more than a year or two old) and put all the new stuff in it’s place. Suddenly, my desk is clear, the bill box is empty (a particularly good feeling, even if it’s only psychological!), and I’ve got my finances nice and organized.
• Dump Your Pack Rat Tendency. When it comes to animals in nature, it makes sense to stash food everywhere so that they can make it through the winter. It doesn’t make much sense for us, though. Take a look in your cabinets. I bet there are a bunch of food items that have been in there so long there’s dust on them. Now’s the time to find the old, smooshed bags of Ramen noodles, the 2-year old pasta boxes, and rock-hard raisins and get rid of them! Canned veggies and soups are always good to keep, but even they have a “best by” date. Check and make sure they aren’t from 2003.
• Somebody’s Gotta Do It. The refrigerator is my least favorite thing to clean. I have kids, so they spill juice from time to time, or leave a yogurt half eaten in the way back of the fridge, and so I must admit, my fridge is probably grosser than most. I take everything out, throw away the obvious (i.e. long lost cheese from last spring… YUCK and those year-old condiments) and then I wipe everything down. I am usually pretty surprised at what I find in there, and truth be told, I should be doing this far more often. Once all the stuff I want to keep goes back in, I realize I don’t have nearly as much food as I thought.
• Pick Your Favorites. All of us girls have impressive collections in the bathroom of different potions and tonics and makeup that we bought once upon a time. It’s hard to get rid of them because what if someday that lotion we used once and then shoved underneath the sink comes in handy again? Here’s why we should get rid of them. It will be in our nature to continue to acquire the newest scents and the newest makeup. If we don’t get rid of the old, we can’t make room for the new! Go through your medicine cabinets and sink drawers and ask yourself if you’re really going to use that sparkly lotion you bought from Victoria’s Secret 8 years ago. Keep all your favorites, but be honest about the stuff you don’t use. This is also a good time to get rid of old medicine that has passed it’s expiration date.
• Wash, Wash, Wash. I always get ready for winter by dragging out all the blankets and washing them so they’re fresh, fuzzy and super-cuddly. I must admit, I have some sort of blanket-fetish problem which I can’t explain, so there are dozens of blankets floating around our house in the winter. But blankets aren’t the only things that need to be refreshed. Winter jackets, hats, scarfs, etc. will all be significantly nicer to wear if they’re freshly washed.
• The Big Stuff. Everyone has they’re own preferred time for doing this stuff. But, the carpets, walls and windows are the final thing that I try to tackle before winter. I do the carpets myself, and the walls I have found can be tackled easily with some of those cleaning wipes that come in a canister and a “magic eraser”. It’s amazing how much dirt is on your walls. You don’t notice in daily life, but once you start washing, thousands of little finger marks and peanut butter smears suddenly become visible. I don’t wash my outside windows in the fall, but the inside windows get pretty bad from all the summer air breezing through the screens.

This seems like a lot, but you’ll find winter to be far more enjoyable, and in many ways spring will be better too, because you won’t have quite as much to be done. What are your favorite ways to get ready for winter? Got any good tips to share?

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** Apparently, ask and you shall receive! The very day after I posted this, I received an email from BlogRUSH regarding color options that will become available in the next few days. That good news, and gives me hope that in the near future some of the other things will be improved on as well. 

Now, I realize that I haven’t had BlogRUSH up that long, and so there are a lot of judgments about it that I’ll hold for a while until I’ve seen what it can really do for me. But so far, here’s what it’s not doing for me.

• I don’t like that it’s a fixed design. I have a fixed column width, and as far as I can tell, there’s no way to alter the BlogRUSH widget to conform to my column width. Take a look at my sidebar and you’ll see what I mean (I rearranged some things to emphasize the problem). I realize that I am probably just under-skilled, but come on! Make this tool something that everyone can use easily (Oh, and I don’t think I should have to manipulate my blog layout just to conform to the BlogRUSH widget).
• Again, it’s fixed design bugs me because hey, I’m a girl and I want it to be NOT orange.
• If I go to BlogRUSH to get help for the product, the only support offered is how to put it on your site. There’s no contact option, no FAQ’s, and no other information. So, it seems they will support it so long as you can get it up on your site, but after that you’re on your own.
• Finally, while I was in the help section at their site, I came upon a link to “help” people with flashy blog titles. I took the bait, read the blog article and some of the other helpful tips were to remove all the sharing links from posts, such as digg and reddit (not named specifically, I’m just drawing my own conclusion here).

Seems a little obvious don’t you think? Convince BlogRUSH users to remove other ways of information sharing so that people who visit will be more likely to use BlogRUSH instead. I don’t know. Maybe I’m just being weird about it all. I just think that everyone has their favorite site for sharing and I’m not going to dictate or persuade anyone to use one or the other.

Anyway, I will cut BlogRUSH a little slack since I know this has only been up and running for about a week. I am not going to remove it yet because as far as I’m concerned, my issues are mainly cosmetic and I would like to see what’s behind the widget and what it can do for me. Maybe I’m being impatient or bitchy, but I sincerely hope that some of these things will be improved soon.

I am interested to hear what other bloggers think so far about this product…

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