So, I have been trying to turn over a new leaf.  That is, after all, the motivation behind my New Year Mantra.  I purposely created a mantra that is a bit open-ended rather than giving me specific concrete steps of action.  This goes against the thinking that goals really only work when they are measurable, but my mantra is not really a goal.  Rather, it is meant to be a way to live.  It also gives me some flexibility, so that I can tackle different things when it feels right to do so rather than being forced to "exercise for 30 minutes" or "go to bed by 10" every single day.  If there is one thing I learned about myself, trying to do the exact same thing every single day often stresses me out.  Routines are great, but I am not good at keeping precise schedules.  This has made life with a baby interesting.

That being said, I LOVE lists.  Over the course of the last month, I have made several lists.  This is weird, right?  I mean, it is really weird for someone who is so unorganized.  But as I have already established, I am probably the strangest Type A personality that you will ever meet.  I'm not your average A.  My goodness.  Maybe that should be the name of this blog.  I am going to write that down in my idea journal.  Actually, I don't really have an idea journal.  Not yet, anyway.  But I did come up with the idea to create an idea journal, and if I had that journal, I would write both of these ideas in it.   

Back to my lists.  I created a list of my work tasks that I need to tackle each week.  I started strong with this the first couple weeks in January, and then I lost my motivation.  But now I am back at it.  I find that having that list in front of me helps me get started on things.  Too often, when I have a short amount of time free, I can't seem to wrap my head around what I should be doing.  This list prompts me.  Plus it feels damn good when I cross something off of it.  The challenge is not to overreach because it is extremely frustrating to see a lot of tasks that are not crossed off yet.  To allow for some leeway, I think it's okay for a few items to be pushed back to a second week as long as the majority of the items are completed.  But if I have more than three items that are repeats or if the items are still there after a second week, it's time for me to reevaluate what I am doing.  So far, I have had to reevaluate quite a bit.  

Another list that I created was my "nagging list."  I got this idea from The Happiness Project.  This list became overwhelmingly long.  The number of tasks that I have been putting off is rather embarrassing.  It's funny how a simple task can become so dreaded simply because you have been putting it off.  For me, part of the problem is that when I delay doing something so basic, I have to deal with the guilt of not having done it yet.  Apparently, I would rather push the guilt away and delay a task even longer (which ends up resurfacing with ongoing pangs of guilt every time I remember the task) instead of just dealing with the guilt for the amount of time it takes for me to get the task done (which is usually not very long).  Yes, I would rather let myself suffer with the ongoing pangs of guilt that pop up all the time rather than face the guilt head on for a period of time and then get that amazing feeling of accomplishment once I get to cross it off my list.  This is pretty messed up.  But it's true.  From thank you notes to Christmas cards to birthday gifts - I am terrible with all of these things.  As for my nagging short list, I took care of some of the tasks, but I am still working on many.  And by "working on" I actually mean I am still putting them off.  I am the Queen of Procrastination.  To help me, I decided to make a "My Nagging Short List," which includes no more than 10 items.  Once those are crossed off, then I will revisit my long list. 

I also created a "To Do" list to help me get ready in the mornings.  I found that getting myself ready for work and my little one ready for daycare to be more challenging than I ever expected.  As I pack, I have 6 bags plus a 20lb baby to carry.  "Six bags, really?" you ask.  Yup.  Here they are:

1. My work bag

2. My pumping bag

3. My lunch bag

4. My freezer bag for milk and baby's lunch and snack

5. My diaper bag

6. My daycare supply bag

Can I combine some of these? Probably.  But I am not organized enough for that. Right now, each bag is full, and I can't imagine not packing every single thing that is in those bags.

Throw in winter coats, hats, boots, and mittens (if I remember them, that is), and we have our very own version of Nightmare on Elm Street every morning.  Minus the knives, blood, and killing.  Okay, that was a really bad metaphor.  Let's just say the mornings include me running around like a mad person, cursing my husband under my breath about how he does nothing to help me, and despite every effort, we are still about 20 minutes late.  By the time I get everything and us in the car, I am ready to call it a day, and we haven't even gone anywhere yet.
 

