Step 1

Make Lists

Lists are very important to being awesome.  You can't expect to be awesome by accident, so you have to plan.  And the best way to plan is to make lists.

I love lists.  I love checking things off and seeing my list get smaller and smaller.  Mostly I like lists because I am not a "big picture" kinda person.  When I start looking at the big picture, or really, even a medium sized picture, I start getting nervous and panicky and then try to find something else to do.  It's like, the big picture of whatever I'm planning becomes a big picture of a huge spider.  I instantly want to be as far away from that picture as possible.

So, lists help me see the step by step instead of the big scary spider picture.  They also give me something else to do.  So before I start anything, I make lists.

I made a lot of lists the day I finished packing up my classroom.  I even  made a flowchart, which is like what lists want to be when they grow up.  I have a daily checklist, a weekly checklist, a summer goals checklist, a moving checklist, and then checklists for cleaning and packing each room of the house. 

Excessive?  I think not.  I hate spiders.

Being Awesome Starts Today

This blog started as a silly Facebook post.  It basically said that my life plan was:

1. Finish teaching.
2. Clean and pack up classroom.
3. Take a week to relax.
4. Become awesome at everything.

See, I put my teaching career on hold for an indefinite amount of time, and I decided to take a break and "do something else," which in my mind means, "do everything else."  As I finished packing up my classroom, I kept having these visions of my future.  I would have an immaculately clean house, read dozens of books, cook amazing meals, sew, quilt, dance, etc. etc.  And I'd be awesome at it all, because I would have so much time!  No more frozen skillet meals.  No more piles and piles of clean clothes that never get folded.  No more projects that I never have time to finish.  I could do it all!

Of course, the rational side of my brain knows that this is not how it works.  I am, in fact, quite inept at most of those things, but optimism is not what you would call one of my defining traits, and I wanted to encourage myself, so I decided to go with it.

So here I am, on the first day of being awesome.  Last week I made a list, a flowchart, another list, and then five more lists after that.  But the main list was a daily to-do.  Five things that I am supposed to check off every day.  I put that list on the sidebar of this blog.  My plan is that this blog will help encourage me to pursue awesomeness and keep track of my progress, and hopefully to get some teammates in this crazy plan.  Come be awesome with me!