blogging101

Living a Life of One’s Own

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outloud quoteWelcome, if you are new here…let me introduce myself.

Each day I meet new people, I travel to new places, I live my life out loud. It’s an interesting way to exist. No “home” to speak of, just 280 rambling square feet. No “community” to live in, just random people sharing their lives with us. No “job” to report to, just providing events to those who share our passions. We (my husband and I) are not the norm, we’ve broken free of the script written by our parents and peers to live the life that we imagined.

Now what we do isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, I don’t sit on a beach with my laptop staring at the ocean all day, although I wouldn’t mind that some days. I don’t get five-star service with staff around the clock, can’t even imagine what that would be like. I don’t live a life of luxury, nor do I want to. What I do have is freedom. Freedom to choose where I am going to be, the schedule I’m going to be on and the people I’m going to be with. I have the freedom to say no, to reach out when I choose, to hermit when it’s necessary. My life is my own.

I think that’s what each of us strive for, to live the life that we create, to own it, everyday. My life is filled with happy people, with adventurers, with difference makers. With artists and craftsman, with dreamers and doers. Will you find me on Wall Street? No. Will you find me on Main Street? Sometimes. Will you find me online? Definitely. Will you find me at events where people are living their passions. Absolutely!

I blog to reach others, to share my beliefs in the world and the positivity that we witness. We are the fortunate ones, I’d love for you to join me in my adventures and views on the world. Sometimes we are “arting”, sometimes, we are “adulting”, but every day we are living. That to me, is the greatest freedom available.

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Day -351 – Race Day Cometh

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I’m stealing this format from a blogger I read today…made me laugh as I have sat through swim meets, soccer matches, theater performances – in various capacities.  All of these with my kids, now in my new life, it’s with our race family.

What goes through your mind on Race Day…checker

The Promoter:

  • Is the course marked well enough?
  • Is anyone coming to compete?
  • I hope I have everything ready
  • I hope their cars are prepped well
  • I want everyone to finish
  • Do we need more water?
  • Oh, look, the 4414 is here
  • Do we need a course watcher on the back side?
  • Damn, I should have picked up some lunchables
  • Another successful day, nobody died

The Volunteer:

  • I hope I can follow the course markings to the spot they want me
  • I wonder how many cars are racing today
  • Did I bring everything?
  • Man, I hope no one breaks down right here
  • Are all the cars going to finish?
  • I should have brought some more waters
  • What rig was that, it looked like a Campbell buggy?
  • I hope no one cuts course right here
  • I wonder if the food vendor will still be open when I get back
  • That was awesome, did you see that pass?

The Racer:

  • Please don’t let me get lost…whew, Josh must have marked the course
  • Damn, did you see all the competition?
  • I hope I have everything ready
  • I prepped the car, what do you want to bet it’s a $4 part that takes me out
  • Please get me to the checkered flag
  • I hope there is extra water at the finish line
  • What the hell is Shipman doing here?
  • OMG, they put a spotter right next to my cheatline
  • Why didn’t I eat before the race, I’m starving
  • Whoohoo, that was the best race ever!!!

Race day cometh….Dirt Riot National Rampage in T-6

Blogging 101 – Dream Reader

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My kids lived in a busy household, they were given tools to achieve anything they wanted, I pushed, I pulled, I screamed and I cried.  Not to force them to do anything, but to ensure that they never gave up. We had a plan to introduce the kids to anything they showed an interest in; Josh chose writing and singing, anything intellectual, he was involved; Kayla was the athlete, she tried all sports, swimming, basketball, softball, but mostly soccer – for thirteen years I was a soccer mom nine months out of the year; Haley was the performer, the helper, she was a Girl Scout for ten years, then moved on to performance arts of all kinds, I gave up my title as soccer mom for theater mom.  Because the kids are almost ten years apart from top to bottom, this wasn’t a difficult task.

At times, being active was exhausting for them, other times it was overwhelming, moving from task to task.  Whenever it got that way, we stopped and took a breath, reminded ourselves of why we were pursuing that path.  Was it a college scholarship we were eying?  Fun with our friends? An award we hoped for?  Every time it was different, because each of my children are unique.  Sometimes we had to get ourselves geared up, in the mood, in the right frame of mind…when we did, we reverted to the same song each time.

One of my favorite memories is a swim meet in Idaho Falls, it was a trying time for us, we were all stressed about something, though no one will remember what now.  All the kids were competing that day and Kayla was up next, she could be a crabby little thing at age 11.  She had snarked at me one too many times and I told her to get her Ipod – it was probably a nano or even a disc player at that time.  She looked at me defiantly and put in her earphones.  A change came over her instantly, she didn’t speak to me again before she swam, she just listened to her song on repeat and then stepped up on the blocks.  In my mind, she won that day, what color ribbon she actually took home doesn’t matter anymore, she put herself where she needed to be for that moment.  She remembered, she had something to do “Right Now, there’s no tomorrow.”

