Day 20 - A Good Hair Day

Hello all.  So today my something new is how I chose, or rather chose by default, to wear my hair today.  You might be thinking, oh no – she’s hit a new low.  She’s blogging about her hair.  Before you judge, indulge me with your attention.  If by the end, you feel I’ve wasted 3-5 minutes of your life, I’ll buy you a drink.

This morning I set my alarm a half hour early, as I suggested I might last night, in order to write a quiz.  The quiz, however, took more than a half hour to write, so by the time I got out of the shower – time was in very short supply.  I rushed around getting dressed, grabbing food, packing a bag to teach dance etc.  By the time I got back in front of a mirror to figure out what to do with my appearance, my hair was already halfway dry.  Rather than straighten it out with a blow dryer as I do every morning (it takes about 4 minutes) – I sprayed a little hairspray on it, fluffed it, plopped my hood over my head to protect my still damp strands from the elements, and ran out to my car.

The compliments started with my mom, although she always compliments me, so I don’t know if she counts.  “Your hair looks cute!” she said.  Others quickly followed suit.  “Ooooooh! I love your hair today!” several students in my first period class commented. “Ohmygosh we’re HAIR TWINS!” an especially exuberant student in my fourth period exclaimed.  In seventh period – my hair started a discussion.  By seventh period, a sneeze could start a discussion, so this is not remarkable.  “I love your hair like that!! Is that your natural hair!?  Why don’t you always wear your hair like that!? It’s my FAVORITE.”   A couple of my colleagues also commented on how much they liked my hair today.  It didn’t end at school, but continued to my dance studio, where one of my adorable six-year old students saw me and immediately blurted “Why is your hair curled? Your hair is always straight.” Not necessarily complimentary, but an accurate statement of fact.

The interest in and positive reaction to my hair when I leave it curly always befuddles me – mostly because I generally feel less polished and put together when I don’t blow it dry.  Curls are my default setting in the summer, but during the school year if my hair is curly, it’s usually because I’ve blown it out and re-curled it.  Crazy? Maybe.  But it got me thinking about a phenomenon called "The Ikea Effect" that I heard about on NPR.  The reporter explained the results of a study which revealed an odd pattern in human behavior. It turns out we place a higher value on those possessions or things we spend time and energy on – often overestimating or inflating that value.  It’s the reason we tend to privilege our own research in a project, think our dogs are the cutest, or believe the Ikea bookshelf we put together is worth more than the $800 one being sold at Macy’s. 

It’s not that I don’t like my hair in its natural state.  In fact, I kind of like it, and it saves me a step in the morning.  But perhaps I don’t appreciate it as much because it doesn’t involve any work.  It’s so odd that I can’t see the value in something that I haven’t spent ten precious minutes of my morning working on.  Others, however, have no problem seeing the value inherent in my God-given hair.

Sometimes we need to appreciate things just as they are – and some things in our lives just don’t need doctoring to be good.  Our faces are pretty without makeup, our bodies beautiful without Spanx.  Our family dinners are valuable without fancy food or place settings, and our quality time with one another better without the background noise of music or television.  I might pull out my blow dryer tomorrow, and I might not – but the positive reaction to my hair led me appreciate exactly what I have.

Below is the curly hair that is the subject of this blog.  It might be the only “selfie” of me ever published on the Internet.  In the future, feel free to remind me of its existence:

Day 19 - A Happy Anniversary

 Today I’m blogging in advance of my “something new.”  This premature posting is due largely in part to my energy level right now.  I know when I get home, I’ll think about writing the quiz I need to write for tomorrow, decide I can do it in the morning, set my alarm a half hour early so I can type it up then, and then I’ll go promptly to bed.

Tonight I am celebrating an anniversary with two beautiful friends of mine, and in celebration of our “friend-iversary” I’m offering my thoughts on timing, luck, and the people who are meant to grace my life with their joyful presence.

Two years ago tomorrow my friend Sheena and I decided to go to an event hosted at Old St. Pat’s.  I had recently joined the church, and the Young Adult association was putting on an evening of Irish dancing.  Now it takes guts and a little faith to go to a function at a place that is relatively new, but I had my secret weapon of eighteen years of competitive dancing in my back pocket.  If I didn’t know anyone other than Sheena, at least I knew how to dance.

When we arrived, the church basement was bustling, and there was a tiny woman with a brogue who took the mike and quickly started calling the shots.  She was not teaching individual dances, but ceilis – or group dances.  The event was a combination of people eyeing others and sizing them up while trying to figure out what to do with their hands, arms, and feet. 

A short time into the evening, Sheena and I ended up in a four-person dance with two girls who clearly knew what they were doing. Through a slightly breathless exchange while hopping and stepping around each other, we learned that they had both danced in their youth, and they were both Catholic school teachers.  We stuck together the rest of the night, and at the end we had an awkward phone number exchange that went something like this “Ummmm, so we think you guys are really great and we’d like to hang out again.”  Just a few weeks later we did, at St. Pat’s Siamsa ni Gael concert, and it has been true friendship love ever since. 

We’ve shared birthdays, parties, marathons, dance competitions, wine nights, and more in our two years of friendship – and I can’t help but feel very deeply that these two amazing women were meant to be a part of my life.  Last year at this time, we celebrated our one-year anniversary, and I couldn’t believe it had only been a year – I felt like I had known them my entire life.

