I’m not much of one for New Years resolutions. Occasionally I tinker with them or make jokes about choosing resolutions I know I can keep like- eat more chocolate or buy more shoes.

But suddenly I have inexplicable urge to do something this year to further the BlissQuest and encourage not, goal setting per se, but give myself a better, more structured framework for which to enjoy this life experience.

I’d like to present to you my new project – 52 adventures

One of the things I’ve discovered about setting out to live a life of bliss is that I really must pay attention to the details of what’s going on around me. The most spectacular things happen/exist in often what is the most ordinary moment or everyday collection of circumstances.

I want to live an Epic life. A life of Bliss. A life of Adventure.

This is not an easy feat when I work a corporate job full time, and do other freelance jobs on the side as well as sit under a publishing contract that will pay me nothing – I repeat nothing – to do a full year and more of writing and photography. Those are a lot of responsibilities that leave little left over for the scale of life I want to be living.

So the only alternative, the only other way to live an epic life is to realize and then celebrate that epic is right under my very nose. It’s in the everyday happenings of what I witness, hear or participate in.

Epic can be found in watching the better nature of people around me prevail in challenging situations. Epic can be found in the conversations in a grocery line, or the happenings of an impromptu trip to the coast or a visit to the animal shelter.

I can live an epic life – between the lines of my every day. Sometimes I am aware of it only after its happened and I sit down to blog it. Sometimes I recognize it while I’m in the moment, but infrequently. Yet even still, I rarely put forth the planning to nudge everyday moments into becoming adventures of epic proportions.

It started percolating in my mind the week I challenged you all to live a tiny adventure. Then as the months passed I thought – I can do this… I can live an epic life, one small adventure at a time.

What about all those things I’ve always wanted to do and just never got around to. What falls behind my work schedule and gets shelved by writing? What tiny adventures that create epic living have I set aside for “when I have time”?

I want to get my back tattoo finished. I want to see New Zealand. I want to learn to surf. I want to travel around Greece, Scotland, and Prague. But these are bigger more expensive things and as I compiled them I thought of this…

What about the small adventures that I can fit into my busy schedule? What about teaching myself to pay attention to the details more so that when I CAN travel to these exotic places and do these larger things – I am practiced at experiencing the whole adventure in surround sound and full-blown color?

Practice living epic on a small scale so when I’m on a larger scale I have the wherewithal not to be overwhelmed and I can take more in!

Hence, the 52 adventures of things I always want to do that I can fit into a modern life of having a career and a social network. We are all busy people on a budget, but I believe I can have an epic life full of amazing adventures on a skimpy budget of both time and money.

It just takes a little creativity – of which I have plenty.

So my plan to seek out an adventure a week will be everything from; horseback riding, self defense classes, a trip to Mt. St. Helens, a drive to Vancouver BC, trips to the coast, a weekend at the soup kitchens, Crater Lake, the animal shelter, and when I am seriously tapped for time/money/energy there is always the made up adventures of passing out notes to strangers, riding the MAX and people watching, attending a free concert, picnicking and etc. etc.

The whole point will to be that I must learn to discover the magic in any given adventure – however great or small.

I purchased the domain name –www.52adventures.com where I’ll be cross posting the selected adventures that will also subsequently be a part of the BlissQuest but I’ll at least have the URL forward back to me until I get it set up. I estimate that the adventures will begin in earnest with the website fully operational at the beginning of February 2010.

Therefore, to sum it all up – this is not a New Years resolution in a traditional way – but I guess it inadvertently happens to be a deal made with myself and with you all – that I will make a more concerted effort to live a fuller and more fruitful life of epic and entertaining proportions.

I wish you all a Happy New Year and a wonderful 2010! May you all have a delicious someone to kiss! May you all have all the courage you ever wanted, the beauty of life you fully deserve and the bliss… oh, gods, I wish you all as much Bliss as you can possibly handle.

Adios 2009!

Well, hello there, 2010! Let the adventures begin!

Yesterday’s snow storm stalled traffic in a terrible way all over town. Kenya stayed at my place last night rather than go home since her commute is so far. Even though most of my coworkers only commute 20 minutes – it most of them nearly 2 hours to get home.

It’s funny to be in a city where I’m so scared of driving in snow conditions purely because I’m terrified of the other drivers on the road who have no concept of their skill level or what their machines are capable of.

Even knowing that my jeep is not built for snow conditions means I can only go as fast as the weather and the capability of my rig and tires can manage. As I was turning onto the street by my house I hit a patch of icy snow and slid sideways into oncoming traffic. A couple of people on the sidewalk came to check on me as the dude who’s been tailgating me flew past me honking angrily, and traffic was stopping so I wouldn’t get hit they were going in turns around my vehicle. After I locked my tires in the 4w drive I managed to get home in one piece.

The only issue I have with owning a jeep is the combination of road tires and a high center of gravity make for dangerous driving – which is embarrassing as an Alaskan woman who used to be able to get around on roads with a foot and a half of ice and snow on the highway in my blazer and even did better in a Volkswagen Bug than my jeep does, but it’s not worth getting a whole new set of winter tires for the two days of snow we get. However that doesn’t stop me from being embarrassed about my lack of Alaskanyness.

All that being said, it was fun to have an impromptu guest. We stayed up too late talking and had breakfast before going to work. Princess Buttercup is not happy about having to go outside to go to the bathroom and prances between shaking snow off her paws.

For the short time we actually have the white stuff, It’s pretty and novel. I just hope it doesn’t stick around, because I’m not a fan.