# 8 Be passionate about your passions

I am enthusiastic about my pasttimes. Passionate is a good word for it. Passionate about my passions. Something catches my eye and I just need to do it. I think having hobbies and/or interests keeps you young in spirit, engaged with life and people, mentally sharp - all the things we start out life doing without thinking.

But hobbies are not part of all lives. Some are so focused on their careers that there isn't time for anything else. I did that crazy behavior for 5 years before I realized that I didn't like the person I had become. I quit making the job the focus of my life and took up knitting. Knitting will never be far from my side because it made me sane when I needed help. For some, interests slip away as they age. That has happened to my mother. Other than reading, she shows little interest in filling her time with anything besides TV game shows and tracking the weather.

Until this year I can say that knitting and my beloved grand-dogs have filled my life. But this year I got restless. I needed something new. So, in keeping with my passionate response to things, in the last 6 months I added 5 new interests to my life (keeping the first two, of course). The pictures reflect activities that I haven't pictured in this blog yet.

• iPad and game addiction. There are adventure games with characters that you play and stats that you improve, dragons that you kill, treasures that you find, goals that you achieve. Come on ... you haven't lived until you have killed at level 30 Demon Seed with massive fangs dripping with blood and one burning eye that sees into your soul, and stands 20 feet tall with massive armour ... beat him single handedly in an awsome battle of wits and skill and lots of healing potions!! Of course, if that is not your style, some games are strange but satisfying - like We Rule and We Farm. In both you create your own little world, buy buildings and farm land, plant and harvest crops, collect rents, increase fortunes, and expand your dwelling, your lands, your businesses. There are no Demon Seeds there! Really, if anyone had told me a year ago that I would be playing this kind of game I would have asked you what you were smoking. IPad apps should come with a warning label as being hazardous to the rest of your life. Steve Jobs - shame on you!

Weave-Its: I was introduced to this little loom by my friend HappyOne and I blogged about it a few days ago. I have a fascination with weaving ever since I saw a full size loom in use on a visit to Maine several years ago. The loom filled a small bedroom-size space. I decided that I couldn't house such a large hobby, but when I saw this hand held loom and the beautiful fabric it produced, I was hooked. And I have this failing - if the item is rare or hard to get, the challenge to get one becomes part of the appeal. They stopped making these looms in the 1950s. I was not detered. I am happily making these little squares and look forward to having my own blanket made out of left over yarn - of which I have a ton (another failing).

• Walking: I have a long history of walking, but stopped 2 years ago because of my stupid feet. They are better now, but gettng back to walking seemed like a chore. Thanks to HappyOne, I was able to see my walks through different eyes and have returned to the enjoyment of this simple activity.

Spinning: My cousin introduced me to spinning. Seeing her beautiful yarn creations finally roped me into buying a spinning wheel. Although I haven't been active doing this now, the desire is still there. I have the wheel, I have the desire and I have the roving - now I need the time.

Blogging. OK, it's HappyOne again!! Yes, I discovered her blog and decided that I should try that too. I love writing and was paid to write in the past. Now I do it for the pure joy of writing. HappyOne, if you do any other activites that I don't know about yet, please keep them a secret until 2011. I am full up right now. :-)

And I am still knitting. I can't stop that because I have the equivalent of a small yarn store in my yarn stash. I may even need to add that stash into my will. And besides, knitting is my soul mate. When I can manage it, I read. That and my granddogs who when they are here demand my full attention!

It is a busy, busy life. I love it.

Now, when I can get God to take me seriously about extending the day from 24 to 36 hours, I would like to add 2 more things to my list. As a young person, I discovered that I have a talent for drawing. Certainly the artist in me is not anywhere near as strong or as developed as it is for my cousins. But it is gift that I never developed (which I am sure I will hear about when I reach the Pearly Gates). I just might be able to squeeze this activity into my next 20 years, but NOT in 2010.

And a friend suggested that I might like Genealogy. That idea does intrigue me, but I also know it is a "hobby" that can suck all the oxygen and hours out of your day and then some. But my son did start the process going several years ago on an on-line family tree site. We'll see.

So, those are my passions - and it is a major 20 year goal to keep them all juggled without dropping one!

