Thinking of Kelly on her birthday

Dear Kelly,

Another year has come and gone, another year of missing you.

Eleven years ago I ran my ninth marathon on your sweet sixteenth birthday.

Today I "ran" a one mile race.  I thought of you while I ran like I have so many times over the years.

Tonight I donated platelets in honor of your twenty seventh birthday.

Some things have changed over the years.

Missing you and wishing things were different have not.

Cutting the cake-2002 

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Welcome to 2016

I  have been thinking about the goals that I want to set for 2016.   I am not a fan of resolutions.  I don't know if I have ever made and kept a resolution that I have made for the year, but I have completed goals that I set, because I could commit to them. 

A resolution is weak, a commitment is strong.

You only make commitments for things you can control.

You can make a New Year's resolution to lose weight, eat healthier, but you can't commit to it.

However, you can make a commitment to running, cycling, and lifting weight three times a week and eating a calorie deficit of 500 calories a day.

I set three goals last year:

1. Move my body two thousand and fifteen miles. 
2. Donate Platelets 15 times in 2015. 
3. Read a book every month and publish a review on my blog or Amazon. 

I completed the first goal, moving my body 2,166 miles. 

I donated platelets eleven times.  While I was very committed to completing this goal, it was taken out of my hands in May after donating too frequently and I was put on an unable to donate list for three months. 

The third goal I totally abandoned after not completing a monthly challenge.  I could have revised the goal, but after missing it I totally stopped so obviously I was not as committed to it as the first two goals. 

So after a quick look back, here are my goals for 2016: 

1. Move my body two thousand and sixteen miles. 
2. Write a "journal of days" for the year, one to three sentence summary every day before going to bed. 
3. Revise my draft of the book I wrote last year during National Novel Writing Month. It still needs an ending.
4. Run a 5K.  
5. Write 750 words every day at 750words.com(I began the year with a streak of 406 days). 
6. Read one book a month.
7. Complete the Joyful January challenge.  Post a picture of something that has brought me joy each day during January on Facebook or Twitter or Instragram with the hashtag #joyfuljan

These all seem like achievable goals.  #3 will be the hardest goal to complete as I am not sure how I will be able to measure whether it has been completed.

All of the other goals follow the S.M.A.R.T guidelines that are commonly used in the workplace, but as this article outlines, SMART goals can be DUMB. 

• Specific
• Measurable
• Achievable
• Realistic
• Time based

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So long to 2015

It's been over five months since the last time I did anything here on my blog.

I am pretty sure that 2015 set a record of sorts for the least amount of posts at this site and the least amount of visits to the gym.

My goals for 2015:

• Move my body two thousand and fifteen miles(Complete, 2,165 miles)
• Donate platelets fifteen times in 2015(Donated 11 times, gave too frequently and was put on unable to donate list for three months)
• Read a book each month and write a review.(Incomplete, epic fail, within my control). 

Some of the other things that I accomplished in 2015. 

• 4,000,040+ steps as counted by my FitBit watch. This accounted for over 1,825 of the miles for the year. 
• 10,000+ steps, 231 days. 
• Rode my bike a paltry 380 miles. 
• Participated and completed my first NANOWRIMO(National Novel Writing Month, write 50,000 words during the month of November) challenge.    My book still needs an ending and lots and lots of editing before the world is ready to read this book. 
• Wrote at least 750 words every day at 750words.com.  I ended the year with a consecutive days of writing of 406 days at this site. 

Fun things: 

• Happy Patriots fan, finally! 
• Theater
• Les Miserables
• Into the Woods
• Went to see Adam reprise his role of Nicely Nicely Johnson in Guys and Dolls at the Lakewood Center for Performing Arts seven times. 
• Two episodes of Avenue Q at in Louisville, Colorado
• Three episodes of Dogfight, a very intense play set in the time period of the Vietnam War.
• Dinner with Molly(One of Kelly's sisters). 
• Weekend golf outing with Adam at Grand Lake and Pole Creek.  
• Golfing with Lindsey and Adam
• Went to Vancouver Canada and saw, Once the Musical with Sue(Traffic in Vancouver sucks)
• Spent a night on Whidbey Island in Washington and furiously wrote several thousand words in my novel. 
• Went to a Nuggets game with Laura to see Kobe Bryant for a final time in Denver.
• Seeing Laura get her 100th run shirt with the Irish Snug running club. 
• Touchdowns for Tomorrow Trivia with Laura, Sue and Lindsey. 
• Thanksgiving open house with my niece, Kristin.  She is all kinds of awesome! 
• Adam singing O Holy Night at Burns Methodist church for his grandmother. 