For this week, I have created a super short list to try to motivate myself back into good habits:

1. Get up early.

2. Go to one yoga class.

3. Read and write something every day.

4. Cross something off of my Nagging To Do Short List.

I did get up early (between 5:45 and 6:15) every day except for today and yesterday (Friday and Saturday).  I feel a little irked with myself about that.  I have a lot to do today, but I need to let that go and move on (letting go and moving on are two things that are REALLY hard for me to do.)  I did read and write something every day - even if it was just a little bit.  So, I should feel good about that.  I did cross one thing off of my Nagging Short List.  One thing is good, but I need to do better because there are nine things left, and that is just my short list.

So, what about yoga?  Oh, yoga.  How I miss you.  I have been wanting to get myself back to my yoga studio, but the thought of adding another bag to that list above so that I can shower and change for work is way too overwhelming.  I live too far away to go back home in between yoga and work.  I realized yesterday that the only way I am going to make it to the studio is if I get myself up for a 6am class during the week or to get myself up for a morning class on the weekend.  I have been enjoying our family weekend mornings, so this has not been an appealing option, but I think I need to just make myself do this.  I was going to try to go to a 6am class yesterday, but I was tired.  And cold.  The thought of crawling out from my warm and snugly bed was too much to bear.  So, I went back to sleep instead.  Today, I thought I would go to the 8:30am class, but again, I couldn't drag myself out of bed.  Confession:  I didn't even set my alarm.  I was so tired and grouchy last night, that I thought it was best to just let myself wake up - or let my daughter wake me up - when it was time.  The idea of the drive alone was exhausting.  Note to self:  we need to buy a house that is no more than 10 minutes from my yoga studio.  Maybe next week, yoga.

As for my work list, I crossed off 4 1/2 out of the 10 things on my list.  I REALLY need to reevaluate myself here.  In my defense, I attended meetings and volunteered for tasks that I don't normally have - so I actually did get more done than I intended.  So, I am going to cut myself a little break here.  I should actually hurry up and add those things to my list, just so I can cross them off.  Come on, like you've never done that before.  Anyone who has ever made a To Do List has totally done that at some point.

Okay, so the old me would hit the save button and then revisit this post in about a week.  The new me is going to do a quick read and publish and move on.  I have already hit save twice (I started this post earlier this week), and it is time to put this baby to bed.  I know people put books to bed...can we put blogs to bed too?  Well, guess what?  I just did.

How is it possible that it is almost one month since I last posted on here?  How is it possible that it is February 16 already?  Since my last post, we celebrated our daughter's first birthday.  More on that a little later.  That was quite a milestone, and so that deserves its own post.  We are almost two months in to 2016, and so now seems like a good idea to reflect on how I am doing with my New Year mantra:  Release, Create, Be Curious.

Release.  I am still releasing what I do not need.  This is a work in progress, and I may not release everything I need to this year. But I am trying.  I started out purging a lot of things I do not need, but I have since stalled.  Purging takes time, and time is not something I have a lot of these days.  Mentally, I also need to do better.  I still get upset about silly things, and I hold on to anger when I should really let it go.  I need to make time to meditate and to clear this mental clutter, but right now I am barely finding time to read for pleasure, and I am not finding time to write.  I need more hours in my day.  I need to make more hours in my day.

Create.   To create, I need time and mental energy.  I have not had either of these lately.  The answer?  Rise early.  Meditate. Create.  In order to rise early, I need to go to bed early.  In order to go to bed early, I need to get my work done.  In order to get my work done, I need to be productive during the day.  In order to be productive, I need time to do things.  In order to have time, I need to be organized.  It all comes back to organization and time management.  Organization is hard for me.  And in the midst of all this, I want to have fun and be curious.  Is it possible to still be curious about life while also trying to manage your day into organized blocks of time?  Or will this attempt at time management block the possibility of beautiful wonder entering my life? "We tend to make the thing in the way," Mark Nepo wrote in The Book of Awakening.  I make a lot of things that are in my way.  I wish I would stop creating barriers and instead create things that open my heart and bring me joy.  I am working on it.