You know, I didn't "work" this hard when I had a job!! ;-)

A Glorious Day to be Outside

A glorious day for a walk. Absolutely sensational. It was 65 degrees when I stepped out the door this morning at 9:20 am. No humidity, a wonderful breeze, no clouds - and for a change it was so cool that I could walk without dodging the sun the whole time. I walked for 75 minutes and could have gone longer but duty called at home. The picture on the right shows a lovely walk I take with the dogs that is right behind my townhouse complex. We have walked that path tons of times. The dogs love it - good smells back there! :-)

The weather today was so perfect that mom and I made a short trip to our local farm stand. This time I took pictures and I even had the owner take a picture of mom and I together. She can't make long trips because it tires her out, but a visit to the farm stand is always fun for both of us.

And the weather into next week looks like more of the same!! I can hear the siren's call of Fall. Next week - when I have a little more time ('cause my grand dogs will be enjoying a week at the beach) ... I will get in my car and find new areas to walk around. When time is an issue, I hate to spend time driving to a walk - then walking - and then driving back. It is one of the many reasons why I don't join a gym or athletic club. But next week the weather appears to be wonderful, I will have more time and my walking times are increasing. I am ready for new scenery!

A few words from Soren ...

"Above all do not lose your desire to walk. Everyday I walk myself into a state of well being and walk away from every illness. I have walked myself into my best thoughts and I know of no thought so burdensome that one cannot walk away from it. But by sitting still, and the more one sits still, the closer one comes to feeling ill ...

if one keeps on walking everything will be alright."

- Soren Kierkegaard.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Søren_Kierkegaard

I discovered this quote today and thought it was very representative of how walking helps me. I knew the name of this man but not much else. So I turned to the "source of all web knowledge", Wikipedia, and found this picture of him. Apparently he was a Danish philosopher, theologian, writer and psychologist. He died in 1855 at the age of 42. Young by today's standards, but probably not so unusual in the 1800s. What struck me was that he commented on the value of walking even then - when walking places was more common than it is today. The other thing that struck me was - cute hair cut!!

Today will be a day of rest from walking (despite the walking quote). I started the day very early by dropping off my car for service. Once you get over 100,000 miles on a vehicle, missing a routine service is the worst thing you can do. I plan to attend Tai Chi class this afternoon and visit the Library to get some books being held for me.

With no poochies today, I am just hanging around the house doing fun stuff until my car is ready. I should be vacuuming and picking up, but I am saving that "fun" stuff for next week when the dogs are all on vacation with their owners. Next week will be a dog-free week, so I hope to "really party-it-up" by steam cleaning the rugs and the couch, washing the floors, weeding the back yard, decluttering a few disaster hard-hat areas in my house, and updating more of my family photo albums. Do I know how to have fun or what!

I wonder what Soren would have to say about housecleaning. Oh ... that's right, he probably had servants.

Observations on Competition

The competitive spirit is an interesting human emotion. Successful professionals have a high level of it. In the extreme, professional athletes survive in their sport only by competition. In the past I liked to compete, be first, be the best. As I have gotten older, I find I prefer to watch more than compete. But some of the old me is still there. I am very competitive with myself. I really like to improve and show progress.

To keep motivated, I joined two competitions on Walker Tracker.com. Competitions are based on step totals during a set period of time. Logging steps on the site is based on the honor system - no one checks on what you report. Sometimes there is a small reward, like a gift card, Walker Tracker points or cookies. Usually the reward is just the knowledge that you placed first. It is all for fun.

The first competition was "Walking the Grand Canyon" and yesterday it ended. HappyOne finished in first place many, many thousands of steps ahead of 2nd place. I was shooting for second place and last night that is where I was (shocking!). The person in 3rd looked like he had logged his steps for the day and he was about 2,000 steps behind me. I went to bed thinking that I made 2nd place. Unfortunately, this morning, I had dropped to 3rd place. Sometimes extra steps are added later in the evening, when a walker's day is truly over. I am happy with third.

esknitter Steps: 76,547 Place: 3

The second competition, "Walking Cornwall" continues until September 10th. I've been as close as 20th place and as far away at 47th place out of 68 participants. The group has some power walkers in it (who average 15,000 steps or more a day). I believe I will finish midrange and I'll be happy with that.

esknitter Steps: 181,589 Place: 36

Now 10 years ago, I might have felt differently. I would have walked nonstop, demanding a "recount" when I fell behind PoconoGreg - a super power walker who averages 45,000-47,000 steps a day - everyday, for as far back as I could look in Walker Tracker. That man must never sleep, must eat while walking, must have a catheter so he doesn't ever have to stop at the men's room!! His Walker Tracker Blog shows that he spends 3 hours a day on his treadmill (along with other walks).

