A = Another A-to-Z Challenge

Last April, I participated in the A-to-Z Challenge, where over 1800 bloggers accepted the challenge to write 26 posts for the month of April (every day except Sundays) using one letter of the alphabet per day.   It was a life-changing month for me as my mom died just 9 days into the challenge, but still, I managed to continue getting each of my 26 posts out and in the end, was grateful for the creative diversion (and now that I’ve reread those posts, it seems I managed to write a couple really good ones during that time too!).

So, I’m going to take the challenge again this year and see what can come of it!  This year, WinnieViews is blog number 123 out of more than 2200 blogs participating.  It should be fun to start clicking that list randomly to see what other bloggers are doing with that same alphabet letter each day!

When starting to prepare my topic lists for the challenge a few weeks ago, it looked like I’d be blogging about mostly introspective, non-travel subjects.  But, March was an amazing month of travel and photography! I’ve still got a half-dozen posts to share of those adventures! So, I’ll try to “shoehorn” those travel posts into each alphabet letter as best I can for the early part of the month, and switch back to the other topics after that.

I arrived back home to Chicago two days ago and am now making my way through a 4-month pile of snail mail to prepare for filing taxes.  Then, the hard labor starts to finish up a few more house projects and sort/purge through the last piles of stuff to get the house on the market ASAP.  Winnie does not want to stay parked in the driveway too long! 

What a roller coaster the next few months should be

 

 

Zipped Up! (A-to-Z Challenge completed)

Well, it’s the last day of April, and I’ve now zipped up my 26th blog post of the month to finish the 2013 A-to-Z Challenge.

At the beginning of the month, blogging about a different alphabet letter each day seemed fairly do-able.  I wrote out a list of various words for each letter to give me blog topic ideas, and most of them were RVing-related.

But as you readers know, just as soon as those plans got made, life decided to revise them.  Most of the RV topics flew out the window, and my daily posts began to get delayed into small batches of posts at a time.

In the end, though, I’m glad that I continued to see this project through to its completion.  It’s been hard to prioritize the mountains of work that have hit me and the family since my mom’s death.  So, this little blogging project has often times seemed like the one thing I could comfortably manage and maintain control of.

I’m going to try and continue blogging more often in the future.  Probably not up to a daily level, but hopefully more than the 2 or 3 posts per month I’d been doing previously.

Who knows where I’ll be next year, but I’d certainly like to try the A-to-Z challenge again next April, and encourage my fellow blogger friends to do the same!

A new beginning & the A-to-Z Challenge

After a 14-hour marathon workday last Friday, I transitioned my last client account, cleaned all the emails out of my Inbox, and powered down my work laptop.  I am now on an extended leave of absence. 

Officially, these next 12 weeks will be to care for my mom (who is terminally ill).  Unofficially, though, this will be a test to see what life actually feels like when away from the job I’ve worked daily for the past 12 years.  Will I find more fulfilling activities to spend my days?  Or will I miss the paycheck so much that I re-sell my soul to get it back?

For years, I’ve fantasized about this day—finally being footloose and fancy-free! No more ridiculous, degrading, corporate rigmarole to endure!  But honestly, today, the only emotion I’m feeling is….fear. 

All those negative “what if’s” rushing at me.  What if I never find another (let alone, better) job?  What if I lose all my life’s savings (or my good health)?  What if I regret selling my house (and most of my possessions) to become a full-time RVer?  And perhaps the biggest fear of all—what will life be like no longer having my last living parent, my mom, to turn to?

So, these next 12 weeks will (hopefully) offer a time to transition without fully transitioning yet.  A time to do more giving and sharing of myself to see which direction it might lead my life to next. 

To that point, I’ve wanted to start blogging more often to track my journey through these life changes.  I recently came across the A-to-Z Challenge that sounded like an interesting and motivational way to help me start doing just that.  Quite appropriately timed too-- the challenge happens to start today!

A-to-Z was the brainchild of Arlee Bird (http://tossingitout.blogspot.com/), who posed this challenge to his readers in 2010:  could they blog every day except Sundays for the month of April, and not only that, could they focus each of those 26 posts on a different letter of the alphabet? 

In 2010, 100 bloggers accepted his challenge.  The next year, a whopping 1300 bloggers gave it a try.  Now, for 2013, there are over 1800 bloggers currently signed up!  Give the list a look around—there are quite a wide variety of blogs represented!  And, if you’re a blogger, why not sign up and give this a try yourself?!!

Thanks, Arlee, for the appropriately-timed motivation!