I'm finally caught up!

Thursday, January 31st.  I should start today's entry by explaining it's title.  Like I've said earlier, I originally planned to document my progress in a journal type format that I hoped to turn into a novel of some sort about personal change and dealing with disappointment (those of you who know me that I've got to find some way to make everything serious).  The idea of a blog was suggested by Judy, my therapist who I happened to see last night for a session.  She approved of the basic idea of trying to do 180 things in 180 days as a novel and productive way to deal with the 6 months until Paula and I decide what the future holds, and thought that a blog might be fun and helpful.

So today's thing I've never done was easy...create my first blog!  It's starting to make me think that the Law of Attraction (you know, the book "The Secret?") actually works.  As I focus my attention on something, this blog, the universe sends more ideas my way!  Anyway.  So "I'm finally caught up" refers to how I've had to backtrack a little to get to today.  After today, things will be real time.  I'm just beginning to tell my friends of the blog (Julie, you were the first, I hope you posted something!), and I hope things'll get rolling and this could be a little back and forth, give and take.

Writing has been fun so far, and I hope to be able to continue to do things that challenge me and make me laugh.  See ya later alligator!

Time for Comfort Food

Wednesday, January 30.  Today I woke up and do much of what I usually do on January mornings.  Had my coffee, watched some CNBC (and of course Ellen!), made some commodity trades, and hung out in my pajamas.  Today my morning lasted until about 2pm, at which time I thought that it might be good to get out of the house.  My task of finding something new hung in the air as I thought about what I could do today.

Now a small aside.  I hope to do some bigger, crazy things as time goes on and my courage grows.  Skydiving, calling someone famous, working as a greeter in Meijer's all are ideas that I've had.  But I can't imagine that everything will be earth shattering.  Some days, small things will have to do.  I also hope to do some good deeds, like help an elderly lady put her groceries in her car.  Part of the overall nuttiness of this idea is that I just don't know what I'll do.

Before my morning turned into early evening, I managed to catch Tyler Florence's Ultimate cooking show on the food channel.  In HD of course.  If you don't have an HD tv or HD service, I highly recommend you do both.  It is life changing (shout out to my buddy Justin for helping me see the light on this one).  Anyway, he was making one of his Ultimate dishes--you know, the best hamburger, the best chili, the best crab cakes.  The ultimate.  Today was the Ultimate tailgate, which meant the Ultimate chicken wings, the Ultimate chili dogs, the Ultimate Potato Salad.  I then recalled an episode I watched a while back, the Ultimate Mac and Cheese.  That was it!

With the weather being the way it is, and with me being really hungry because I had spent all morning in front of either the computer or the tv, I decided to go out and buy the ingredients to make my first homemade, from scratch macaroni and cheese.  Don't get me wrong, I love Kraft mac and cheese.  Mmmm, all that tasty, almost glow in the dark cheddar!  But today it was going to be homemade.

Two hours, many dirty dishes, and two large mugs of coffee later, my creation was complete.  Bubbly, oozing, mac and cheese.  Hot out of the oven and with a bacon/onion/garlic mix sprinkled on top.  It turned out great.  My roommate Ryan gave me his approval later when he tried some, so I know it had to be good.  I was rather pleased.  I've tried recipes off of the food channel before and none turned out quite as good.  So there's number three.  I'm starting to think that I just might be able to keep this up!

2 down, 178 to go!

Tuesday, January 29.  On day two I apparently didn't feel quite as inspired, and I became a little worried about being able to come up with enough new things to do for 6 months as I rolled over in bed this morning.  After checking out my portfolio, email, and weather.com, I decided to have some coffee and watch some morning tv.  I caught the tail end of the Today Show, and the my inspiration for today came to me in the form of Ellen.

Now I love Ellen and always enjoy watching her talk show when I have a chance.  Lately and because not a lot of folks want 9am golf lessons outside in Michigan at this time of year, I've had a lot of opportunities to catch her show.  And yes, I am a full-time teaching professional.  I've taught golf for over 10 years now and I enjoy it immensely.  I am very busy in the spring, summer and early fall, not so busy now.  And that suits me just fine.

Anyway, I find Ellen to be very funny.  And if you've ever watched the show, you know that at the beginning of the show, after a short monologue and hello, it's time to dance.  She then proceeds to dance with her audience as a way of starting the show.  It's fun.  Today, I danced with her.  Got out of bed and danced through the house with Ellen.  I felt a little foolish at first but then I started to get my groove on and really enjoyed it.  I enjoyed it so much that I decided to dance some more, alone in my pajamas, to 'Come on Eileen' by the Dexy's Midnight Runners.  By the end of my two song set, I was a little winded but smiling.  Not a bad way to start my day, and definitely something I'd never done before!

The first thing I've never done

Hello all.  It feels a little daunting to undertake my self-prescribed task of doing 180 things I've never done in 180 days.  It's also a little scary to share my progress with all of you.  But move forward I will and we'll see what happens!

While today is the last day of January, the idea for this project actually came together last Sunday, January 27th, over lunch at Zingerman's with my good friend Rick.  Over a grilled corned beef sandwich, I asked Rick what he thought of the idea of Paula (my now ex-fiancee) and I reevaluating our relationship in six month's time.  In the meantime, we would live life apart.  After taking a bite from his pastrami, he commented that he thought the idea was fine as long as I took the opportunity to live life.  In other words, it was ok as long as I took the opportunity to do things I might not have done otherwise.  A ha!

From this discussion an idea was born, and I was off.  Originally, I planned to document my progress in the form of a novel.  My therapist, Judy, was the one who suggested that I start a blog and share the experience with my friends, family, and whomever.  This seemed fun and also a good way to get new ideas of things to do.  It will be a challenge to find that many things to do!

Anyway, the first official day of my project was then Monday, January 28th.  And on this day, the thing I did was sign up for a race, the Shamrock Shuffle.  This race will take place on March 30 in Chicago.  I will be running with Rick, who lives in Chicago.  To be fair, I will probably running behind Rick as he is quite accomplished as a runner.  

Well, we're off!  I'm excited about the idea of running in my first race, and now need to figure out a reasonable way to train.  It's been about five years since I did any running and I am way out of shape.  It also is very cold as we all know, so I may bite the bullet and join a club.  The good news is that it will likely keep me on the quitting smoking path, which I've managed to stay on since November.  And perhaps training for this race will get me back into some kind of shape before I turn 40!

We'll see how this looks on the blog.  I'm nervous!  But really it wasn't so bad and I think this will be fun!