Not much has really changed, my kids are all adults now, they make their own choices and live with them.  They each have excelled in different ways in this thing we call life.  If there are three ends of a spectrum, my kids are on each of them, and I couldn’t be more proud.  Each day they take care of themselves and the people around them, they seek opportunities and never stop growing.  I hope as they go forward they learn from their childhoods to present my grandchildren with lots of opportunities to play and to grow.

Today’s Assignment: publish a post for your dream reader, and include a new-to-you element in it.

My dream readers are my kids, I hope to be able to share with them a little insight in to their mom, a little of what makes me tick, a little of our history as they move forward in adulthood.  Each story is designed with them in mind – I love you all.

Blogging 101 – Day two and three combined

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quotescover-bright sideVery happy with the feedback I got from my Day One assignment, my favorite was from my mother-in-law, she sent me a quick oneliner email that closed with “Great job, Dear” – made my little cockles sing.  Pleasing someone you respect is always a win!

Day two was to evaluate your blog’s title and tagline…I like mine: Fifty in 365:  What’s in a Year.  The idea started as I was turning 49, I was going to be fifty in 365 days, what did that year look like.  For the record, it was awesome!  Then the next year came, it no longer related to my birthday, so how could I continue to use the same title – turns out it was easy.  Now it’s about setting goals and getting things done.  I can still do fifty things in 365 days, I can still read fifty books in 365 days – it’s all about what is in that year.  Title and tagline approved, moving on.

Today’s assignment: follow five new topics in the Reader and five new blogs.

I’ve been wanting to follow other bloggers for awhile, without success, so this was a good lesson for me.  I started with topics.  I added Adventure Travel, Business Plans, Entrepreneur, Bucket List and Japanese Travel (we have a trip coming up.)  Japanese Travel was a bust, so I changed it to Goal Setting.

I added five bloggers to my reader as well.  This was harder than I thought it would be.  Turns out there are a lot of twenty-something bloggers out there that I really have nothing in common with.  My life is not hard, I have not been through lots of trauma, I don’t have to medicate myself, I am not an addict.  Other things I am not:  I am not depressed, I am not unhappy, I am not necessarily interested in current affairs, or public affairs, I don’t watch TV, I rarely go to the movies, I am not a consumer, I don’t have a kitchen (in the traditional sense), I don’t have a home (again, in the traditional sense.)  To find others that think like I do is a little bit rough.  I’m that girl that turns away from violence, traditional news and I eliminate people from my FB newsfeed that whine.  No time for that.  I wouldn’t say I’m a PollyAnna, but I definitely like to look on the bright side.

There must be other fifty-somethings out there blogging for the pure joy of it, I’m hoping I find them.

Credit for the great photo goes to my buddy, Joel Moranton

Blogging 101 – Getting Started

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meI’ve gone missing from my own blog, so I decided to sign up for a challenge.  WordPress offers a Blogging 101 course, even though we are almost two years old here, I think I should finally figure out what I’m doing.  Already I’m three days behind, go figure?

Today’s assignment: write and publish a “who I am and why I’m here” post.

I think I spend more time on this topic in my head than I do anything else.  If I only knew what I wanted to be when I grew up.  Today, I am still 50 – yep, 5 – 0 – five decades under my belt and life continues to change daily.  I’ve spent some time recently describing, at least to myself, who I was at 15, at 25, at 45 – turns out, I haven’t changed a great deal.

I am more confident, more aware, more…just about everything, but I’m still a girl who participates from the fringe, who is more comfortable on the edge of a crowd than in the middle, a girl who would rather be in the background.  I’m still the girl who dreams big and wants to be a change leader, I want to better the lives of others.  I’m still the girl who loves mightily, and fears decidedly.

I’m preparing for a writer’s conference in six weeks and have been thinking about my Author’s Platform – if that isn’t a scary thing!  Part of that process is having business cards, believe me, I’ve got them – but which do I use?  My life is so diverse, every day I’m working on eight or more different projects, many of them completely unrelated, so how do I put a title to who I am?

Here’s a sample of what I do daily…

I manage the business and finances of an event management company specializing in offroad events, both motorsports and running related.

I write, blogs, business plans, fiction, non-fiction and children’s books.

I develop ideas and promotions with a business partner for a food truck.

I work with a business partner on creative ideas and business plans for a gift line.

I am the current managing partner for a non-profit public awareness safety campaign to be launched in two short weeks.

I prepare tax returns for others, together with consulting and financial management.

I pitch potential product ideas to an engineer to develop products that we can bring to market.

I dream.

I dream big.

Am I an entrepreneur or ‘trep as the current business climate calls it?  Am I a business woman utilizing the CPA certification I worked so hard to earn so many years ago?  Am I just a fifty year old with an identity crisis?

In the writing world they say to create your platform, tell people who you are and own it. So this is how I’m going to describe myself for the future.

Shelley Krehbiel Klein, Creative, author, businesswoman, partner, dedicated to sharing knowledge and improving lives, her own and others.