An Introduction - I Turn 50

I turn 50 this year. I work full-time, I have two teenaged daughters, I live in the suburbs of Chicago, I am completing a four-year stint on a board, and two years ago I joined not one, but two book clubs. I have no time to be in one book club, let alone two. I try to read every night. It lasts about 90 seconds and then the book hits me in the face, I turn out the light and try again the next night.

I am a regular patron at the public library and I carry a book with me all of the time. The one exception was in August. I was going to sit down for one hour for a pedicure. I checked my car, my glove box, my trunk and my purse. No book. Luckily, I was next to a "dollar" store of some type. I went in and bought a notebook/journal. Over the next hour I started a list of 50 things I wanted to do in my 50th year.

I am fortunate, very fortunate. I try to express my gratitide and be grateful daily. But even I, with my priviledge, support system, and means, cannot complete 50 new things in a year. When I looked at my list, I thought, in reality, I could only complete about 6-11 new things. I decided to expand my scope to give myself a decade to complete 50 things. 

So that is where I begin. A $1 journal. A list. A pedicure. A decade.

Jill