There are so few people in the world that one can click with so instantaneously, and I’m so lucky that I literally danced into these two.  Finding their friendship makes me believe in the possibility of chance, and the certainty that those who are meant to be in my life will find their way there - and stay.  Happy Anniversary Erin and Antoinette. Here’s to many, many more. You girls rock . 

Day 18 - Don't Anticipate - Participate

This morning I woke up to skies that were gray but free of the impending flakes Tom Skilling promised were on the way.  As I drove to work, I contemplated what today might bring.  I thought for sure my drive home would be long and stress inducing – exacerbated by a long day at work, the “wintry mix” of sleet and snow, and highways clogged with tentative drivers and those driving too fast for conditions.  I’ve had drives home like that before, and I thought that if the day brought nothing new or exciting, I could surely blog about my drive.  I could work to find patience and serenity as I slid along ice coated streets, and skidded behind salt trucks. 

Then I rushed out of work, started my drive home, and encountered zero traffic.  Sure, the pavement wasn’t dry, and I had to turn my windshield wipers on, but the streets were salted and relatively clear.  It seemed that many people left work early or took alternate routes home because there were few cars on the road at all.  There went my “something new!”  How could I cultivate a calm mind amidst chaos when the chaos eluded me?  That got me thinking a little bit about anticipation and expectation.

There is no anticipation like the anticipation of a snowstorm amongst high school students.  They whisper about it, talk openly about, insist loudly and emphatically that it won’t happen – all the time crossing fingers and toes that it will.  This behavior is not limited to students.  In faculty rooms around school, “Snow-day” is whispered in hushed tones, weighted with a reverence generally reserved for royalty and sleeping newborn babies. 

A snow-day is like pitching a perfect game or winning the lottery – you worry that if you talk about it too much it won’t happen, and so you leave school saying “See you tomorrow!” in a voice dripping with certainty and sarcasm - tinged with optimism and a hint of desperation.  You don’t dare to hope for that day of blissful freedom, yet the possibility of it lingers in the margins of your consciousness – daring you to reach for it as it recedes before you.  One of my students imitated Patrick Stewart playing Macbeth, but instead of grasping at an invisible dagger, he snatched at the air crying “Is this a snow day that I see before me?!” It’s how we all feel this time of year, and often the promise of a heavy snowfall is far worse than clear skies and dry streets.

Today was just such a day.  I anticipated snow, and expected that its tumultuous arrival would be the subject of my blog.  The anticipation was exhausting, and my expectations for my drive home were a hindrance to this journey I am on.  This blog is not an exercise in looking forward – in anticipation - but in slowing down and noticing the realities of my life.  In my attempts to find something new, I came dangerously close to forcing something new. 

I began to think of all the times that I do this – the times I have preconceived notions about how an event, a day, a moment, or relationship should play out, happen, or progress.  Without intending to, I prefabricate my life – or at least intend to – until the rug is ripped out from under me, and I’m left wondering why the event, day, moment, or relationship didn’t fit the mold I tried to shove it in to.  I don’t want a cookie cutter life – I’ve never had one and I never will, but sometimes we all want our cookies to turn out just right.  I can’t blame myself for slipping up, but I can be responsible for remaining cognizant of this tendency in myself.  As we tell students on our Kairos retreats– don’t anticipate; participate.  Today, a little sleet, a little snow, and a hassle free drive home reminded me to be a participant in my own life. 

Day 17 - A Pinterest Recipe Conquered

Be forewarned: today I’m going to be one of those people who shares pictures of her dinner. 

Today I conquered a Pinterest recipe.  I went to Jewel after yoga, and, of course, my phone only had 2% battery left when I got there, and I didn’t have my car charger.  Therefore, I had to guess at the ingredients for the avocado chicken salad with cilantro and lime that I wanted to make.  I figured if I got those four ingredients, I’d be pretty much set.  I was right.  I loaded up my basket with fresh cilantro, lime, and avocado, and cheated with canned chicken (hey – give me a break ok?)  Then I even bought fresh bread at the bakery counter to toast and make open faced sandwiches, and I topped my basket off with the fixings for a goat cheese, cranberry, walnut salad (I know they don’t go together. I don’t care.)  I apologize if I’m sounding defensive about my dinner.  It’s wholly unnecessary.

As I checked out, I decided to recommit to going green at the grocery store, and bought two new re-usable bags in my favorite color.  Turns out I only needed one, because the contents of my basket- that would normally be bagged in three or more plastic bags - fit in just one re-usable bag.  So genius! So environmentally sound! So much easier to carry up to my apartment!  I took a picture of the before:

And the after (look how much stuff fits in there!):

Now the challenge is to make sure the bags make it back into the trunk of my car and into Jewel the next time I shop.  For some reason, that is a very real and serious challenge for me.

When I got everything unpacked from my sweet, magical, bottomless bag, I started on the making of my chicken salad.  I will not bore you with all the details - just some of them.  I chopped up fresh cilantro and green onion I had left over in my fridge (it was a bit dodgy).  Then I diced the avocado which, despite Jewel’s claim that it was “RIPE NOW!” – was not, indeed, ripe.  I figured I could tolerate about half of it, so I cut it up really small and tossed it together with the chicken, onion, and a mixture of lime juice and mayo. In case you were wondering, lime juice does amazing things to mayonnaise, and the dressing was delish (Yes, I just said "delish"): 

I toasted my bread, made my salad, and fixed it up nice and tidy on a plate.  I cracked open my bottle of Cupcake Pinot, and sat down to my very Pinterest-y dinner. 