Be curious.  And how am I doing with my year of curiosity?  Well, I am trying to remember to be curious.  Stop knowing.  Stop trying to guess what will happen and how it will all play out.  Stop scripting out how I think things are likely to go.  What a waste of time and energy (and time and energy is what I desperately need the most right now).  "Playing out" the possibilities of the future is not only a waste of time and energy, but it is also sucking out my desire to create because I am "creating" these scenarios that may or may not happen in the future.  Trying to predict the future is like trying to catch sand in your hands.  The more you try to grasp it, the more you lose.  Let the sand be where it is.  Put your blanket down and rest on it.  The sand will hold your body, but your body can't hold the sand.  I'm not really sure what I wrote there.  Does that make sense to anyone else?  Because it makes complete sense to me.  I didn't plan to write this, it just came to me, but I kind of like it (I think).  Is sand a metaphor for life?  Maybe.  I am going to take another piece of wisdom from Dr. Nepo and "be easily pleased."  I will just be happy that I created that sentence.  It's okay if it isn't a great sentence or if others think it's stupid.  I am pleased.  There.  I just created something.  And I was just easily pleased.  Boom.  Yay me.

In one of my favorite books, The Untethered Soul, Michael A. Singer says something simple, but powerful.  This isn't a direct quote (at least I don't think it is; I've read this book so many times it is possible that I memorized this passage), but here is the gist (I think):

Worrying about the future is like worrying whether the sun is going to rise in the morning.  You can worry all you want, but the sun will come up.  Life is going to keep on happening, and your thoughts have very little impact on the world.

This is reassuring and discouraging all at once.  If this is true, then we should all just stop worrying about everything because what is going to happen is going to happen with or without us.  On the other hand, what about the power of positive thinking?  I always was a believer in positive energy.  I also worry that this thinking can prevent people from doing good things.  Most good deeds are the result of genuine human concern.  If I am concerned, I want to do something to make a difference.  Is concern and worry the same thing?  Does positive thinking and hope have little impact on the world?  Does it actually have little impact on me?

I am going to cherry pick right now.  I am going to say that worrying is a waste, but concern is good.  Concern is being aware, and awareness (as Dr. Singer suggests) is key for achieving enlightenment.  I can't worry about what will be or not be, but I can be concerned, and I can use this concern to do good things.  These things may not change the world, but they make even the smallest difference in someone's day...maybe even in my day.  My thoughts may not impact the world, but my positive thinking may change my mood and attitude, which may affect someone else's mood and attitude.  My positive thinking might even replace some of the worry and negativity that existed before.  Wishful thinking?  Maybe.  But why not?  Dr. Singer didn't say anything about wishing be bad.  Or is wishing the positive version of worrying?  Okay, my mind is spinning.  Keeping things simple is another one of my unofficial New Year's Resolutions, which I am failing miserably at following right now.

Okay, for the sake of simplicity, here it is:

Wishing and positive thinking are connected to hope.  The archaic definition of hope is trust, which means the belief that something or someone is good.  I believe in the good in this world.  When my thoughts carry me away, which they inevitably will, I will do my best to think about all that is good.  Although our thoughts may have very little impact on this world, our awareness and positive thinking may just motivate us to take action, and our actions can create all the difference in this world.

Double BOOM.

Once again, this post took a completely different direction, but here it is.  I released some things that were in my head that I needed to say.  I created some sentences that are meaningful to me.  I allowed myself to be curious about my writing and let my writing develop as my heart spoke.  I am going to allow myself to be easily pleased with myself and to not be overly critical about what is here.  I will not spend hours editing and revising.  I will simply hit the publish button.

When I began writing this post, I had something else in mind, but then I digressed and the direction of this post changed, and I just went with it.  "Just going with it" it sort of one of my unofficial New Year's Resolutions, so yay me!  More on my unofficial New Year's Resolutions later.  By the way, I wrote most of this post on my phone in the car.  No, I wasn't driving.  I even had my phone on airplane mode because I read somewhere that when your phone is on in the car (unless it's on airplane mode) that you expose everyone in the car to terrible radiation.  I believe it was compared to putting your head in a microwave and turning on the microwave.  More on that another day.  That's just a little glimpse of my edgy side for you.  There I go digressing again.  Let me just get to what I wrote on that day when I was in the car with my phone on airplane mode. 

I started writing this blog before I began reading The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin.  Like divine intervention, I picked up this book one night in December just a few days before Christmas.  I didn't start the book until a couple of days before New Year's Eve, and to my delight, I saw that the book was laid out month by month and that the project was basically one gigantic New Year's Resolution.  For someone like me who gets excited by structure, I found this to be rather thrilling.  

