Author: Michelle

Witness Protection Program

If you could enter the witness protection program (wpp  because it’s shorter to type) and assume a totally new life, would you do it? Keep in mind, it means leaving everything behind. All your friends, family, co-workers, blog friends, twitter friends, facebook, and other social media place you have a presence. All new numbers to remember, social security, phone number, birthdate, address, credit cards, drivers license, library card. But you’d also leave behind all your past hurts, heartaches, mistakes, and any other foolish thing you’ve done in your life. So with all that to consider would you still enter the wpp?

Or perhaps you don’t want an entirely new life, you just want to run away for a while? Where would you go, what would you do? How long would you stay away for? Would you stay in touch with those you left behind?

One of the things I like about writing, and reading good writers, is they allow you to escape your everyday life and live in someone else’s world for a little while. I hope to be able to achieve that in my writing as well.

But for now I am filled with more questions, than answers. So I will return to my writing world and see what I find there.

Bucket List

So Elora, Lauren, and Prudence have created these lists of things they want to do before they are 30, or 40. I wish I had been that focused when I was their age. Instead I was too busy doing other things a lot less grand or dream powered.

… and it got me thinking. I’m 6 years away from 50. My 11 year old thinks 44 is old. My 44 year old brain doesn’t think 44 is old. It doesn’t even think that 70 is old now. But that space between my ears is thinking that there are a lot of things I want to do, and if I don’t write them down and hold myself accountable, they’ll just float away in to the ether, never accomplished, or left for someone else to do.

So here’s my list of oh I don’t know how many things I want to do before 50.

  1. Spend a month in Paris (France not Texas)
  2. Spend a long weekend visiting Napa & Michael Chiarello’s restaurant Bottega
  3. Write the book that is stirring in my minds eye
  4. Use at least half of the fabric that I have in my stash to complete projects in waiting
  5. Go for a spa day, not just a massage either, but the entire spa package of pampering
  6. Visit dear friends who I haven’t seen in years (I’ll be seeing a few this summer – I can’t wait!)
  7. Meet as many twitter friends in real life
  8. Attend the Kentucky Derby and wear a grand hat for the occasion
  9. Go back to school and finish my bachelors degree
  10. Travel to England and soak up as much history and experiences as I can while I’m there
  11. Travel by train across Europe
  12. Visit Italy and learn to cook like the locals
  13. … to be continued

Travel seems to be a common theme through out the list. Guess that’s just the gypsy in me. But in all seriousness, there is so much out there I want to learn about, and see and experience. I’m thinking I need to cast off the limitation of doing this all by 50, and just set out to do it all in my life time.