I have an aversion to monochromatic meals, and the chicken salad runs dangerously close to being “too many green things on a plate,” but the salad and bread shook up the color palate just enough.  I think I liked the salad better than the sandwich  (of course – it was infinitely easier to make), but all in all it was a good meal. While I ate, I watched videos of Jennifer Lawrence being adorable - which made the experience even better.  One recipe down, fifty-some to go before I make everything on my "Recipes to Try" board.  Maybe I’ll go for those soft, chewy, delicious cookies next.  Here’s to Monday friends.

Day 16 - Here Comes the Sun

Sundays are by far the hardest day of the week for me to find something new.  If every day has a pattern – Sundays are a rut ground into the earth reminiscent of the Oregon Trail.  My Sundays consist of some combination of the following in no particular order and often with occasional additions or omissions: wake up, decide I need to sleep longer, go back to sleep, wake up again, teach dance, exercise, procrastinate, grade, procrastinate, lesson plan, procrastinate, go to Mass, procrastinate, watch something on television, read, procrastinate, surrender to the reality that I have to go to work the next day and do my job, go to sleep. 

You may have noticed that the common thread that holds my Sundays together is procrastination.  This can take many forms, including but not limited to looking at random people’s pictures on Facebook, looking at random pins on Pinterest, watching television, reading, napping, contemplating my navel, doing laundry – you get the idea.  Basically I have a hard time facing the impending workweek – particularly during this time of year.  Today was no exception.  My procrastination of choice today was to get a pedicure while reading the US weekly I bought along with my fake and bake cookies last Wednesday.  It was full of salacious celebrity gossip and vapid tidbits of absolutely nothing.  It was perfect for an hour or so of procrastination, and my toes are now a perfectly obnoxious shade of hot pink that makes me happy just thinking about it.  I also taught dance, graded, ran, did laundry, went to Mass – you get the idea.  It was a typical Sunday with very little that was new.

It was in the spaces in between the procrastination and the usual “stuff” filling my Sunday that I recognized the “something new” seeping into my awareness, reflected and refracted into my consciousness by the remaining inches of snow on the ground.  Today, I made a concerted effort to appreciate that big, burning star that gives us life and light.  I saw the sun.  I squinted against its brightness during my morning run, and instead of being annoyed by the glare it created on my not-so-clean windshield, I appreciated that the glare was there at all.  I put on my sunglasses, and then to better appreciate the view, I took them off.  I noticed how blue the sky was, and felt the left side of my body warm as I sat in traffic on my way home from teaching dance.  As I came around the curve on 94, I noticed just how beautiful the city looked with the glint of the sun on the buildings, and, looking out on that breathtaking landscape of steel and glass, I could almost imagine it was the middle of July and I was on my way to the beach.  In this month of twenty-eight days so often devoid of sunlight – today was a welcome change. 

I haven’t looked at the forecast yet, so I don’t know if the sun will be making an encore appearance this week.  Even if it doesn’t, I’m glad I made the effort to appreciate it when I got the chance.  Roll on spring and sunshine.

Day 15 - A Reflection Shared

I’m halfway though! Today I did something new.  I spoke in front of an entire auditorium full of parents and students at the closing of our Snowball retreat.  I’ve spoken in public before, many times – but the audience has usually been comprised entirely of teenagers, with exception of a few colleagues.  Today, when the students’ parents came to pick them up from retreat, we put on an hour-long presentation in order to share with the parents what Snowball is about.  The capstone of the presentation is a twenty-minute talk on family life, and this year I was asked to give it.

I love writing talks when I’m asked to give them, but presenting them is always a nerve-wracking experience.  While once I’m up on stage or at a microphone, I actually enjoy being up there, the minutes waiting for my turn are always endless.  This was especially true today, as I had to share my story not just with students, but with a sea of parents as well.  The subject of my talk was my family, and the relationship I have with both my parents and my siblings, and I was guided by the theme of the retreat “I’m never changing who I am.” 

It was a gift to write the talk, as I was able to reflect on each of my family members’ unique place in my life – and the ways in which, both separately and together, they have helped to make me who I am today.  It was also a gift to give it, as I welcome any chance to share who I really am with my students and our school’s community.  I’d like to share just a little bit of the talk with you all today – this is the closing of it:

“My family has continued to be a driving force throughout my adult life.  The gentle advice of my mother, the listening ear of my father, and the inspiring influence of both my brother and my sister have helped me continue to know who I am.  I’ve shared with you the story of her youth, but Eileen’s perseverance as an adult is a constant inspiration.  Refusing to be hindered by her disability, or the preconceived notions of others, Eileen has surpassed all expectations – except her own.  She has a master’s degree in counseling psychology, is a teacher respected and beloved by all her students, and is looking forward to teaching her true passion – learners for whom English is a second language.  Eileen’s dedication to her dreams reminds me that I must always continue to pursue my own.  