I know what you're thinking, you are messy, but structure excites you?  The answer is yes.  I am basically a living, breathing oxymoron.  I am messy, yet I am neurotic about where things go.  I am unorganized, yet I want things done a certain way.  I think structure that is created by others helps me because I am unable to create it myself or if I do create it, then maintaining it is a huge challenge for me.  I have spent countless hours of my life trying to create schedules, routines, and budgets.  My attempt at structure is often overkill.  I make things so complicated that I give up because it's just too much.  When I tried to create a budget for my husband and me, I made so many charts and procedures that "had to be followed" that after about a month - or less - I threw the entire plan out the window.  This happened multiple times.  Needless to say, our money situation has not improved much.  Budgeting is one of those things that I keep telling myself I will get better at with age.  Cooking is another one of those  things.  You know, I'll get around to it when I am finally a grown-up.  Because when you are in your mid-thirties, you are not really a grown-up.  Not yet.  Not really.  I am probably the most unorganized person with the most "Type A" tendencies that you will ever meet.  Doesn't that sentence alone make me sound like a good time?

Back to The Happiness Project.  Had I tried to start this book in the middle of the year, my Type A personality would have kicked in big time.  To be honest, I would have probably gotten frustrated that my calendar was not lining up with the book, and so I would have put the book on hold until the next new year.  And then 2017 would come and I would have probably forgotten about the book or my desire to read the book would have passed, and I would have missed the opportunity to read a really great book. This makes me wonder how many other great opportunities I have missed due to my Type A tendencies.  There's another thought for another day.  Look at me, I am creating my list of ideas for future posts right here.  Perhaps "staying focused" should be another unofficial resolution.  Bottom line, I would much rather follow Gretchen's journey month by month during the actual month for which the chapter was intended.  Is this necessary?  Absolutely not.  But for me, that is what I need to do in order to fully enjoy the book.  So lucky for me, I started the book just in time.

This is just one small example of my Type A tendencies.  The truth is, my tendencies create many obstacles in my life.  When I want to do something, I want to "do it the right way" (whatever that means), and I aim for such perfection and get so caught up in the minute details that I lose sight of the big picture.  I swear, the saying, "You can't see the forest for the trees," was written for me.  (By the way, I just learned that the actual saying is "for the trees" and not "through the trees.")  The reality is, striving for such perfection and exploring every last detail is just exhausting - not to mention frustrating and confusing.  The end result? I often give up.  I quit.  I mean, if I can't do it "the right way," then why do it at all?  And that, my friends, is the classic rationale of a quitter.

When I think about all of the things I never explored, it makes me rather sad.  Like budgeting, my overplanning has led me to give up on other things like research projects, exercise regimens, cleaning schedules - you get the idea.  Other times, I have given up because I wanted perfection and yet the idea of achieving that perfection was just too much. This happened to me when I attempted to start a blog a little more than two years ago.  Cooking intimidates me because I don't want to cook something that isn't good and if isn't good, what a waste of time that would be!  (Not to mention the mess I would have created, and cleaning is not my strong suit.)  I have a snowboard and a guitar sitting in my basement that I haven't touched in years.  I quit tennis because I was terrified of messing up in front of people.  Are you seeing a pattern here?  In her book, Big Magic, Elizabeth Gilbert describes perfectionism as "fear in fancy shoes."  I love this.  It could not be more true.  When I read this, I can see myself sitting there saying, "No, I'm not scared.  I am just a perfectionist."  As it turns out, it's the perfectionist who is the biggest scaredy-cat of all.

In addition to being a perfectionist, I always thought of myself as a rule follower.  If you don't follow the rules, you will suffer the consequences, and you deserve every consequence that you get.  The funny thing is, when I think about it, I am often finding that although I follow rules, I do bend them an awful lot, and I always have excuses and justifications for why it is okay for me to do that and why the consequences should not be applied to me (after all I sort of followed the rules).  Rules and explicit instructions on how to do things always seemed like my best friends.  If something is open for interpretation, I will desperately find a way to define it so that I know exactly how to deal with it.  I get hung up on points that are not crystal clear.  If you happen to be close by when I am reading a recipe or an instruction manual, you will hear me cry out, "But what do they mean???" as I can almost always find something that is unclear or poorly defined (at least in my mind).  If I can understand and define something, then I can put it in one of the many boxes that I have built over the years.  If I don't have a box for something, well then, I don't like it and I do everything I can to get rid of that thing in my life or to try to change it so that I can force it to fit in one of my boxes.  That's. Not. Very. Cool.  I always thought of myself as open-minded, but seriously?  This does not sound like the mindset of a very open person.  Nor does it sound very healthy.  I mean, who wants to live a life among a whole bunch of boxes, anyway?

