It’s Friday and I’ve officially made it through a whole week of NaBloPoMo! I don’t want to count my chickens yet or anything, especially since the weekends are hard to blog during, but I’m stoked I’ve made it a quarter of the way through this blogging every day for a month thing.

Today I’m gonna phone it in a little and post a Five on Friday. Mostly because I’ve got a lot of little things on my mind and I just want to get them out staccato style.

stac•ca•to  /stəˈkädō/ : with each sound or note sharply detached or separated from the others

I love music. I love to sing. I love to dance. You would think I would have done something musical as a child. Unfortunately, I’m a stubborn little wench and refused to play anything other than piano when I was younger, which we couldn’t afford at the time so that meant I learned to play nothing. I’m the only one of my 4 siblings that never learned an instrument. Don’t feel bad for me though, not only am I never to old to learn, but I’m now living vicariously through my children. My daughter is a vocal major at her middle school with a minor in musical theatre (hoping to switch her major to musical theatre in HS) and my son is a majoring in piano. You know the downside to having musical children? It is not uncommon to wake up to your 11yo, in his underwear, playing piano at 6:30 in the morning when he’s supposed to be getting ready for school. And once he starts actually getting ready, his sister will just be getting into her morning beauty routine and will start belting out songs at the top of her lungs from the school musical. Songs that aren’t even hers, but ones that she’s heard 200 times so she knows them by heart. Then said songs will get stuck in your head for hours!

I was listening to the radio today and they were interviewing Mary J Blige. She has an album coming out in December, called The London Sessions. It’s called the London Sessions because she picked up everything and moved to London for a month to write this album with a bunch of London talent that she hadn’t worked with before. A huge creative leap for her to make, but she felt like what had been working for her was getting a little stale and she needed to mix things up a bit. Go out on a limb and do something that was good for her soul. She jumped in with both feet and even though it got off to a rocky start (the first song was a dud!), she pushed on and ended up with an album that she’s proud of. She said that even if the album doesn’t do well, she’ll still be glad she did it because it was good for her creatively to get out of her comfort zone.  Anywho, I just thought that it was food for thought and could apply to everyone’s life in one way or another. So, what are you doing to feed your soul?!

I’m not proud to say this, but homeless people kind of make me uncomfortable. I have sympathy towards them, yet, I don’t want to be a pushover or duped by someone who maybe isn’t as needy as they claim or is just going to use the money for drugs/alcohol. So to combat my inner turmoil, I don’t make eye contact, I ignore them or quickly dismiss them with “I don’t have any money”. In most situations, I’d like to at least be comfortable enough to treat everyone as a human being, but as a female I feel super vulnerable if I’m getting into my car and someone comes up behind me to ask for money. I would be ignoring all of those “stay safe” guidelines that have been drilled into us if that didn’t make me a little nervous.  But it’s stories like this and the video below, that make me want to do more to help anyone who finds themselves in the position of being homeless.

I know this probably keeps you up at night worrying so let me put your mind at ease, I think I MAY be closer to finding out what I want to be when I grow up. Yay!! It’s only taken me 36.5 yrs, but I’m almost there. I’m 90% sure I want it to be something in the health/nutrition field, with an emphasis on the holistic side. The downside is that I really want to take classes in person so that I have someone to ask questions to and peers to talk things out with, but I can’t find a lot of reputable holistic offerings.  I think I’m going to have to go for a Bachelors in Science and Nutrition and then take holistic classes/certifications separately. I went to a health luncheon on Wednesday and one of the speakers talked about Epigenetics, which sounds fascinating…way over my head at the moment, but uber cool at the same time! I’d love to learn more about epigenomes.

Confession: my first ever 1/2 marathon is a short month away and I haven’t run in months. I FINALLY got out and started running last night. Those 13.1 miles are gonna down! When I signed up for this race, I had such high hopes. I’m gonna train my ass off! I’m going to run the whole way! I’m going to make a PR (personal record)! Now my goal is just not to get picked up by the pace cart! If you’ve never ran in a race before, there is a cart (van, car, whatever) that is pacing at the slowest speed you can go. If they catch up to you, they are going to transport you to the finish line. You don’t get to finish the race. You don’t get your medal. Each race has a different end time. For this particular one, I have to make 13.1 miles in faster than 16 min miles. Piece of cake, right?! I hope so. Right now, I’m run/walking 2 miles at about a 12-13 min/mile pace. Not great. If I slow down even the slightest, I’m screwed. Fortunately, I think I can keep that pace up for a while and I will out run that damn cart even if I kill myself doing so. I thought about bailing on the race, but no, I’m not letting myself get off that easy. I did this to myself. I didn’t train and I’m gonna have to suffer the consequences. I’m hoping that by December, I can get up to at least around 6 miles. I’ll feel better knowing that I can at least run/walk half of it without getting picked up by the pace cart. Wish me luck!