            I have continued to learn from my brother in our adulthood as well.  Michael’s dedication to his faith and his service to his community are remarkable.  When he was just out of college, he spent two years teaching in Notre Dame’s service learning program – the Alliance for Catholic Education or ACE.  Though he taught in a very troubled school in Montgomery, Alabama, Michael never waivered in his commitment to his students. Even as he faced his own personal health scare – Michael continued to serve his school community during a time I’m sure I would have fallen apart.   He shows a similar dedication in his work as an admissions counselor.  Michael might be the greatest salesman of all time, but only when he is selling something he loves, and he loves Notre Dame.  He believes passionately in the Catholic mission of the University and through his work there, he has been able to foster his own journey of faith and service.  Once, a friend of my brother’s whom I had never met, came up to me at a Notre Dame football game.  She said “So you’re Kathleen.  I’d like to know what I have to do for my brother to speak as highly of me as your brother does of you.” I was so touched, and I would hope that others would say the same for how I speak of Eileen and Michael.  I aspire to be as passionate, dedicated, and truly “good” as both my siblings are.  

            As the Imagine Dragons theme song for this retreat states – “I may get a little bigger” – or a little older – but “I’m never changing who I am.”  My identity - who I am - has been so wholly defined by my family – I would have trouble defining myself without them, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.  I only hope and pray that someday I will build my own family with the grace, love, faith and perseverance that my parents did.  In so many ways big and small, my family has given me the confidence to define and create myself.  Today, I challenge you all to turn your minds to your families – whatever and wherever they might be.  Our families challenge us, shape us, and truly make us who we are.  When and if you can, remember how those you love can be your backbone – how they can remind you of and call you back to that person you truly are while giving you the courage to assert “I’m never changing who I am.”

Thanks for reading, everyone – sorry for the delay in my postings.  I’m looking forward to the next fifteen days – Happy Saturday!

Day 14 - A Tubular Experience

Today, appropriately, I played in the snow.

Today was the second day of my school’s Operation Snowball retreat.  If you are unfamiliar with the program, it is an anti-drug/anti- substance abuse retreat that focuses on educating teens on issues of addiction, abuse, and self-harm while offering them a safe haven where they can meet new friends, listen to informational talks, play games, and share with one another in small groups.  It is always a great time for the students who attend, and for many of them, their participation is a highlight of their high school career.

Today, while the students were busy with an activity that didn’t require the supervision of every adult on staff, I was given a chance to do something I haven't done in a very long time.  One of the other adult leaders, Michelle, came up to me to tell me that there was a hill behind one of the cabins (yep- cabins.  We get rustic) that, thanks to the recent snowfall, was just perfect for sledding.  The camp also had four tubes that we could borrow to go tubing in – and by “we” I mean a group of adults ranging in age from twenty to somewhere in their fifties. 

Now, once upon a time (read: when I was ten) going tubing would sound like the absolute best idea on the planet.  Those of you who know me well know that throwing myself onto the ground and down a hill is not something I would normally jump at.  I do, however, like to think of myself as someone who embraces life and opportunity, so after a brief hesitation, I said “I’m in,” and rounded up some other adults to go along with us. 

We grabbed the tubes, hiked up to the top of the hill – which had a tree dangerously growing out of the middle of it – and started to slide down it.  Michelle went first to make a path, and shortly after her, I made my run.  Now, I don’t want to glamorize my trip down the snowy hill.  It was not ideal.  I sat down in the tube, realizing it was just low enough in air pressure for my butt to sink into the snow beneath it.  Beyond causing a really uncomfortable behind – the drag of my tush in the snow also seriously hindered my from flying down the hill National Lampoon-style.  I pushed up on my triceps to elevate myself and asked for a push from my fellow snow bunnies. 

The actual slide down the hill is not worth documenting.  It took me more than half the way down to gain any momentum, and I spent maybe six feet sliding with any speed at all.  By then I had a wet butt, and was worried about ruining the Bandolino boots I was wearing (I was not dressed for the occasion).  I knew that single mediocre run would be my only one of the day.  I watched a few more adults slide down the hill, and a few lay down in the snow to make snow angels.  I looked around at the camp and appreciated the scenic view, and breathed in the crisp, but relatively warm thirty degree air.  I thought about how funny it was that the kids were playing inside while we were playing out in the snow.

While there was very little epic about my romp in the snow today – it was a moment I seized that I normally would have let pass.  If I were not on this journey intended to help me experience each day of my life, I know I would have sat inside and watched the kids play – it would have been a pleasant, but not a new experience.  With snow boots, a longer coat, and a tubbier tube – I’d take on a snowy hill in a heartbeat. 

Day 13 - Running...late

Hello my dear readers!  Happy Thursday.  So today is going to be an incredibly short blog because, for a change, I am running late to go drive to Frankfurt to the scenic Camp Manitoqua to help lead my 7^th Operation Snowball retreat (ironically on the night set to yield the largest snowfall in Chicago this year). 

I’m partially running late because today, for the first time in two months, I went for a run.   You see, when the temperature dips below freezing, and I have to choose between sweating in a 100 degree yoga room with soft music and incense burning, or pounding the pavement in solitude in sub-freezing temp – nose running and lungs burning – the yoga room wins every time.

Today, however, I didn’t have time to make it a yoga class, so a run it was.  I laced up, bundled up and went out for a four-mile jaunt.  That makes it sound easy.  It wasn’t.  The first mile sucked, as it often does, but I was surprised at how quickly my body slipped into a rhythm after that.  When I passed up my turn around for three miles, I though “What the heck? Let’s make it four.”  It’s easy to run that extra half mile out, but when I hit the three mile mark on the way back, and I still had one more to go, I was hurting. 

It’s amazing how, when I haven’t run for a while, a four mile run can feel like the last four of 26.2 just last October.  But I put one foot in front of the other.  I breathed in and out.  I ran.  Now I have to run to Frankfurt.  Enjoy the snow my friends, and I’ll enjoy my Snowball.

