2013 In Review

Went to several friends weddings.

Completed my second Tough Mudder with my mom.

I got to play in bouncy castles with two Green Bay Packers.

Went deer hunting with my dad.

Completed 2 more semesters of Grad School with a current GPA of 3.62.

Worked on editing and writing my books. 

It was a pretty decent year. 

Here's to 2014!

One Week

No, not the song by Barenaked Ladies. But one week until NaNoWriMo (nanowrimo.org). In one week, or 7 days, or 168 hours or 10,080 minutes, thousands of people will be hyped up on coffee or tea, getting less sleep than they should, having no social lives (if they ever had one to begin with), and hoping that their imaginary friends will take them on a journey worth writing 50,000 words about.

Thankfully I have friends and family that I can ask random questions, where other people would judge my sanity. I have a notebook and word document that I can write in at any spare second of the day. I have my daily word count posted beside my desk. But most importantly, I have an idea. And if I may say, it is brilliant. I already have a strong outline from the help of one of my oldest friends, Ashley, and cannot wait to begin.

Whether you are ready or not, here it comes. And in the words of the Doctor:

"GERONIMO!!!"

Evaluate Your Life

Today is evaluate your life day. This day could be scary for some, but how else can you make sure that you are on the right track. My life right now boils down to several things: friends/family, writing/editing, school, training, and work (changing in order from day to day and hour to hour).

First of all, my family and friends are important to me. Once a week I like to drop my Oma an email telling her about anything exciting that happened or just how my week was. I grew up living next to my Oma and Opa and as a kid would always run next door after school and these little emails are still my way of running next door to them after school. Another one is my best friend, Laura. Although we haven't lived close to each other for several years, we still text and email about problems and our days and happy moments and have the occasional phone call that lasts at least an hour.

Second thing in my life is my writing and editing. I'm currently editing another book to be published with the help of friends and family, after having read it over several times myself. I'm also working on and planning another book that I'm going to write for this years NaNoWriMo. I love writing. It gives me a chance to be different people and to not be interrupted.

School is of course a big part of my life right now as I'm in grad school. To those that are currently in grad school or have been in grad school, you know what I'm talking about. Also with school I'm the Criminal Justice Student Association President where I get to talk to federal agents (yes, I have some awesome contacts in federal agencies) and arrange speakers and tours for the members.

Training is another big part of my life. I would say working out, but training sounds better for one, and training means that there is a goal that you want to accomplish at the end. For me, I'm training for my third Tough Mudder in 323 days.

Finally work. Last week I was promoted of sorts to House Management Supervisor. Basically meaning I get to do a little more work. 

All in all, I love my life even with all of my weird medical stuff that has been going on this year. Yes, sometimes it's a bit stressful and challenging, but if it's not challenging, is it really worth it?
So, evaluate your life today. If you find that you don't like a specific thing, then ask yourself why and don't be afraid to make some changes for the better. 

Writing

I've always liked writing about something that I don't know about and then get to learn about while writing. One time writing about hockey, another about traveling to different places that I've never been to. This time, I'm writing way out of my norm. I'm writing about a couple from the engagement until the day before the wedding. I have no idea what the end is going to be, because I'm writing this with someone else. My friend, Mike, came up to me last semester some time and asked if I could write about a comedy, drama, romance screenplay. Well, I've never written a screenplay, so I'm writing it like I would write a book, so there is no worries there. But he won't tell me the ending. I don't know if these characters live or die or if a zombie apocalypse is going to break out and eat their brains right after they say I do. That's a little frustrating, but not much. 

My real issue is that I have never been engaged so I don't know what it's like and don't know what is realistic. I've been asking my friends that have been recently engaged or married to tell me stories that stick out in their minds. A great friend of mine, (wished to be know as) Anonymous Jaded Newlywed, has helped out a lot already. I have the correct order of events written down but how do I go about telling the parents that they're engaged? I want this to be realistic and plausible, but at the same time, stands out from the normal "everybody did it this way." Congratulations Mike, I think you've finally stumped me, but I won't give up, I'll just keep working at it slowly and hopefully something good comes out of it.