Today was the first day of Advent and I wanted to check in with all you Divas-in-training to see how things went and to report in on my own efforts.
I did well on the “reverse Advent calendar” – I got the food box started with a box of cereal (okay, I also added in an assortment of single-size cereals – I loved getting those as a kid. Back then, the box was perforated and you could actually turn the box into a bowl. Yeah – it’s never taken all that much to get me excited, I suppose . . . ). My other task was to “give someone a hug or compliment,” which wasn’t hard for me to do. Over the last few years, I’ve made a real effort to notice things about other women – simple things like an interesting pair of earrings, or a great pair of boots – and I try to compliment people on those choices. It’s so easy to just be safe and wear bank-wall-grey or navy – always be willing to give a shout-out to the folks who are willing to color outside the lines.
My foot was acting up, so I limited my exercise to a walking DVD (complete with warm-up and cool down, it still only takes 30 minutes). My French lesson today was blah, but I did it. (Seriously, I’ve gotten rusty and it shows. It’ll probably take me a week to pick up the pace and that’s okay!). We got down the Christmas boxes and I resisted the urge to immediately dive in and get everything done TODAY! Instead, I did a few little things – wreath on the door, miniature white marabou tree decked in pink lights for the desk (I’m looking at it right now and it’s so kitschy that it just makes me smile.)
I also passed on my meditation class in order to meet with friends and sketch out a character for a new game. (I did a quick morning meditation through the Shine app, and I hope to go a few extra minutes before turning in tonight – back to work full-bore for the last week of classes tomorrow! Oh, what a lovely break this has been . . . ) Anyway, this game system (FATE) is new to me, so I went to the meeting just trusting that I’d have fun, although I went in not knowing a blessed thing. It’s a game campaign that will involve more story-telling than shooty-shoot-shoot, and we built the bones of the campaign together – we’re going for a bit of a Firefly vibe and I’m intrigued by what’s going to happen as we progress. (In case you’re interested, I’m Franceska “Chess” Gladstone, a petite woman who’s very good with machines (I wanted something FAR different from me in real life!), but really lousy with people. Oh, and she doesn’t like mice, which could be interesting, since one of the other characters is a member of an alien race who looks – you guess it! – mouse-like.) Oh, I know – role-playing games aren’t for everyone and again – that’s fine.
Want to join the Splendor in the Sticks Advent Adventure? Click here – or just dive in with this calendar instead! (Hard to read? Click here!)
PS – “Franceska” means “French.” I swear, I didn’t know that at the time. But pretty nifty coincidence, don’t you think?
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