Keening and Wailing

My dear-friend-who-moved-far-away-and-I-miss-greatly, otherwise known as Shannon, said I should have been blogging more this month since I had all this free time on my hands.  But here's the thing, what does one write about in a blog about challenges when the challenge is to *not* do something?  A passage challenge does not lend it self to blogging material.  Active challenges!  I need more activity!  (That's what she said.)

Oct 1:  Today I didn't watch TV.
Oct 5:  Today I didn't watch TV.
Oct 10:  Still haven't watched TV.

That's a very boring blog.  Though I suppose it would be less boring than no blog at all.  Well, my remaining five readers, I'm nestled in my apartment, listening to Hurricane Sandy (least intimidating hurricane name I've heard yet.  Oh, Sandy... "Summer loving, had me a blast!  Summer loving, happened so fa-a-a-a-a-st.") and her keening, wailing wind as I sip my appropriately sized glass of wine and jam to Anberlin.  Perfect atmosphere for bloggin'.  At least until the power goes out.

I can think of no other appropriate post-workout beverage.
And look!  I still have power.  Cheers.

The challenge this month has been surprisingly easy.  Not very challengey.  I think part of the difficulty in blogging is that I don't feel like I'm doing much this month -- as if I'm going through the motions of the monthly challenge, but not actively doing anything.  Lesson learned, I suppose:  not watching TV isn't that difficult for me.

Walking my remaining 15 miles on the other hand...  I probably shouldn't have waited until the last week of the month to knock that shit out.

(Reddit meme)

But, I've got 10 under my belt -- only five left to go (see how well I do math, everyone??).  Two and a half miles over the next couple of days, no problem.

So, we've got November and December to go through and I want those two remaining months to be more along the lines of "take a picture every day" or "do something creative every day."  For one, it gives me more to write about and I genuinely, truly enjoy writing this blog; and two, I like having a project or -- and I'm tired of writing this word -- a challenge. Other than trivia, that is.  That's only one night a week, after all.

(Looked up "challenge" in Word's thesaurus:  test, trial, task, contest, encounter, experiment, throw down the gauntlet (not making that up).  Ok.  "Challenge" it is then.)

I have a few remaining (sigh) challenges on my list:

- try a  new food/recipe every day
- learn something new every day
- make one long-term goal and spend an hour on it every day

I haven't decided what I'm doing yet.  I've got two days left to pick something.  Plenty of time.