Lordy, Lordy, Look Who's Forty

On Tuesday I turned forty years old.  Forty! I...well, I just...yeah.  Wow. 

I've been thinking about how I wanted to mark this birthday for a long time. I decided to do a series of smaller events, have one-on-one dates with friends and make plans over the year to do a bunch of things I've wanted to do for decades (go to the French Laundry, do a week long course at the Culinary Institute of America in Napa, and a few other things I haven't even dreamed up yet). 

I've been doing some personal coaching sessions with Get There Coaching and had some tremendous epiphanies that are extremely well timed.  (Kendra is crazy talented and has a real has a gift for this work.  If you are thinking about doing any kind of personal coaching work, I'd really think about working with her.  We've done all our work over the phone, so you don't have to be in the Bay Area!)

 The two most useful things I've come to is that a) I need to have more fun.  Lots of it.  Whenever I can.  I need to shift things around to make room for fun and choose it when it's there. I've started putting together a Fun Committee for my life.  One friend is in charge of getting me out to swing dance events (pretty much my favorite activity in the world).  Another friend is tasked with getting us to a trampoline park, WITHOUT our children.   I have plans to rope in a few other friends for other fun stuff. Gonna make this happen. 

The second really useful piece that came out of the coaching is a personal mission statement that I was able to distill down to 3 words: Justice, Zest, Rest.  In addition to justice (what I do for work and 90% of what I talk about on Facebook and fun (Zest), I am really starting try to rest when I can.  I'm starting to take my grandmother's advice to heart: "Why stand when you can sit, why sit when you can lie?" I'm trying to say no to more things so I can rest and make room for fun.  We'll see how it all goes.

The other thing I decided I wanted to do for my 40th was launch a community kindness project I've been thinking about for a bit, so on Jan 5th, I launched a Gofundme campaign for my project called Tikkun Tokens!  Tikkun Tokens are free wooden tokens I'm having made that can be used to recognize someone's act of kindness. I loved the idea of a simple tool people could use to recognize another person's act of kindness and that can be used as a small act of kindness in itself.  I wanted to root this project in the value I hold most dear, "Tikkun Olam", or repair of the world. ​ It is my most core belief that we can all be ambassadors of goodness and repair as we walk through the world. My hope is that these tokens help people do that work.  You can order your own set of tokens here: http://www.tikkuntokens.org/get-tokens-to-share.html

The last decade was a bit, shall we say, INTENSE.  I learned a tremendous amount about myself and suffered quite a lot of trauma.  As things are stabilizing with Simon and I'm starting new decade, I am really trying to shift my point of reference from all that has been hard to all that is going well and to the hopes and dreams I have for my own life, not just Simon's. Here goes! 

Getting fancy for a birthday dinner!