Blogging, GTD, Set Goals, Travel, Triathlon

From a Someday/Maybe to I Can Do This

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what I want to accomplish in the next 5 years, 10 years and beyond. I don’t have a set bucket list, however I do have things that I would like to someday do, most of them on my GTD Someday/Maybe List.

  • Learn photography (or simply, learn how to take amazing photos)
  • Learn another language (you would think with my world travel I would already have already been inspired to do this)
  • Organize my digital photos (boring) or just hang photos on my wall
  • Visit Scotland, Italy, Greece, Luxembourg, Liechtenstein, and all 50 states with Nick.
  • See the Northern Lights
  • Watch the The Ohio State Buckeyes win a national championship. Again. Watch them play in the Rose Bowl. Visit all Big 10 (12?) Stadiums.
  • Play Piano more
  • Eat at a Taco Truck here in town and have a burger at The Thurman Cafe
  • Ski the Rockies, the Appalachians, and the French Alps (Did the Swiss Alps already. Got engaged there and hurt my neck. Those two things were unrelated.)
  • Live in a different city. Zurich? Maybe.
  • Have kids. Or kid.
  • Become a GTD Certified Trainer
  • Attend an English Premier League game. Probably a Tottenham game.
  • Buy a house. Decorate it pretty. Have lots of people over.
  • Go to Reds games in different ballparks. Especially a Spring Training game in Goodyear, Arizona. This and the Tottenham game are for Nick. He would love them and I while I love sports, I would enjoy his enjoyment most.
  • Make a budget. Keep it for a whole year. Stop spending all of our money at Target.
  • Writing something valuable. Don’t know what that is yet. Perhaps this is just keep a journal. Or a blog. Or something to look back and reflect on.

And the list grows. So then the questions becomes, when? When do I start trying to tackle or enjoy or start these things? When I’m 100% healthy? I struggle with that one. I’m not seriously ill but it’s always something. Gallbladder. Tonsillectomy. Right now I’m in Physical Therapy and Massage Therapy for re-injuring my neck. It’s not greatly impairing me, however, it’s well, a pain in the neck. Ha. Or maybe when I have time? I’m starting to believe that if I wait for extra time, I’m never going to have it. It’s up to me to determine what I want to do with my time.

Then I read posts like these: Reclaiming Wife: Do Things That Scare the Sh*t Out Of You and read about my coworker spending the next year exploring the US by RV at his aptly named website: “Someday I’ll Do It, Why Not Today?” And I read about the couple sailing across the Pacific Rim. Now that’s dedication. I admire all of these people – I know they all had fears but that didn’t stop them.

If I think back on when I felt the happiest about my accomplishments the past few years, it was when I was physically strong such as when I was able to pull myself into the white water raft with only my arm strength in the summer of 2007. When I trained and swam in a tri relay in June 2011. When I took 3 overseas trips in a row and didn’t get sick. When I skied the Alps and somehow kept up with the Swiss skier much more advanced than me.

All of the above is pointing me to one Someday/Maybe that I’m starting to believe I can accomplish within the next year and that I didn’t list above: Completing a Full Triathlon By Myself. Most likely a Women’s Only Tri. This was something I didn’t even realize that I wanted to do until I competed in the tri relay. I’m not a runner. I hate running. Oh and I don’t own a bike nor have a place to store a bike. And yet, the more I think about it, the more my workouts are starting to center around swimming, running, and (stationary) biking, I’m starting to realize that I’m getting excited. That I Really Want To Do This. And that’s how things move from Someday/Maybe to Yes, I’m Going to Do This.

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Blogging, Heritage Makers

Updated Blog

So I’ve changed the blog around a bit… I’m no longer a Heritage Makers consultant so I removed all of those links. I still love Heritage Makers and continue to use their site to make projects; however, my day job keeps me plenty busy and I’ve moved on to other interests in what spare time I have. I do have a new “story” I’d like to tell so stay tuned for updates.

– Mary

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Photos, Wedding

Two Favorite Photos

I have two favorite photos from our wedding day: one taken before the ceremony during our “first look” before I put on my dress and one taken after the ceremony. Both photos were taken by family members who captured the moments perfectly.

Special thanks to Rachel and Lindsay T. for taking my absolute favorite photos of the day. I also LOVE the photos our wedding photographer took and of course I made an album.

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Heritage Makers

My Wedding Vendor Recommendations

 

For those that are interested, here’s the list of vendors that we used and loved for our wedding. These are in no particular order…

Caterer

We had Berwick Catering and served the Italian Family Style Meal. The food was delicious and TJ was amazing, helpful and had such a great attention to detail. Everything about the food and all things related to the food went extremely well.

The delicious menu that was served

Make-Up

I used Nicole at Mukha on High Street in the short north. She came to my parent’s house and did a wonderful job!! I loved her and still go to her for brow waxing :) We did a practice round first a few months before the wedding. A close up showing my make-up (fake eye-lashes and all!)

I feel pretty!

Hair

I went to a Amanda at Ultimate Image in Powell. My normal hair-stylist does not do up-dos. I liked Amanda and loved my hair. Of course, we did a practice round and I took a photo of what I wanted.

Getting my hair done before the ceremony

Flowers

Our flowers were from Flowers on Springtree Lane. I love, love, LOVE Anne and Robin. They did a FANTASTIC job and I didn’t give them much detail or information go on with the flowers and I adored how they turned out.

Perfectly pretty

Cake

We went with the Cake Studio. Mmmmm each slice was half-white, half-chocolate with chocolate ganache and fresh raspberries in between with a butter cream frosting. It is their signature cake and we didn’t try any others because we fell in love with this one. Maybe hard to see, but the cake was 5-layers and the different tiers had different designs to match the designs on my dress (another detail I loved that I’m sure no one else cared about!!) You can see some other flowers in this photo:

Oh I want a piece of this cake again!

Band

We hired Big Daddy Blue. They were great :) We worked with the agency Class Acts and they helped with finding a band that was available and in our price range. I can’t remember the name of the girl I worked with (my mom handled this detail more than I did).

A part of the 9-member band, Big Daddy Blue

Invitations

We used Paper Occassions in downtown Dublin. LOVED THEM! We spent a pretty penny on invitations and all things paper because I ended up REALLY caring about this detail. 

Our pretty invitations

Thanks to Lexie, Nicole and my mom for helping assemble our wedding programs

Photo Guestbook 

This was a detail that was extremely important to me and I cherish the personal, touching messages our guests wrote. My mom took our “engagement” photos 3 weeks before the wedding because I was sad we didn’t have any then I threw the book together on Heritage Makers. Here’s what the book looks like (click the photo): https://powerofastory.com/2009/07/16/photo-guestbook/

For a copy of my extremely detailed wedding day timeline please contact me. I’m more than happy to share!

– Mary

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