40 days till 40!!!!

Today I realized that there are 40 days until I turn 40.  *Gulp*  I guess I have to hurry up and get the rest of these things done!  I am going to highlight the things I have done...again, if anyone wants to do anything that is left with me, let me know!

1.      Feed the homeless 

2.    See Ruby Falls and Rock City

3.    Climb Stone Mountain

4.    Do Clemson tri with friends (Steph???)turned into the Warrior Dash, buyt tons of fun with Steph  anyway!

5.    Wear a bikini in public the YMCA made this one easy ;)

6.    After a negative experience with someone, find the positive in them and let them know what it is.

7.     Make a pillowcase for the Cancer center (http://www.conkerrcancer.org/)

8.    Get a mammogram (EVERY.DAMN.YEAR.)

9.    Apply for Survivor

10.Zumba with Darby

11.   Go on a group bike ride

12.  Get back to Lifetime at WW

13. Start a blog

14.  Compete in a race with the goal of placing, not just finishing. Holly Springs Memorial 5k

15. Get my hair straightened.

16. Buy an expensive (over $100) pair of jeans

17.  Wear these jeans with high heels

18. Go horseback riding with Mary

19. Take the kids to a drive in

20. Visit at least 1 new city

21. Take the kids to a Clemson soccer game Planning on it this weekend!!!

22. Contribute to my IRA

23. Take my girls to the “Take your daughter to Clemson” weekend

24. Make it to the bus stop one day without raising my voice EVEN ONE TIME.

25. Pay the toll for the car behind me.

26. Build a house with Habitat.  This one got a little ammended due to Habitat plans, but we enjoyed the experience anyway.  We ended up rehabing a youth shelter instead.

27. Learn to knit- left handed

28. Eat a meal made up completely of food I have grown and/or caught. Looks like this one is going to end up a tomato meal ;)

29. Show up as mystery reader in costume (stolen idea from a FB friend)

30. Get a physical. (And not just the “girly” stuff)

31. Have lunch with an old friend and catch up (Thx Chelle!)

32. Take a clay class with Kelly

33. Make a list of 10 people I know in my life that have inspired me getting there...

34. Wear pajama jeans to the mall (which means I have to get some!)

35. List 10 times I was WAY wrong

36. Support someone in something I don’t believe in, just because I love them

37. Mardi Gras (why haven’t I thought of this before???)

38. Run down “The Hill” hoping for this weekend!

39. Zip line in Georgia a great time with the lovely Linda Collins

40. Interview my parents about their youth, and capture it.

 

And for those interested in finding out more out about my Pajama Jeans, I wore them to the first PTA meeting in front of EVERYONE!  I didn't even have one person call me out on it. 

 

I learned a little trick a long time ago....always have something going on which reminds you to have a sense of humor.  When you take yourself too seriously you can really stress yourself out.  I wore my pajama jeans just for this reason. 

PTA and Brussels Sprouts

6. After a negative experience with someone, find the positive in them and let them know what it is.

So here it is, August in Georgia, and back to school. So many people have asked me, "What are you going to do with all of your free time now that all three kids are in school?"  Well, I have been thinking about that for a long time now.  Long enough, in fact, that I had to make a plan so that I didn't end up having too much free time, and find myself with no excuses NOT to go get a job.  My plan, which seemed like a good idea at the time, was to help out more at my school.  After all, this was the only year that all three of my kids were going to be at the same school.  So, when the nominating committee asked me if I would consider serving on the PTA for this year, I said yes. And, since I am such an overachiever, I said yes to becoming the PTA Co-President.  What could POSSIBLY go wrong with this????

My Co-President has been very active in the school, and is well liked by all of the teachers.  She knows way more than I do about what the school has done in the past, and she has always done a lot behind the scenes. I figured my not-as-detail-oriented personality would be balanced well by her. Our board worked together well over the summer, and were excited about the things to come.

Enter the school year.  If I learned one thing in my previous retail career, whatever you do will make some people happy, while it ticks other people off.  You just can't make all of the people happy all of the time, so you have to do what works best for the most amount of people.  We set up our committees, had our volunteer meeting, and set up work plans.

After the volunteer meeting I got a call from someone who I usually consider one of the most calm people I know. (And by calm, I mean somehow manages to have more kids than me at more events than I do, without raising her voice nearly as much as I do.)  She was upset because someone had attacked her after the meeting to let her know all of the things she was doing wrong while she was planning her event.  We chatted about her not letting this lady get her down, and how she was doing what the majority wanted to do.  I didn't think anything about it again.........until........

Another board member sent out an email about a planning meeting.  Evidently, this same lady emailed her, me, my co-president and last year's co-president to let us know how we were doing things wrong, how boards in the past had done things wrong, and basically how she had done things better.  My Co-President didn't want to answer right away, as her emotions were not steering her towards a productive response.  I decided this was my opportunity to try and find the positive in the situation and respond.  I told her, "Don't worry about it. I've got this one."  Famous. Last. Words.

I carefully chose my words.  I had two different people read my email to make sure that it sounded positive and not sarcastic at all.  I praised her for wanting to help and helping us to see opportunities to improve on.  And I felt good about the email.  I felt like I was being the bigger person, and not letting my emotions get the best of me.

Without going too much into what the response I received back was, let's just say that my positive attitude was not exactly received well.  Someone's panties were on too tight, her dog peed in her cereal bowl, or SOMETHING else was dramatically wrong with her life to make someone who, in theory, was rational enough to hold a job, act like a raving lunatic.

But....my bucket list included STILL being positive.  So, I sucked it up, asked her to further explain what I might have missed, and made the right decision to try one more time.  Again my co-president was a little too emotionally charged to deal with it.  In fact, if she gave the response that she wanted to give, CBS would have banned it from their halftime show.

In hindsight, I probably should have just ignored her.  Isn't that what they tell you to do with bees?   If a grizzly bear comes after you, you are supposed to play dead and hope they go away, right???  Yet here I was touching the stove again to make sure it was still hot.

I got an even better response from this email.  She even told me that she thought "I can be even more of a smart ass than you, and I think I have proven that."  Wow.  I wasn't even trying to be one.  Imagine if I had!  I guess she had never had someone tell her one of her ideas was good, and thought that this was my idea of being a smart ass.

And then I made the best decision to date.  I told her I didn't appreciate being personally attacked as a volunteer, told her she could deal with someone else next time, and I BLOCKED HER EMAIL.  Talk about empowering.  Now I get I will have to deal with her again in the future, and I am sure it will go just swimmingly.  But, for now, she cannot interrupt my day to criticize me, or make me focus anymore of my energy on her at random times of the day (well, except for now, but that is another story.)

That got me thinking?  What if we could block people in real life?  Put some kind of filter up so that they just couldn't "get to us"?  What a great thing that would be.  I am so inventing this in my next life. (That might be a little bit beyond my capabilities right now since I am just now learning that Excel does a LOT more now than it did in 1991 when I took computer science.)

So the lesson I am taking from #6  is the same one that I tell the kids when I make a new recipe.  You have to at least try it, and if you don't like it you don't have to try it again.  And #6 turned out to be like Brussels sprouts.

(And on a P.S......anyone that can invent my "People Filter" is welcome to the royalties as long as I am the first that gets to use it.)

(And P.P.S.......after I blocked the lunatic, my Co-President sent her one last email WITHOUT waiting for her emotions to die down first.  I reread it over and over and laughed about it the rest of the day.)