Think on that a few minutes ... 3 hours a day on a treadmill, where the scenery never changes, there are no casual hellos with other local walkers, no views of the sky or the local wildlife. Maybe he has TV to help pass the time, but we all know that TV rots the brain if watched too much. But ten years ago he would have eaten my dust!! Beat'en the pants off him! Sure, I would need hospitalization after 2 days of that, but still ... been first in step counts, number 1, lead dog, superwoman, leader of the country, dictator of the universe ...,

uh ... I think I just blacked out there for a moment!

Labor Day Reflections

Today is Labor Day. The weekend has been beautiful - perfect, perfect weather. It could only be more perfect if it was a fall or winter day. My walk today was between 2:00 and 3:00 - usually too hot a time to walk. If I am not listening to a podcast or a book on tape, I find my mind wanders ... settling on one topic or another.

I couldn't help but note that holidays seem to lose importance or specialness now that I am retired. We are not big holiday celebrators in our family, but when I was working - holidays were little jewels in the calendar - jewels of no work, a day of rest, do fun stuff. Now that I don't have a job, those jewels aren't so shiny as they once were. This is a small loss for sure, because the benefit of not working is more freedom. I do have more freedom now than when I was working, but not as much as I imagined. My "work" now doesn't really take holidays.

I am happy to find us now in September. I am very much a fall and winter person. I totally love cool to cold weather. I look forward to being able to take my walk any time of the day without regard to heat and humidity. And I very much hope that since I am walking an hour a day now, the fall and winter walks can be longer. The most colorful season is approaching - nothing beats the beauty of fall colors. And I think I appreciate fall and winter even more after living through summer. The change of seasons is so wonderful.

I am also very very lucky to live in a neighborhood with so many shady areas to walk. I am a shade-worshiper. The sun and I aren't friends - I get too hot and sweaty and I get brown sun spots now on my skin (a function of previous sun damage). I will go way out of my way to keep to shady areas when I walk. Some of the pictures in this post are from my walk today. I am very fortunate as well to live in a city that created walking paths into nearby wooded areas. There are miles of them. I seldom take those paths by myself - preferring to stick to the neighborhood sidewalks. Some of the paths take you though beautiful woods but are very isolated. But today I took one of these side paths - one that I knew passed by the backs of many houses. It was beautiful.

I couldn't help from reflecting happily on how quickly my body has responded to walking again and how quickly I was able to walk for an hour. I returned to walking regularly the end of July. In less than 2 months I am back to my previous times of two years ago - before my feet checked out and sidelined me. The report on the new running shoes is mixed. My feet aren't totally pain free while walking, but they return to normal almost immediately after the walk. I am thinking that there is an adjustment period since the structure of these shoes are so very different from walking shoes.

I had the dogs this holiday. Since we don't do much celebrating, it was fun to have their furry personalities here over the long weekend. And my daughter also came making it a very wonderful weekend indeed. As you can see from this picture, the dogs have bonded pretty well. Milo has his quiet times now and when that happens, they are a happy three-some.

And sometimes it is good to leave those ear buds, iPod and podcasts at home. It is helpful to give your brain a chance float from topic to topic and discover just how good your life is on the whole.

How to ruin a perfect walking day.

You can't get more beautiful weather than we are having today! Some sun, few clouds, 75 degrees, little or no humidity. It was a grand day for a walk. But half way through this perfect day and exercise walk, my feet began to bother me. Not my heels (I have prescription orthotics for those) but the balls of my feet. Very annoying. I decided it was probably time for new shoes.

For years we have purchased shoes at Van Dyke and Bacon Shoes. They are excellent. Their claim to fame is that physicians send their diabetic patients to this store for shoe fitting. In addition to excellent fitting knowledge, they carry very well made shoes. And that means that a visit to this establishment is a very expensive trip for us. But having lived with foot pain in the past, I can tell you that money is no object if you can walk pain free.

At this point the day began to slip some. Slip #1 - After describing my problem and sizing my foot, the sales woman says (with a straight face): "You know, as we get older the cushioning at the bottom of our feet gets thin." And off she walks to bring back shoe choices - leaving me to ponder the full scope of her comment. Hmm ... "as we get older" - OK, next time ... make-up. I am definately wearing make-up next time I come! I may even put alittle blush on my feet! Slip #2 "bottoms of our feet gets thin" - Technically she never looked at the bottom of my feet. But if this is true, this appears to be a design flaw in the human body - the bottoms of our feet get thin as we age and all other areas plump up. What's with that!! What was God thinking? Maybe it is his idea of a joke. Anyway, I digress. Slip #3 - After trying on all my choices, I made an expensive decision. I chose running shoes for my offical walking shoes. The running shoes had the best cushioning and were very light weight (and, of course, they cost $30 more than my already expensive walking shoes.) Slip #4 - I decided to get the regular walking shoes as well. I have very expensive feet. Probably the most expensive part of me - other than my teeth (don't get me started on that).