And let's reflect for a moment on whether my current ways are working for me.  For someone who claims to require such order, I am so unorganized that it seems laughable that I could ever demand such structure from others.  My home and office are packed full of things that I think I need that it's to the point that I can't find many of the few things that are actually truly important.  I am late for everything almost always.  My mind is so scattered that I often start a million things and finish none.  I am impatient and easily agitated.  I spend a lot of my time worrying about things that I have no control over and fearing the terrible things that could happen.  So no, I would say my current ways are not working for me.

Is it possible that my yearning for rules and explicit instructions was because it gave me an easy way out?  I mean, if you tell me what I'm allowed to do and how to do it, well, I don' t really need to think, do I?  If I do what I'm told and if I "do it right" then I am successful, and if I "can't do it right" then I quit.  I either do it the way I'm supposed to, or I don't do it at all.  But is it possible, just maybe, that I could be missing out on something really great if only I was a bit more flexible?  What would happen if I stopped following rules?  Of course, I am not talking about all rules.  I will continue to be a law abiding citizen, I will continue to listen to our doctors, and I will continue to follow the policies that are required of me in my job.  But when it comes to my personal life, what if I followed my heart a little more and the rules a little less?

With it being a new year, this sounds like a pretty cool resolution.  But I'm not really doing official resolutions this year.  Do you remember a couple of years ago when, rather than making resolutions, people selected one word to represent what they wanted to focus on in the new year?  I am pretty sure people are still doing this.  Well, I am not doing that.  Instead of one word, I am creating my own personal New Year's Mantra for 2016.

Release, create, and be curious. 

Release what I do not need.

Create what my heart desires.

Be curious about what will be.

I will break this down at a later time, but for now, I want to just sit with this.

Like Gretchen's Happiness Project, this will be my own personal New Year's project using these five books (and any other books, blogs, articles, etc., that speak to me in 2016) as my guide.

I am not sure what I will call my project.  For now, I will call it:  A Year of Curiosity.

Considering it is now January 20, and I started writing this in the car on New Year's Eve on the way to my parent's house (again, I wasn't the one driving), I think it is time that I hit the Publish button.  My intention was to get this out during the first week of the new year, but here we are now in the second half of January.  But because some of my unofficial New Year's Resolutions include being more flexible and more forgiving of myself, I am letting that go.  Better late than never.

What is this all about, anyway?  Good question.  I am well aware that when you write a blog, you should have a clear audience and a specific niche in mind.  What is my niche?  Well, this is the very question that I have been asking myself well before I even knew what the word niche meant.

If you look up the word niche, the definition says: a job, activity, etc., that is very suitable for someone (thank you, Merriam-Webster).  The problem is, I don't know what is suitable for me.  In my almost 36 years on this planet, I still don't know what my niche is in this world.  So, if I don't have a niche in life, well then, having a niche for a blog is pretty much impossible.  

So...what is this all about, anyway?  Okay, I get it.  This is a question that I need to answer.  Well, this is sort of a lifestyle blog.  If I was a real grown-up who had my you-know-what together, I would aspire to be like Joanna Goddard at A Cup of Jo.  I absolutely adore her blog, and I wish that I could create something so beautiful, meaningful, and inspiring.  I love her messages. I love her content.  Everything about her blog is just perfect from the words she writes to the pictures she shares. Even her fonts are perfect.  As much as it pains me to admit this, I am not like her.  I wish my adult self was more like her, but I am a frazzled and scattered version of an adult.

So ask me one more time...

What is this all about, anyway?

I will try my best to answer this question...

This blog is about me trying to figure out how to be a grown-up in spite of my edginess and messiness. 

You know the blogs out there that share tips and tricks on how to make your home beautiful and organized?  Yeah, that's not what this blog is about.  If I make my bed, I feel like I'm a domestic goddess for the day.  I did not get the nickname "Master of Disaster" for nothing.

To start, this blog will document my attempt in dealing with all the clutter in my life.  I have a lot of physical clutter, which makes me very messy and unorganized, but I also have a lot of emotional clutter, which makes me very edgy.  As a reminder, by edgy I mean I am the nervous kind and not the sexy kind (although I secretly hope to redefine myself as the sexy type one day).  My edginess and messiness make my life harder than it should be.  All of this clutter gets in the way...a lot, and I am going to try my best to declutter both the physical and emotional chaos in my life.  Watching someone who is naturally messy and neurotic try to declutter their world can be quite the show.  What can I say?  Grab some popcorn and a big glass of wine.  I hope that it will at least be an entertaining show.