Day 12 - Fake and Bake

I had grand plans for something new I was going to do today. 

To begin, let me explain that I have a mild to moderate Pinterest addiction.  My pinning is largely limited to my “Namaste” board, my “Style” board, and my “Recipes to try" board.  The board with the most pins is my “Recipes” board. I have tried exactly zero of those recipes.

While many “pinners” on Pinterest have nicely organized boards – one for deserts, one for healthy options, one for appetizers etc – my board is a jumbled mess of recipes for spiced and sugared pumpkin donuts; vegan breakfast bars; pulled pork and coleslaw sandwiches; oatmeal smoothies; double chocolate brownies with fudge topping; and avocado, tomato and sprout sandwiches.  You get the idea – I entertain notions of being super healthy, but I love all food.

Today I was going to make soft, chewy, white chocolate and cranberry cookies.  The recipe promised they would be soft and chewy (the secret? Cornstarch!) I had already started to wonder in what aisle I would find cornstarch at Jewel. I get anxious when I can’t find things. 

Then I had one of those drives home from work where I wondered if I might fall asleep at the wheel.  I’m talking one of those “noon class in college and the professor has a monotone voice – dig your fingernails into your palms to stay awake” kind of drives. This level of fatigue means one of two things: a) For some reason, I’m just really tired or b) I’m getting sick.  I’ll know in the morning, but if you’re into that kind of thing, cross your fingers and toes that it’s the former.

My exhaustion hit me like a Metra train at rush hour. I got up to my apartment, turned up my heat and lay down in my enormous down puffy coat.  I fell unceremoniously to sleep, was comatose for twenty minutes, and woke up to drag myself to a yoga class where I was meeting my mom.  I wanted to skip straight to savasana – which for those of you who don’t know – literally means “corpse pose.”

After yoga – I drove to Jewel.  As I approached the automatic doors – I knew those soft, chewy, white chocolate, cranberry cookies weren’t going to happen.  Nope.  Not by a long shot.  I bought some cereal, some Chobani (on sale!), two Palermo’s frozen pizza’s (on sale!), Cupcake Pinot, and something new – Pillsbury Ready to Bake cookies, or as I would like to call them, fake and bake cookies (not on sale).  I even passed up the gigantic roll of cookie dough, thinking it would be too much work to spoon it out and shape it into cookies, and I would probably end up eating half of the roll anyway.

As the cashier rang up the package along with my yogurt, pizza, wine, and US Weekly – I felt liberated.   I hoped that there was some uber-healthy, Pinterest-y, organic blogger checking out my haul and judging it.  I was still going to bake in a new way – just in the laziest way imaginable. 

I came home and made a salad and some chicken soup, and by salad I mean some dodgy looking lettuce, shredded cheese and a generous splash of poppy seed dressing.  (n.b. I’ve always wanted to use the word “dodgy” to describe lettuce.  I read it in a Scottish novel once, and loved it.  I’ve been waiting for the opportunity, and today my lettuce was, indeed, dodgy). Before I sat down to my dinner, I popped my cookies in the oven, but not before taking a picture like they do in all the Pinterest blogs:

 

There are only 23 cookies on the tray, because I ate one – despite the writing on the package that screams “Don't Eat Raw Cookie Dough.”  Eleven minutes later I took them out of the oven.  Several of them had globbed onto one another in the oven, as if each knew it was too measly to make a decent cookie on its own:

 They look pretty anemic – I'm not sure if I baked them long enough - but they taste like chocolate chip cookies, and my kitchen smells pretty good.  I probably won’t be pinning them to my Pinterest board anytime soon – but they are my something new on a day when I’m to darn tired to do or try anything else.  Sometimes, we all need to take the easy way out - and when all else fails - eat the cookie dough.

Day 11 - Let's Run This Town...again

Facts:  Today is about 40 degrees colder than yesterday, today I ate approximately fifteen Hershey’s kisses, and today I registered for my third Chicago Marathon.  All of these things are new, and I feel the need elaborate on two of them.

When I was little, I was really, really good at playing the original Super Mario Brothers for Nintendo.  Not Super Nintendo, not Nintendo 64 – but the original gray, red, and black box where you had to blow vigorously into the cartridges when they wouldn’t work.  I wasn’t skilled at any other game, just Mario.  This was largely due to my total lack of interest in playing any other game (similar to how I only practiced the songs I liked on the piano, leading to Christmas melodies being played year round in our home).  I was really good at Mario on my own, but with the Game Genie, I was unstoppable. 

I’m not sure if any of you had a Game Genie, but we did. You would plug it into the cartridge of whatever you were playing, and you could enter codes to, basically, cheat.  I still remember the code for infinite lives (SXIOPO - scary? Yes.  I remember the code for moon gravity too - YAZUIG).  With infinite lives, I could play for hours – falling in holes, getting hit by fireballs, landing on spiky flowers, and getting smashed by falling debris.  It didn't matter. I always had another life.  This fact, however, did little to ease my anxiety, as I didn't like to lose, particularly to my brother.  I would spend hours trying to get past the same exact part in a fire level, dying, and dying, and dying in exactly the same place – getting bumped back to the beginning over and over and over again.  My heart would race as I approached the obstacle, and I would drop my head in to my hands, groaning in frustration as I died again.

