Buon compleanno, Mom

Today we're celebrating my mother's 89th birthday. She lives at the New Jersey shore, and she (knock  on wood) is healthy as a horse. We're hoping we're still doing birthday celebrations for her when she turns 100.  Happy Birthday, Mom!!

This blog post is in response to Natalie Sisson's 10 Day Freedom Plan Blog Challenge Day 4.  My challenge today is to identify 2-3 things I am good at, things Natalie calls my "Super Powers".  She says not to be humble about it.

I had to really struggle with this one. My first thought was to just chuck the whole thing. I don't have super powers. I don't even have any sort-of powers, let alone super ones.  I got the challenge email this morning, while I was at the beach, enjoying my last day of the season.  As I mulled over today's assignment, I was reminded of one of my Cabana-mates, Luca.  (Everyone rents a cabana for the season. I share one with about 18 other people). I promise this is all going somewhere. Just give me a minute.

 Luca is the 4 yr old son of one of the 18.  One morning as I was just arriving at our cabana, Luca and his family had already arrived. We said our hellos, and I went inside to change and gather up my stuff.  On my way out of the cabana, Luca stopped me. He opened his little mouth and started singing a song at the top of his lungs. His mother explained he was singing me a favorite song he had learned at his nursery school. She went on to further explain that he went to a Catholic school, thus all the references to God in the song, just in case I needed that information.  At the end of his song, he stood there with the biggest smile on his face.  Squeaky little 4 yr old voice and all, he stood and belted out that song for me, and then asked me to please wait one minute, he had something to show me. He ran into the cabana. One minute later he reappeared, dressed from head to toe in a Spiderman suit. It isn't Halloween. It's August. And Luca has transformed into "Speeder-Maan" (the correct pronunciation if you are speaking Italian).

These little huts are cabanas

Now back to my task for today's Blog Challenge.  Luca actually believed he was Spiderman. Once in that costume, he wasn't just little Luca anymore. He was a superhero.

I'm thinking I need a costume. If it works for Luca, maybe it will work for me.

I've tossed this around all day. Honestly, I don't possess any super powers. I have a couple of things I'm pretty good at, but I'm not setting the world on fire over here.

So here's what I'm good at. 1) I'm a good teacher, and 2) I'm not a quitter.

Now I better go make myself a costume.

                                     

Turning summer dreams into reality

Ciao, tutti!

Summer is winding down, and I'm not particularly happy about it at all. I have just 4 more days to enjoy my mornings at the beach. During the months of August and September I've been able to spend most mornings over on the Lido enjoying some sun, sand and surf. Time to just do nothing, relax, read, swim, think, dream.  Zen time. I needed it.

BTW- the photo above is the view from my beach chair each morning. 

For some time now I've been wanting to write about our travels more, but I couldn't bring myself to. This blog has always been about Venice, and I haven't wanted to change that. Mike and I have had incredible trips since we've been living in Italy,  but I haven't been sharing any of that. 

My morning beach time has given me the opportunity to do some dreaming about how to make that happen. It's time for me to turn that dream into a reality. The other day I received an email inviting me to participate in a blog challenge program designed to help you find the path to the lifestyle you wish to live. It seemed like exactly what I needed at just the right time. I signed up. 

And so, this blog post is in response to Natalie's 10 Day Freedom Plan Blog Challenge Day 1. The challenge for today is to write about 2 or 3 challenges that keep you from obtaining your goals. My list exceeded 3, but for the sake of keeping you poor readers from running for the hills, I'm going to stop at 2. 

#1  - I am the Queen of Procrastination. I'll find every excuse in the book to waste time. And my best excuse is always "It's nap time!"  If I didn't just twitter (NO- not that kind of Twitter) away a good portion of every day I can't even imagine the things I could accomplish. I want to create a new blog just for travel writing, and that is going to take work on my part. I need to buckle down and just do it. 

#2 - I second guess myself all the time, and end up convincing myself that I can't do things I want to. That I'm not good enough.  I don't want to talk myself out of giving travel writing/blogging every bit of energy so that I do it, and do it well. 

Whew. I got that down on paper.  I've completed the challenge for today. To think about and write down the challenges that keep me from accomplishing my goals. It's a bit intimidating to bare my flaws in front of you. Please don't think too poorly of me! (I'm not too thrilled with myself as I read what I've written.)

Today I also tackled another task that I've been sitting on for the last few weeks. I actually have made a little bit of progress on the new blog.  I had started one, attempted to learn the dreaded WordPress, hit my head against the wall a few times with it, and left the blog sitting in it's infancy state.  To get the features I wanted I was going to have to move the blog to a self-hosting site. That got done today!  I'm one small step closer to getting this new blog up and running.  With some luck, and more than a little hard work, www.HendersonsOnTheRoad.com will be launched in the coming weeks. I'll plan a kick-off party.   

In the meantime, I've got 9 more days to this exciting 10 day Blog Challenge to get through, and a WordPress class to complete! 

Can't wait to see what tomorrow's challenge assignment will be. Stay tuned!