This blog is about me finding the humor in my edginess and messiness.

Laughter is a good thing.  When I take the time to observe my neurotic ways, even I can see how irrational I can be and how much chaos I can create in both my external and internal worlds.  One thing that I need to do more is laugh at myself and to not take myself or any situation too seriously.  There is a time and a place to be serious, but I think that 95% of the time, being so serious is not necessary, and that it can actually suck the fun and happiness out of life.

Don't tell my husband about this epiphany quite yet.  I don't want to get his hopes up that I am a changed woman.  This change is a change in progress.  Does that even make sense?  As Heraclitus said, change is the only constant in life.  So, I guess change cannot really be a goal because it is always happening.  Change is always "in progress" because it never stops.  Do I even have control over this change?  Can I steer change in a certain direction?  Do I have a say in whether change causes me pain or brings me joy?  Okay, I am getting off track here.  So much for not being so serious...

This blog is about me trying to be better, so that I can live a happier life.

I figure that if I can be happier with myself then this will make me a better mom, a better wife, a better daughter, a better friend, and a better human being.  Basically, I want to be better version of myself - the best version of myself that I can possibly be.  I want to do this for me so that I can feel real joy and bring that joy to the people I love.  The people who I love so fiercely in my life deserve that joy.  They deserve to be around the best version of me, and lately, I have been failing them.  And I don't like failing.

This is sounding like a self-improvement blog, isn't it?  I guess it sort of is.  You can start the eye rolling now.  I may even roll my eyes with you.  I don't really like the term self-improvement, and I am not even sure why.  Shouldn't we all want to improve ourselves?  Isn't there always room for self-improvement in all of us?  Still, this term doesn't sit well with me and I would prefer not to classify this blog as a self-improvement blog.  Is an introspective blog a thing?  Well, guess what?  It is now.  If it didn't exist before, I just created it.  This blog is about me reflecting inward in order to be better.

Let's face it, there are a lot of self-improvement books out there, and the majority of these books don't work for the majority of people.  If they did work, there wouldn't be so many of these books because everyone's problems would have been solved a long time ago.  Maybe that's my problem with the term self-improvement.  It is overused and overdone, and many people don't believe that these self-improvement methods work.

Despite this fact, I LOVE books.  I devour books.  Currently, I am reading FIVE books, and I suppose that each book could fall under the self-improvement category.  Each book is addressing an area of my life that I want to work on: (1) decluttering my house, (2) finding inner peace, (3) being present, (4) being curious, and (5) creating joy.


I hope to take the lessons that I learn from these books, as well as any other books (or any text for that matter) that I decide to read, and share my experiences in attempting to apply these lessons to my life.  Think of it as theory to practice.  This blog will document real practice in the life of a VERY flawed human being who is just trying to be better.  I am certain I will need to tweak some of these lessons in order to make them work for me.  I am sure I will find that some lessons just won't work for me at all. But let's see what happens because I won't know until I try.  I may even learn some things about myself.  Here's a crazy thought...I may even have some fun.  Remember fun?  Why is it so hard for me to remember fun?  Why do I even have to remember it?  I should just have it.  Period.  No exclamation mark.  Life is fun!  If I achieve either of these two things, then I will consider this a success.  If I achieve both of these things, well then, this may go down as one of the best things I have ever done.

Am I writing this blog to help others?  Absolutely not.  I mean, if someone reads this and connects with what I am sharing, I think that would be amazing.  What an honor that would be.  But that is not the goal of this blog.  I am doing this for me.  This blog is about my journey to be a better me, to reflect on my thoughts and actions, and to laugh at myself along the way.

Finding joy, laughter, and peace.  Those are three of my goals for this blog.  I am sure there will be more goals along the way, but this seems like a damn good place to start.

Hang on.  Let the ride begin.

And by EDGY, I mean I'm nervous and uptight. (Yeah, that kind of edgy.) Don't I sound like a fun time? Being a grown-up is hard when you are the messiest and the most neurotic person you've ever met. 

PLEASE VISIT ME AGAIN SOON. FIRST POST IS IN PROGRESS. Give me a break...I told you I am unorganized.