Where am I going with this?  I relived this exact feeling today trying to register for the Chicago Marathon.  I even had a code to type in – my individual code to register for a charity spot.  Registration opened at noon (how convenient! My lunch! The only free twenty minutes of my day).  I was staring at the registration page as it refreshed to “Registration is now open.”  I clicked register, started the process, and immediately got an error message “This page is temporarily unavailable.”  Ok, no big deal.  I tried again.  This time I got one step further “Internal Server Error.”  I could feel the panic rising in my chest.  I could almost hear the little “death jingle” from my Mario playing days.  I tried again, and again, and again, and again.  I continued to try repeatedly through my entire lunch – periodically texting my brother who was going through the same process.  I started my homeroom class watching a movie they are required to watch, and then I started again.  The process went on for close to 50 minutes – sometimes, I would make it all the way to the end – through 4 “levels” of registration - type in my code to redeem my spot, only to discover that active.com was so sorry for the inconvenience, but this page was unavailable.

I passed the job over to my mom, who has sixth and seventh period free (free to work, not to do battle with the BOA marathon website).  God love her, she would move the moon for me if I asked her.  She went through the same process as myself for over an hour, and – finally – I got through and registered.  I was so stressed by the entire process that I ate a half a bag of Hershey’s kisses left over from Valentine’s Day (see – the second explanation was much shorter!)

I just heard that registration was suspended after four hours, so who knows, maybe I’ll have to do it all again tomorrow.  Either way, I’m pumped for the hours of training, the hours chatting with my girlfriends as we lace up at 6:30 am every Saturday morning for four months, and for the four plus hours I’ll spend running through the streets of Chicago on October 13^th.  Happy Tuesday friends!

Day 10 - Cleaning House

Happy President’s Day everyone!  First off, I’d like to share with you all a little something new I learned today in my attempt to appreciate exactly why I did not have to go to work.  Please read the following excerpt from history.com.  If you have no interest in furthering your knowledge of national holidays – skip it, and move on to my personal gem for the day.

Presidents’ Day is an American holiday celebrated on the third Monday in February. Originally established in 1885 in recognition of President George Washington, it is still officially called “Washington’s Birthday” by the federal government. Traditionally celebrated on February 22—Washington’s actual day of birth—the holiday became popularly known as Presidents’ Day after it was moved as part of 1971’s Uniform Monday Holiday Act, an attempt to create more three-day weekends for the nation’s workers. While several states still have individual holidays honoring the birthdays of Washington, Abraham Lincoln and other figures, Presidents’ Day is now popularly viewed as a day to celebrate all U.S. presidents past and present.

For those of you who had today off like me – I’m happy for you.  I hope you enjoyed the brief respite from the working world as much as I did.  If you worked today, in any capacity, you have my deepest condolences and sincere appreciation for keeping our country rolling.  I hope you get a break soon.

As usual, I had little planned for my day off today.  While I often pack my weekends to the gills, I try very hard to have next to nothing cluttering up my holidays.  I woke up, took a good morning stretch, and became immediately aware of the state of my bedroom.  I keep my apartment very tidy, but the one room I struggle with the most is my bedroom.  Like most Chicago apartments, my lovely, vintage, dark hardwood home has very little closet space – so if I do not keep everything organized with Martha Stewart-esque consistency, it rapidly begins to look like TJ Maxx threw up in my tiny bedroom.  Let’s just say I haven’t been channeling Martha very much lately.

Here is my biggest issue with keeping my room in order: It always seems that the clothes I wear most often never make it into the closet or the armoire.  It is so much easier, but far less civilized, to live out of laundry bags and baskets, and so in the middle of a busy week, there is little chance my pants are going to be hung up or my neatly folded sweaters stacked on a shelf.  Consequently, weeks might go by where I barely open my closet, and a huge portion of my wardrobe goes unworn.  Today, my something new was that I vowed to change that.  I ventured into the (very shallow) bowels of my closet, and ransacked the shelves of my armoire.  I found some interesting things.

First, I tackled my stack of cardigan sweaters (I have many, in many colors – it’s like Joseph’s amazing Technicolor dream coat when they are all lined up).  I pulled them out, ironed them, and found a space for them in the closet – ensuring they will be less wrinkled at 5:00 am on a random Wednesday and I’ll be far more likely to wear them.  I discovered - at the bottom of the pile - sweaters I haven’t worn all school year.  Some of them I put in a pile for Goodwill, and others I will be wearing this week.  Then, I went through my t-shirts, of which I have an alarming number.  I counted seventeen with some iteration of MCHS on them, five emblazoned with my dance school’s name, two St. Pat’s Block Party shirts, two Ridge Run shirts, and a handful of random others.  I managed to glean six to give away.  Then I went through my “school shirts” hanging in my closet and added several that I haven’t worn in ages to my goodwill pile, making more room for the clothes I actually like and wear regularly.  The process continued, and while my room won’t soon be featured on HGTV, it is vastly improved.

What did I learn from this process? While you all know I’m a sucker for a good metaphor.  I started to think about how the state of my bedroom and closet could be a metaphor for the state of my life – for all our lives.  How often do we hang on to things that are not that important to us – that no longer have use in our lives but take up space that could be occupied by something more valuable?  Could I let go of old opinions, unfounded judgments, or stale worldviews? Can I clear my heart and mind of anger or resentment, forgotten like those old sweaters, but is still lingering and waiting to be uncovered?  We all hold on to things that don’t help us, and might even hinder us.  Today - inspired by a pile of t-shirts and sweaters - I contemplated letting go.

