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  • skywatcher 7:52 pm on June 13, 2010 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , 7/52   

    Double Play: #6/52 & #7/52 

    Habitat for Humanity #6/52

    I stopped by Habitat for Humanity’s “Women Build” display earlier this year, when I was looking for opportunities to volunteer in a meaningful way.  During Memorial Day weekend, I was able to join a crew of other women in working on a quadriplex; my part involved helping install windows and window trim.  I was also able to assist the crew foreman in marking chalk lines for the siding.  We began the day before 9 am and worked through until about 2 pm…at which time there was a birthday party for one of the volunteers.  Obviously, I picked a good day to work!

    I already knew how to use a hammer, of course, but the nail gun – now that’s power!  (And kind of fun…they nearly had to pry it out of my hands! ) While I was working on windows, other crews worked on framing.

    I’ll be back this week to help put siding on the house, and I’m really looking forward to it.  I’ve met a couple of the partner families, as well as some wonderful women, and it makes me feel good to be giving back to the community.  Thanks to this website for prodding/encouraging me to get involved with something I’ve wanted to do for a long time.

    Job Interview  #7/52

    Well, I did it:  first in-person job interview of the year.  This is a public forum, so I won’t go into details other than to say that I applied on a whim for a position traditionally held by a male.  The interview went well, and although another candidate was ultimately chosen, I’m glad for the experience.  The fact that I was even called for an interview makes me more optimistic about the future.  I’ll keep plugging away!

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    • yearof52adventures 4:10 pm on June 14, 2010 Permalink

      I have always wanted to do this! Annnnnd I suppose I will now. Thanks for the inspiration!

  • Kimberly Hula 10:02 pm on April 20, 2010 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: 7/52, pottery   

    The hunt for honey 

    If I’ve referred to Chicago as my disappointing lover, New York, as a metaphor, is an even flickler romp.  Give me a flower and I’ll moon over whether I belong in the Big Apple or whether said apple is just not that into me.  Because I want to love New York.  I want to feel at home among the crowded chaos and late night fervor.  I want fourth generation born and raised locals to look on me at any given coordinate, in any borough, in any season and at any time and think to themselves, yeah, she can stay here.  She belongs.

    I suppose I never knew how difficult it was to manufacture a home.

    And because it had been some years since I last visited New York, I was really, really, excited to escape Boston and spend a weekend among friends who call the city home.

    As expected, mistakes were made.

    I rode in with Lauren and Betsy, two women that could be considered binary sign posts on a road trip bell curve.  Lauren wanted to be on time (it was a cool 7 hour ride to Manhattan from Boston) and grew anxious with traffic and misinterpreted GPS signals and hour after passing hour.  Betsy played the placater.  Each traffic jam was justified.  Lauren the driver was built up.  Kimberly the passenger was built up.  Everyone felt special and important and protected in those suspended seven hours.  Lauren told stories of her life.  I told tale.  Betsy shed insight onto Betsy.  With all this sharing and fluid driving I thought, yes.  good.  New York is magical. (More …)

     

  • AG 9:15 pm on April 1, 2010 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: 7/52   

    Adventure #7: I Ate Raw Shark 

    I’ve really been lax in posting my adventures…A quick update on #7 and then more to follow soon. I have become accustomed to eating raw fish over the past year so much so that I crave it on a regular basis. A few weeks ago a friend took me out for sushi. And I had my usual salmon, rolls, and miso soup. After some slight encouragement on my friend’s part, I tried shark. It was amazing! A little chewy but delicious. Next food adventure: dog meat. Maybe?

     

    • Jennabel 7:45 am on May 4, 2011 Permalink

      What a joy to find such clear tihnking. Thanks for posting!

  • Stephanie 8:38 am on March 22, 2010 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: 7/52, Landmark Forum   

    Adventure #7 – Landmark Forum 

    January 29-31

    As part of my professional development, my manger suggested I attend a transformational education course called The Landmark Forum.  Go ahead and Google it.  You’ll think it’s a cult!  It’s not, but the recruitment process and the drastic change that some people experience when they go through it is probably why it appears cultish.

