I was playing around on blog sites during the short time that I was awake today and came upon a “Post A Day” challenge on one of the major blog hosts. The idea is simple enough, and is based on that age-old bit of advice that says, “If you want to write more, write more.” It challenges bloggers to write something – anything – at least once a day. So I signed up for it. What was I thinking?
One little perk is that I’ll be getting possible topics sent to me every day, so if I can’t think of anything to write about, I can take a stab at whatever is suggested to me. Today’s topic, for example, is “Your most important achievement of 2010.”
Like I achieved anything last year. We’ll get back to that later, after I’ve given everybody a quick run-down on what is sure to be the most boring day in my life this year.
In a nutshell, I slept all day.
No, really. I. Slept. All. Day. I got to sleep at somewhere around 1:30 this morning. Yeah, I know that I said that I was in bed at 9:00 last night, and that’s true; but I read a little bit and then talked on the phone with Chris awhile and then traded some text messages with her for a while longer and then I finally went to sleep at 1:30. The cats woke me up at about 6:30 demanding food (which I dutifully gave them), then I got back in bed, turned on the television, started a new blog (maybe I’ll tell you all where it is at some point); and then I fell asleep and woke up at 4:45 this afternoon. I got out of bed, ate some red beans and rice with leftover chicken kielbasa (still rolling on that “No Dairy January” thing), watched a few episodes of 30 Rock, and now – at 10:00 – I am back in bed. I go back to work tomorrow morning.
You have now been brought fully up to date on basically everything that I did today. I left out some details, like peeing and brushing my teeth. Other than that, you’re caught up. Fascinating, huh?
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| A senior sousaphone player takes a breather during her last halftime show in 2010 |
So about this “Most Important Achievement of 2010.” Hmmmm. Let me ponder that for a few moments. I was elected to the board of directors of the North American Brass Band association. I scored a gig shooting high school football games for a newspaper in middle Georgia. I got to play the tuba solo in Laudate Dominum when the guy who usually played it didn’t show at a rehearsal. I rescued 4 handicapped babies from a burning train which had hurtled off of a trestle into 70 feet of alligator-infested water in a Louisiana bayou. I successfully closed down Camp Ulvik for the winter. I changed the lock on my back door after some punks tried to kick it down. I nearly paid off my American Express card…before I had to add $3,000 onto it to get my car fixed. I wrote a pretty kick-ass ticket scrubbing application for ATT mobility.
To be completely serious, however (something that I endeavor to do very little in these pages), I’d have to say that the most important thing I did last year – perhaps the most important thing that I’ve ever done – was to play three or four songs with my brother and two nephews in a brass quartet at my mother’s memorial service last March. And I did play most of those three or four songs. Sure, I completely lost it and couldn’t finish the final one (Lead Me Lord, which has always been one of my favorite hymns), but I tried and I came close and I used the talent that I was born with to honor the woman who raised me. It turns out that, when you don’t know what you can do, sometimes you just do the best you can.
And that, friends and neighbors, is that.
The handicapped babies thing? Yeah….I made that up.
TWD