Day 9 - A Waxy Situation

I don’t have a single moment or occurrence that comprises my “something new” for today.  Instead, I discovered the interest that my friends and acquaintances have taken in this journey I’ve set out for myself, and I was touched by their encouragement of my endeavor.

My story for today starts last night.  I went out on a sort of semi-annual bar crawl that my friend Matt puts on (you made the blog by name, Matt!)  The winter edition of the crawl is always at the perfect time of year - the middle of February – when everybody just wants to get together and drink beer without having to wait until St. Patrick’s Day for a reason to do it.  We started our crawl at Floyd’s pub on Armitage and Oakley.  While we sipped our way through several craft beers, Matt brought up the topic of my blog, and I shared the premise of it with everyone present.  They were all genuinely interested and offered all sorts of colorful ideas for “new” things I could tackle in the next 22 days.  In the course of the conversation I may or may not have promised to blog about the bar crawl today.

Turns out that a few “new” things happened on the crawl, which was, incidentally, the coldest bar crawl I have ever participated in, and therefore consisted of only three bars.  Discussion ensued over whether we could even dub our frozen journey from Floyd’s to the Green Eye and on to The Charleston a crawl at all.  But if we couldn’t call it a crawl, what would we call it?  Someone suggested a “stutter,” but in the end the issue dropped without resolution.  I experienced a couple of new things at the second bar.  First, we played two drinking games.  Now, I’m a little embarrassed to admit that I have played drinking games in bars before – but these were new to me.  They were fairly low-key and involved cards, hand symbols and drumming on the table - not all in the same game. 

While we were in the midst of the second game, an inebriated gentleman at the table next to us  (not one of my friends) managed to somehow knock the entire contents of his table so forcefully off it that they went flying toward us as he conveniently flew out the door.  As I had the unfortunate seat next to his table, I quickly felt my entire right side showered in liquid.  I’ve been spilled on before, but this time was new.   It wasn’t beer that covered my leg and arm, but something warm and thick.  As it rapidly began to harden, I realized I had been “waxed.”  I was wearing all the hot wax from the candle that had been burning on their high-top table.  Stay tuned for a later blog where I might detail my adventures removing that wax from my Nine West jeans.  Staff and strangers rushed to help me out – everyone’s nice to you when you are the girl with hot wax congealing on her thigh. 

We ended our crawl at The Charleston, and I rode home with a very chatty and personable cab driver – a pleasant way to end a great evening, despite my waxy leg.  This morning I had brunch with my brother and more friends, and they also asked about my blog, and shared with me how much they have enjoyed reading it – solidifying even further for me my commitment to this project.  As I near the 1/3 mark of my challenge, I’m loving all the support from all of you, and I couldn’t be happier that I have such wonderful people sharing in this journey with me.  

Day 8 - Dance, dance....

After this year’s Oireachtas - the Mid American Irish Dance Championships – held over Thanksgiving weekend, I took a hiatus from giving private Irish dance lessons.  I don’t give very many, but I kind of enjoyed the months of always having my Saturday and Sunday mornings totally free.  Today I went back to giving lessons, and I rediscovered how much I really love teaching dancing – to all children, but in this case – to champion level dancers.

Irish dancing is a passion of mine that, over the years, friends and acquaintances have asked me why I love it so much – why I continue to have it be such a part of my life.  I’ve always been at kind of a loss of how to answer that question, because the answer is so complicated.  When something is so woven into the fabric of your life, it becomes impossible to distinguish the threads from the pattern.  All I know is that from my very first lesson I loved dancing.  I loved the music, the movement, and the feeling of my body flying through space.  As I started competing, I loved the shoes, the socks, the dresses, the curly hair and later the sparkles, the fake tanner and the wigs.  I loved the thrill of performing on stage, and the butterflies of competition.  Beyond all the amazing people I met and places I traveled, at the end of the day I just loved the art form.  I still do – and now I love to teach it.

As I gave a lesson to a champion level dancer today, I felt how quickly I clicked back into my role.  I love teaching talented dancers because it is a little like editing an amazing essay.  I take something that others already see as beautiful, and help the dancer to make it even better.  I watch a step that, to an untrained eye looks perfect, and can spend thirty minutes or more working on it - tightening an arch here, pushing an ankle a little farther forward there, pausing a hair of a second longer for effect in one corner, and jumping a few inches higher in another.  When I was a competitor myself, I was often blind to my own dancing – consumed by the stake I held in it.  I relied on my amazing teachers to help me see it for what it was – to make it incrementally better each time I stepped foot on a dance floor.  It is so incredibly gratifying to do the same thing for another – to help a dancer reach her full potential.  It’s a gift.

So rather than doing or really even finding something new, today I saw a gift in my life in a new light.  Sometimes we have to step away from something we really love to realize how much it means to us – what a gift it is in our lives.

Day 7 - The Sound Of Silence

In addition to being one of my favorite Simon and Garfunkel songs (second only to “The Boxer”), the title of this blog is the “something new” I sought today.  I was inspired by a friend.  Earlier in the week, this friend (also a teacher) turned to a particularly gregarious class and told them that they must sit in absolute silence and work for the remaining minutes of the period because, he told them, “you need to know what silence sounds like.”  I laughed when he told me the story, because I know exactly how he feels. In a classroom of twenty-odd teenagers, those moments of pure, unadulterated silence are precious and few. 

