The BrainStorms Award

I was honored (and a little surprised) to be nominated for the BrainStorms Award by the Middle Age Fan Club blog.  It’s a great blog about life and teaching and poetry and football—well, what we call soccer on this side of the Atlantic.  It’s my first blog award nomination, so thank you Graham!

 

Rules

1. Thank the person who nominated you
2. Tag your post with #BrainStormsAward and follow https://brainsstorms.wordpress.com/ if you’re willing
3. Display the BrainStorms Award logo
4. Display the rules on your blog
5. Talk a bit about your blog, why you started, what you write about and your goal for your blog
6. Answer the five questions you’ve been asked
7. Nominate five other amazing bloggers
8. Ask them five questions

 

About my blog…

It all started with my 40^th birthday.  As we all do with milestone birthdays, I lamented all the things I dreamed I would have done by the time I reached 40.  While some, like marriage and family, were beyond my control, I thought about never having visited another country.  Then Abbott announced they were sponsoring all six of the major marathon races, creating a special award if you ran all six.  Three of them—London, Berlin, and Toyko—would mean international travel.  It was too good to be true.  I decided that running those marathons and earning the medal would be the quest to get me through my 40s, and to hold myself accountable, I would blog about my journey.

The quest started well, with a finish in Chicago (my “home” marathon), then a surprise lottery entry into Berlin and an epic New York City race in November of 2019, all while documenting the changes inside myself as I ran and trained and traveled.  I went into 2020 thinking that I was in perfect position to complete my quest by my 50^th birthday…until a corona virus escaped from China and turned the entire world upside down.

As races were cancelled and everything put on hold, writing became my way to cope with the anxiety and fear I felt trying to survive this dramatically changed world.   As the months wore on, my mental health continued to decline until I was diagnosed with Obsessive Compulsive Personality Disorder, or OCPD.  The blog that was started to keep me accountable with my marathon running had transformed into a blog to help me cope with my mental health in the midst of a raging global pandemic.

My goal for my blog at this point is to just be heard, be read, and grow a following.  The theme of my blog—exceptionalism, empathy, kindness, and acceptance—are in short supply these days, so I hope my ideas can grow and make this world a better place.

Answering Graham’s questions:

1. Could you recommend a cheese to me and let me know why, please?  Just one?  Yikes.  (Looks north at the Wisconsin border.)  I’m going to say a tie between Munster and brick.  Munster is creamy with that fun orange casing that has this nice salty tang, and brick is just salty cheesy goodness.  Both are great when you’re melting or if you’re just eating cheese and crackers.
   
   
2. What’s your favourite quote?  The Special Olympics motto:  Let me win.  But if I cannot win, let me be brave in the attempt.
   
   
3. If you could have walk on music, you know for every time you enter a room or your workplace, what would it be? You can mix songs together if you want.  Eye of the Tiger.  It was my high school’s unofficial theme song, and I may or may not have fantasized about winning an election and entering a roomful of supporters while it played.
   
   
4. Who would you get to play you in the film of your life?  Danica McKellar.  Not only do I look like her, but we both love math.
   
   
5. What were your three favourite things about lockdown? (It’s Ok to say that there were good things about lockdown, by the way. We discovered a house with an entire miniature railway in their back garden that we’d have never known about had it not been for lockdown walks.)  I got into Twitter and discovered a wonderful, supportive, uplifting community.  Even though I haven’t traveled far from home all that much, I’ve become connected to people from all over the world.  Going through and watching the entire Marvel Cinematic Universe.  I had been so busy with my life that I completely missed these movies, and amazingly, all of the spoilers as well.  It was like watching them in the theatres.  Finally, getting to know my neighbors as I would walk around our subdivision, trying to get some solace from my house, and especially all the small children who now attend our local grade school.  I may have to sidewalk chalk some times tables next week….

Five Amazing Bloggers (click on the names to read their blogs):

 Rethink Entrepreneur    @Rethinkblogger

PS Conway    @ps_conway

Classic Cinema Plus    @TheeRealPastorJ

Weird Lifestyle    @LifestyleWeird

I only take pics    @mezmerize217

These are five fun, creative bloggers who constantly put out unique content.  I hope you enjoy them as well.

Five Questions:

1. What makes you exceptional?
2. Where is your best spot to brainstorm?
3. Tell me about a great idea you had that ended up being a complete flop.
4. What would you tell the teenagers of today?
5. What was the most important lesson you learned from high (secondary) school?