Time For The Two-Year Update

That is how often it seems I am posting these days! My life now is so different than it was two years ago...and even more different than when I started this blog.

I started this blog to document my journey towards the magnificent milestone of my 50th birthday...and to find health and fitness along the way. The biggest think I think I found was the age of 50! Yes I reached that with no problem whatsoever. Didn't even have to think much about it. It stood blatantly in my path and I ran head on into it. There was certainly no avoiding it. Well I guess there was one alternative to not reaching 50 but that was not the preferred option.

So here I am. In April I celebrated my 50th birthday. The last four years or so have been a wild ride. I am tired. In some ways I am defeated. But at this point in my life I am like the Phoenix and am rising from the ashes, reinventing, and moving forward.

I guess the blog needs to be redirected to document my journey towards 60! I still want to be fit and I still want to be fabulous. Oh wait, in many ways I am already Fabulous! But I am polishing up some of the rougher areas to put the finishing touches on.

So what has changed since my first blog post and where do I want to go?

BIG CHANGE: I no longer eat meat or dairy. We have become a predominantly plant-based household. My husband and I will be celebrating our 4th year of eating no animal products this coming Labor Day. I only say predominantly because while my husband and I do not eat animal products whatsoever, the two kids left in the household are not quite plant-based when they are not in the house. This blog really helped direct my path towards this lifestyle and in many ways documents much of that journey.

BIG CHANGE: My oldest son (who DOES remain plant-based!) graduated high school, then college (GO NOLES!), and is now engaged and getting married next April. I have renewed my relationship with our oldest daughter and spent much of 2013 taking care of my beautiful grandson while my daughter went off to work.

My son and daughter left in the house are now almost 18 and that leaves me a lot of time for ME! And I while I suffered greatly through the transitioning from my beloved job of "Mom who lives for her kids and does everything with them" to the dreaded "Mom whose kids want some independence and/or are moving out," I have finally learned to roll with the punches (and some of them were emotionally violent and brutal punches that brought me to my knees) and adopt mantras of "Acceptance and Let it Go."

Letting Go has been the biggest change and has led me to a new me.

I have spent the last 23 years living and doing for others and now I am learning, as hard as it is, to start living for me.

I am starting a new business as a Professional Organizer.

I have always loved crafting. Sewing, cross-stitch, crocheting, but I was never artistic. But through this blog and my camping website I found I love to write and all of a sudden creativity is the new buzzword in my life and seems to be calling me. Something inside is screaming for me to break out and start creating. I have always been a logical analytical as opposed to a creative so this is an extremely new side of me and I am taking baby steps but I am honoring it and loving the process.

I have also found a deep desire to draw. I come from a family of painters and artists but I only inherited stick figure abilities. Or as everything I have been reading says I only LEARNED up to the point of stick figure abilities. But I have been working hard to develop my talents, dig them out and polish them up. I have been reading and taking basic drawing classes. Okay when I say my drawing is pathetic it is not like some of those people who say they can't draw and then they draw recognizable objects. Believe me you will not recognize what I draw. I was the team player nobody wanted when drawing for Pictionary. But I am loving the learning process. My kindergarten looking drawings have made a little progress and while I never expect to be Rembrandt, I will improve. The progress is inspiring to me.

So here I am taking baby steps to come back to life, to find myself, and to create a life I love. I am excited.

I have signed up for a 31-day challenge to write 500 words a day and I decided to do that here and revive my blog. This is my Commitment and Day One of the 31 days. It will be in a whole new direction, but still about finding my way to fabulous...and finding my way to me. And I am excited about that.