Friday's List

1. Amanda wrote a post the other day, about her recent trip. It was a great piece, and it was so nice to see her blogging again. It's funny, seems like there was a blogging boom, and then a bust. Now so few people are writing regularly. I miss writing regularly. Amanda has challenged me to write on my blog twice a week, based on a plan that she herself is following. One regular post, and on Friday, a list of 5 things. That seems very doable. Plus, if it's good enough for Amanda, it's definitely good enough for me.

2. I do not know what to call this list. Hillary, someone who IS still blogging regularly, calls her Friday stuff "Faff." She speaks Canadian... it must be nice to be bilingual. I could call it the "Friday Five" but eh. Don't love that. And then I thought, well, I might not be bilingual, but I know my numbers in a bunch of different languages. There's cinq, cinco, cinque, fünf... the "Friday Fünf?" And then it seemed obvious! Or maybe the pain from last night's drumming was blocking it out... in Japanese, 5 is go. "Friday GO!" Yes, i like that! So, next week, that'll be the title.

3. Oh, I'm only at number 3? This is challenging. I'm out of shape... need to work on my endurance. Speaking of endurance, I'm learning how to run. I'm not trying to be a "runner." Just someone who can run. With my bad back, I'd been avoiding high impact activity for so long... but I think if I take it easy and slow, I can get there. Plus, now I know how to stretch to target the places that lead to pain, and I get massages twice a month, and acupuncture about that often too. So now I have a retinue of wellness experts behind me. My goal is to be able to run a mile (a continuous mile) by November. Ugh. Now that I've told you, I'm going to have to go through with it, huh?

4. I am not working today. This is not really such a monumental thing: I'm a consultant and can basically work or not whenever I feel like. Of course, tied up into that is whether or not I feel making money, and that is then coated in a thick layer of approval and responsibility. So far, I've slept late, had breakfast, had my coffee, and am watching a Monk marathon. Soon, I will start packing for our trip this weekend. I will not check my work email. I must learn to be nice to myself. Plus, if I start being nice to myself, maybe other people will notice and will start being nice to themselves. (What, did you think I was going to say "nice to me, too?" As if! I don't hang out with people who aren't nice to me. But sadly, we all seem to suffer from not being as nice to ourselves as we are to others.)

5. Oh, finally. Number 5. One of my big concerns right now is whether or not my beauty products are toxic. I've gotten sucked in to that Environmental Action/Skin Deep site (Google it, I'm not going to enable you), and am constantly looking up the shampoos and lotions I use to see if they're going to give me cancer. And, of course, everything will. But the site is pretty vague on how that stuff will give me cancer. Like, maybe it's only if I eat it or spray it in my eyes. I'm hoping for the best. I've found this great moisturizer that I love, but supposedly it's deadly. It has a nice fragrance, is reasonably priced, available at Target, and does an awesome job at evening out my skin tone. So, screw it. At least I'll be pretty.