Now some might question - why would I buy 2 pairs of shoes when conceivably one pair could work for both functions. The answer should be obvious. The running shoes are "decorated up" - ugh. Color stripes, silvery accents, sometimes day-glow markings, netty tops, all designed to make you think you are a running speed demon while glowing in the dark. I couldn't wear something like that all day long! The real question should be - why don't running shoes come in plain white? And besides, the running shoes may last longer if I only wear them for an exercise walk. I can justify anything. :-)

What will really frost me in the extreme is ... if after this large expense (and the soul searching on age and thin feet), I don't have happy feet tomorrow when I walk. That would aggravate me more than stupid shoe decoration.

Note to feet: I have treated you very, very well today. I iced you down. You got a massage. I spent enough on you to feed a family of 12 in a third world country for a year. We have 20 years of walking ahead of us. So keep up!

#7 Declutter and "stuff"

My mother is a minimalist. She saves things long past their useful life, and avoids buying stuff. Frequently I discover 2 tablespoons of juice in a gallon container in my refrigerator or 6 nuts in a large empty box in my pantry. She wastes nothing, and she doesn't want to be the last one to use it up. She grew up during the Depression, and during her adult life, she didn't have all that much either. I have tried to explain the difference between "need" and "want". She doesn't understand "want" - only "need" carries any weight with her. So the minimalist pattern of behavior is probably part of her DNA after 84 years. I've given up trying to change that.

I was not any of those things. While it is true that we didn't have much growing up, I was part of the Baby Boomer generation. Baby Boomers were raised during a period of growing prosperity and consumerism, an explosion of non-essential goods and services aggressively advertised as critical to a happy life, and a rising standard of living. We Baby Boomers view the world through different eyes than our parents. Our homes typically are filled with stuff - lots and lots of "stuff". And these homes are not the small 2-3 bedroom ranchers of our parents. They are typically large homes with many more bedrooms than needed, 2 and 3 car garages that do not hold cars, and tons of closet space. And, as our American culture seems to require, if you can't store all your "stuff" within the walls of your home, you can rent space in a storage facility to store the "spill-over stuff".

Clutter is a natural evolution of too much "stuff".

My house is no exception. I don't use rental space to store stuff. I manage to squeezing it all into my abode. But it hasn't been easy. Prior to the 1990's I was a major collector of stuff - you know, being a good baby boomer and all. We raised 2 kids and they had their stuff too. Over the last 20 years five different family members have downsized, relocated, and move in with us at different times. In three of those instances their stuff permanently resided in my town home. Prior to each move, I decluttered my stuff to make room for their stuff. When I think back across the years to all the stuff that passed through my hands - it makes me dizzy.

And so ... my stuff is plucking my last nerve!! For example - This evening I was trying to close a kitchen drawer. This drawer holds all the "critical stuff" I use when I cook (NOT! the only critical thing I have in my kitchen is my microwave!!). Anyway, this drawer with "critical stuff" wouldn't close. I shoved the drawer with my hip. A pastry cutter tried to escape. For gosh sakes!!! What was I doing with a pastry cutter? When did I ever cut pastry? What was I thinking when I bought it? I pitched it the trash. I slammed at the draw again, it still didn't close. Now I was really annoyed. This time the wine bottle opener made a break for it (thankfully reason took hold - can't throw that away!!!), so I opened the stupid drawer with a flourish and began pitching stuff. Five other things hit the trash. I had no idea what two of them even were!!! But they are now history! (and the drawer now closes.) :-)

Stuff is adding stress to my life. Decluttering stuff is a 20 year goal!

Maybe mom has it right!

As a side note: I recently bought a magazine about decluttering stuff. How stupid is that! I added stuff, to my stuff, so I could declutter stuff! Apparently my DNA is wired to "add stuff". After flipping through the $7 magazine at home, I tossed it. It was more into re-organizing stuff than getting rid of it. A total waste.

Another side note: The pictures used in this posting are real. They are not doctored or staged! See how I love my readers!!