Life things: 

• Accepted a full time position at First Data again as a software analyst. 
• Around the sun one more time. 

On tap for 2016?  

• Hopefully a return to running, not sure what that will look like, but I sure would like to be able to run again and for once it doesn't seem like my knee will be the thing that stops me. 
• Reading on a Nook instead of a physical book.  I have lots of books that I would like to read and looking forward to reading as a writer, paying attention to how a real write tells their story. 
• Ski outing with a friend from work.  I haven't gone skiing since 1999. 
• Golfing with Adam
• Running with Laura

Next month: 

• Participating in Joyful January challenge on Facebook.  Post something every day that brings me joy during the month, on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram with a hashtag of #joyfuljan
• Begin to revise my novel, it needs an ending and a lot of work. 
• Set some goals for 2016.  

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Wordless Wednesday

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Remembering

Today is the three year anniversary of a world that none of us wanted to live into, a world changed forever again by a crazed gunman, shattering twelve lives, taking them away forever, shattering other lives, other lifetimes, waiting to be born into, a world changed forever, a world none of us wanted to live into. 

Remembering the lives of those we lost on this awful day, on this awful moment in our lives. 

Alex Sullivan, Alex Teves, John Larimer, Veronica Moser-Sullivan, Jessica Redfield, Micayla Medek, AJ Boik, Jesse Childress, Matt Mcquinn, Jonn Blunk, Rebecca Wingo and Gordon Cowden.

"What better honor in this lifetime to be surrounded by people who make you constantly think and say, "My God, I want to learn how to love you so well.

Gordon Cowden surrounded by his family 

Turn your whole life into a quest to be good to those people.  Like make your whole life into a quest to figure out how to show up for them.  At airports.  On birthdays.  On days where you know there is a decision lurking around the corner and they're scared and wondering.  Those good people are your people--fight for them."~Hannah Brencher

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All the Dancing Birds-May Book review

"Thoughts enter like a piano concerto, lively and in full sustained legato, only to return in diminuendo, a single wavering note in the room.  I'm not much more than a wordless simple tone, wishing desperately for the return of the bright harmony of language."~Auburn McCanta

This was another difficult book to read.  Next month I am going to find something a little less upsetting to read.

The author does a good job telling the story from the point of view of the person who is losing their memory from Alzheimer's as well as capturing the confusion, fear and anguish of the adult children.

Worth reading, but be prepared to feel uncomfortable.

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Cancer: The Emperor of All Maladies-April Book Review

This was the most difficult book that I have ever read.  While it is well written and presents in interesting history of cancer and the evolution of it's treatment over the years it is also the most discouraging glimpse of how far away we are from being able to do anything about it.

After zillion of dollars of research, in the war against cancer, we are armed with crude and primitive weapons against a cunning adversary with unlimited resources.

"Cancer, we know now is a disease caused by the uncontrolled growth of a single cell.  This growth is unleashed my mutations-changes in DNA that specifically affect genes that incite unlimited cell growth.  In a normal cell, powerful genetic circuits regulate cell division and cell death. In a cancer cell, these circuits have been broken, unleashing a cell that cannot stop growing. 

That this seemingly simple mechanism-cell growth without barriers-can lie at the heart of this multifaceted illness is a testament to the unfathomable power of cell growth. Cell division allows us as organisms to grow, to adapt,, to recover to repair-to live.  And distorted and unleashed, it allows cancer cells to grow, to flourish to adapt, to recover and to repair-to live at the cost of our living. Cancer cells can grow faster, adapt better. They are the more perfect versions of ourselves."-Siddhartha Mukherjee

This is an important book to read for anyone that have ever been touched in any way by cancer in their lifetime.

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