    After three intense 12-hour days of rackets, vicious circles, completing my past, exploring possibilities, and committing to having an extraordinary life, I do feel transformed.  I feel as though my perspective has shifted.  My view of life is that the things that used to stress me out day in and day out are not that big of a deal.  And when I encounter new problems, because I’m not bogged down with anxiety, I can clearly see the problem and solve it quickly and painlessly.

     

    • sassy 5:37 pm on April 16, 2010 Permalink

      totally a cult

  • adrienne 6:56 pm on March 18, 2010 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: 7/52   

    On the Barnes and Noble website, 

    under the book The Year of the Flood by Margaret Atwood, is my very first review (name is pixie-girl)!  It’s my 7th adventure. I hadn’t ever really thought about doing it,  but this year I decided to give it a go.  The publishing class I took last semester brought me back to books, and the ALA Midwinter meeting garnered me over 30 free books – advanced reader copies and uncorrected proofs.  So the time seemed right, and right to start with Atwood, my favorite author.  Looking forward to making this more of a regular event, not just a one-time adventure!

     

  • eatveggiesdrinkwine 1:40 pm on March 14, 2010 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: 7/52, Colorado, , vacation   

    7/52: Freeloading and skiing in Colorado 

    This is a 2-for-1 adventure (but I’m counting it as No. 7 only): Adventure 7a was acting upon my sister-in-law’s invitation to stay at her sister’s house in Colorado. For a non-assertive person like myself, following up on an invitation like that is pretty out-of-character adventurous. I tend to convince myself that when people offer things or invite me places, they don’t really mean it and secretly hope I’ll forget as soon as the words pop out of their mouths. I decided to take her invitation at face value and asked if it was possible to stay there for a few days during DP’s spring break. So glad I did – the house, the scenery and the company (8 other family members joined us!) was just the R&R I needed after a stressful few months at work.

    Adventure 7b was attempting to downhill ski again. I love all kinds of outdoor activities, but downhill skiing is far from my favorite. (Maybe it has something to do with the time I plowed straight down the middle of a hill at lightening speed and gave my ski a kiss at the bottom. Hello, fat lip!) Watching the winter Olympics and relentless hounding by skiing family members finally convinced me to join them for one day.

    After a disappointing lesson in which I think became a worse skier for its two-hour duration, I hit the bunny hill hardcore with my nephew, a first-timer. By the end of the day, we were ready to hit a green trail with the other skiers. DP was kind and slowed down to my pace, and the scenery was gorgeous. But after making it to the bottom sans dramatic crash, I was ready to take off my skis and have a spiked hot chocolate. And I happily opted for a hike when others went skiing the next day. I’m glad I tried to ski again, but I now know, without any doubt, that my heart is in the ocean waves rather than on the slopes. I’m still dreaming about my next surfing adventure…


    This picture was taken seconds after I fell, face-first,
    into a thigh-high snow bank
    after saying to my snow-shoe companions,
    “Let’s see if these snow shoes really work.”

    Answer: No.

    So, I turned over and made a snow angel.

     

  • Berton 12:51 am on February 26, 2010 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , 7/52,   

    Week 6, 7, 8 

    I have been failing at posting on these adventures lately.  But I have been doing them.  I just have become lazy, to be honest.  So here is a short post about the past three weeks, and I am making the dedicated statement that I will now post once a week (the week I do the adventure).

    Week 6 was sort of a revisit of Week 1 – The Jucy Lucy.  There is a dispute that the place I went to, Matt’s Bar, didn’t invent this lovely burger.  Some people claim that the 5-8 Club (a restaurant about three miles away) made the original.  Well, I don’t know who made it first, but I thought I should check out which one tastes better.  So Tom and I went to the 5-8 Club and got out our taste buds.  And, hands down, Matt’s Bar’s Jucy Lucy was better.  Above and beyond better.  Not to say that the 5-8 Club makes a bad burger, far from it.  But it didn’t have a unique flavor.  And to be honest, the meat and cheese was kind of dry, not befitting it’s name.  Now I could have just gone on a bad night, but still, with the knowledge that I have, I will always recommend Matt’s Bar over the 5-8 Club.