Today, I made the conscious decision to do something new.  I attempted to know what silence sounds like.  As I got in my car to drive home, I decided to leave my radio off for the entire drive, and travel in total and complete silence.  I also put my phone in my purse, and decided I wouldn't reach for it - even if it buzzed with a text or phone call. 

Now, I listen to the radio all the time.  In the past six months, I have been developing an increasingly serious relationship with WBEZ.  While some mornings find me engaging in the occasional dalliance with my former flame – Eric and Kathy on The Mix – I spend most hours in my car soaking up every bit of knowledge and culture that NPR offers.  I can honestly say that my level of social, political, and economic awareness has increased exponentially since I started tuning in to 91.5.  I love the smooth, familiar voices of the newscasters and hosts with their wit and charm and cool, alliterative names.  I love the news reports and the opinion pieces, the interviews with bright young bloggers, and the seasoned reporters who interview them.  Most of all, I love the stories – of every imaginable shape, size and genre and in every imaginable voice.  I love my radio, and I never turn it off.

But today I did.  I drove in silence.  Well, almost silence.  I heard with alarming clarity the “thunk” in the undercarriage of my car that I thought only surfaced when I went over speed bumps.  Turns out, those are just the loudest “thunks”, and my drive was punctuated by the infuriatingly random sound of something going bump in the belly of my Honda. 

Forgetting that silence meant I really should remain quiet as well, and irritated by the sea of brake lights in front of me, I broke into Rent’s “Seasons of Love,” or what I know of it, which is basically a smidgen of the chorus (the number of minutes in a year sung more or less over and over again.  It’s like the song that doesn’t end).   After taking a break to listen to the cacophony of clunks under my car, I transitioned to Kelly Clarkson’s “Catch My Breath,” of which I know slightly more than three words.  You can guess which three words I know best and sing the loudest.  My performances were noteworthy in that they reminded me of my urge to fill silence with the sound of my own voice.

I'm very glad I did this “something new” today.  I realize that I spend very few, if any, moments of my day in silence. Apart from the minutes I’ve been sitting quietly instead of snoozing, my day is rarely free of auditory stimuli.  In a way, my radio masking the sound of whatever the heck is wrong with my car mimics the way in which the barrage of noise we surround ourselves with can block us from listening for things that we really need to hear – like our own thoughts, or God’s message for us. 

I’m sure tomorrow I will tune back in to my now beloved WBEZ, but I will try to remember that, like the average class full of teenagers, I need to periodically “know what silence sounds like.”

Day 6 - A New Outlook

To celebrate: a verb meaning to observe a day or event with ceremonies of respect, festivities or rejoicing. 

My something new for today: as a single person – I celebrated Valentine’s Day.  Now, that is not to say that this was my first Valentine’s Day spent single. Oh no, my friends, this was not my first rodeo.  It is, however, the first time that I can truly say I celebrated the day sans a significant other.

My single Valentine’s Day mindsets have run the gamut from denying the day’s entire existence, to total disgust at this “Halmark” holiday, to feigned “I am single, hear me roar” pride.  I don’t know that I’ve ever made it through this day of love and roses alone yet feeling content.  Until today.

So my approach to this holiday has been steadily shifting over this past year.  Not that I’ve thought about February 14th every day for the past 364 days, but I suppose my approach to being single has been evolving, and it has manifested in my experience on this day – the bane of every single person's existence.  A couple of weeks ago, over dinner with my brother and his girlfriend, a light bulb went off for me.  My brother’s girlfriend told me that in Honduras, today is celebrated as “The Day of Love and Friendship.”  How awesome is that?  I decided then and there that I would celebrate “The Day of Love and Friendship” as well.

In addition to my revelation over dinner, another experience in the past week played into my plans for today.  I was in a yoga class, and as I reluctantly pulled myself out of savasana and bowed forward to seal my practice, I opened my eyes to find a single Hershey’s kiss in front of my mat.  A collective “awww!” swept across the room as we realized that, as we had been lying prone and sweaty, the teacher was busy leaving tiny reminders of love for us to find.  That little pink Hershey’s kiss made me so happy, and I wanted to share that feeling with others.

Today - that is exactly what I did.  I celebrated a day of love and friendship.  Over the past week, I bought cards and candy for people that I love.  I bought chocolate kisses and Hershey’s miniatures, and decorative boxes to hold candy.  I even bought a painted, standup “xoxo” to put on my bookshelf, and, for $3.50, I bought myself a little stuffed dog with a red bow because 1. I’ve spent more on a Starbuck's latte and 2. He is adorable.  All of these things brought me joy, and giving them to others (except the dog – he’s mine) made me even happier. 

I left kisses on each of my students’ desks and watched their faces as they found them.  I told them about the Day of Love and Friendship, and I accepted with thanks every baked good and piece of candy that was offered to me.  I received - in order – 1. one piece of decadent red velvet cake topped with Oreo cookie crust and double chocolate icing  2. A funfetti cupcake  3. A box of Mike and Ike’s  4. A rolo, and 5. A Valentine poem that centered around my love of internet meme’s.   I ate the cake and the cupcake and the rolo.  I didn’t feel badly about it.  In fact, I felt awesome. 

My day of love and friendship was filled with tiny moments of festivity and rejoicing that, combined, made for more than I ever could have asked for.  As I scanned my mind and heart for any traces of bitterness or cynicism – I found them absent.  Buoyed by the love of so many - today, I celebrated.