    Week 7 took me to pond skating.  I have been ice skating before, but always in a rink.  I found out not to long ago that there is a great link of three small ponds that have ice skating on them.  So a crew of friends (my fiance Becky included) took off to see if pond skating is much different than an ice rink.  And it is.  Without a Zamboni, and the natural cracks and bumps of the ice, it was a more raw, unique kind of skating.  And since we had a crew of friends, it was a great time.  Made me feel more Minnesotan, especially with our state representing the Winter Olympics so epically.

    And Week 8 took me to a place where I have been interested in but intimidated by also.  But two good friends of mine gave me the confidence and encouragement to go.  I went to a gun range.  I have been pheasant hunting before (once last year) and I admit it was kind of a rush.  So the opportunity to fire a hand gun also interested me.  But I am not a hard core believer in the whole “right to bear arms” second amendment thing.  Conceal and carry kind of scares me.  I think the availability of hand guns causes more problems than makes people feel safe.  But at the same time, firing it in a controlled, safe environment was a hell of a lot of fun.  At first my aim was hit or miss (bad pun, I know) but after an hour or so of shooting rounds, my aim and confidence grew by miles.  I know I will never buy a handgun.  But I will probably go back to a gun range and shoot there.

     

    • renea 11:00 am on February 26, 2010 Permalink

      Super Cool Idea. I’d love to try this.

  • wip78 1:48 pm on February 23, 2010 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: 7/52, shoes   

    7/52: Shoes…..Shoes….. 

    Since my first adventure, I have been working out consistently.  Last week, my shins started to hurt and I realized that my 6 year-old Addidas could no longer cut it.  Saturday,  I had a cool experience in purchasing my new kicks at Fleet Feet.  They sat me down and asked me what type of excercise I usually do and what I was looking for.  They handed over a pair of shoes and had me jump on the treadmill.  As I ran, they filmed my ever so graceful strides in order to see how my feet rolled as they landed.  We then viewed the footage of myself running on a flat screen tv above our heads to discuss what we saw.   He had some technical terms for me about how my heel rolls one way and how my foot shifts and rolls the other way towards the toes.  He then checked my arch and came back with several pairs from different brands to see which one was the better fit.  I ran on the treadmill with each pair; eliminating a few as I went along. I ended up with the, as he put it, the “Cadillac” of the running shoes (which is code for pretty DARN expensive).  But, I have never had a better fitting tennis/gym/running shoe.  It feels like I am walking on clouds.  I am in Fleet Feet Heaven:)

     

  • jeindeer 5:59 pm on February 20, 2010 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: 7/52, contest, planning   

    #7: Win Week 

    I guess I felt lucky after that last quote. For adventure 7/52, I’ve been entering every free twitter raffle, mailing list random drawing, or other quirky web 2.0 giveaway that only requires an e-mail or twitter account.

    Seriously. Every single one. Trip to Iceland? Check. Arrangement of soap shaped like fortune cookies? Check. Cocoa butter caramels? Sure. Cotton necklace scarves? Put my username in the hat for that. The only limit is that I hit up only vouched-for and reputable sources, no “xtreem ring tones” or “complete 8 gold offers” or anything like that—but as for the prizes? I’m casting the net extremely wide, and seeing where, or what, it gets me.

    I can imagine you canny web users thinking “that’s a bad idea,” but you needn’t fret. Since my goal isn’t to get spammed out of my skin or drive everyone who knows/follows me insane, I’ve created a new (but 100% truthful) e-mail address and a dedicated twitter feed for this adventure. I’ve discovered that there’s an entire culture surrounding “frees” and “review giveaways.” Anyway, we’ll see if I’ve got what it takes to RT #Giveaways with the best of ‘em.

    Wish me luck! Or at least perseverance. There’s a lot of clicking involved. Even if I don’t end up coated with swag (I have little expectation of winning), it’s already been a fascinating study in web marketing.

     

    • wip78 3:24 pm on February 22, 2010 Permalink

      OOOO! I hope you win some great infomercial items like the Miracle Blades or the “Perfect Push-up”. Good luck to you , my friend!!!

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