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Archive of ‘Ultimate Blog Challenge’ category

Reinventing Myself

Here I am on the first day of a new blog challenge, wondering what the heck I will write about for 30 days straight. The last time, I did the Ultimate Blog Challenge (UBC), I focused on one of my favorite topics – books and reading. By honing in on my reading life, I now know my likes and dislikes. I created good habits to get the most out of my books. I broke some bad habits and can easily identify what I want my reading life to look like going forward. In short, it was a reinvention of one of my favorite past times

This month, I’m planning to dive into a much larger and deeply personal topic – reinventing myself and what that means for the next chapter of my life and writing career. I’ve done this several times over. It isn’t an easy process, but always a worthwhile one.

The title of my blog is not just a title – for me, it’s a way of life without any sort of manual. I always do my very best. I succeed. I fail. I make mistakes. I learn from them, and I move on. This ongoing evolution began in full force in my formative years as an often bullied and woefully unpopular caterpillar in middle school and high school. Back then, I reinvented myself into a much more confident butterfly in college. So much so that some people didn’t recognize me at my high school reunion. Talk about a metamorphosis!

From there, I went from being a single young adult and budding writer to a wife, mother, and career woman. And then – before I knew it – I turned 50 this past year. It was quite a milestone in many ways. I’m learning to say yes to the things I want and no to everything else. As an inherent people-pleaser, this is no easy task. But in doing so, I am taking a pause to make more intentional decisions about what I want and where to go from here.

This seems like as good of a time as any to reflect on these things. After all, at the end of this coming school year, I will be an empty nester which comes with a host of emotions. Some of them I’m already experiencing like sadness, nostalgia, and nausea. Others will come out of left field. And all I know is that as I get older, I still find myself in situations where I don’t know what to do. The difference now is that I might be expected to know because I have all of this life experience behind me. But the truth is, I’m still learning and growing, and reinventing myself – and that’s what I’ll explore this month through my blog posts.

Care to join me? Whether you are my age or have reinvented yourself at any stage of your life, I hope you find something that resonates with you here. Please share your comments with me, and I promise to reply One of the best things about writing is sharing my stories and then listening to and learning from other people’s experiences. I hope you will share yours with me. And if you don’t have anything to say but like what you’ve read – a simple thumbs up on Facebook works just as well. It helps me tremendously to know when something I’ve written resonates with you. Writing can be lonely sometimes. Hitting “publish” and posting these posts is my attempt at being brave and expressing myself. Your support means the world to me and keeps me going.

I’d love to hear from you!

XOXO

Elisa

Third Time Is A Charm!

A few nights ago, I was ready to give up on the Ultimate Blog Challenge. I had six posts left to write in three days, and I didn’t think I had it in me to finish. I proclaimed my defeat to my son, who looked at me and said, “I’m not going to let you do that, mom. You have to finish what you started.”

And he was right. Smart kid. Must take after me. 🙂

I’m happy to say that I have finished this blog challenge for the third time. While writing can be a lonely activity sometimes, I know I have many people cheering me on. So, without further ado, there are a few people I want to thank.

Thank you to my family, who reads and comments on my posts and supports my writing. You give me permission to write about everything (to a certain extent), and I appreciate you trusting me with your stories. And thanks for doing the dishes so I can spend more time writing!

Thank you to my friends at Philadelphia Writers Workshop and the Ultimate Blog Challenge community who inspire and encourage me to “blog on.” It is a pleasure and a privilege to be among kind and talented people like yourselves. Special thanks to my writing buddy and accountability partner, Heather. Someday, we will both be published authors; I can feel it!

And thanks to everyone who subscribed to my blog, read them regularly, and/or tweeted them out to their networks. And if you were only able to read one or two posts, I hope you liked them and will come back for more.

This month I tried something new and focused on one topic – my love for books. It turned out I had plenty to say on the subject. While I will return to writing about various topics, books will have more of a presence on my blog to inspire others to read and support their local bookstores.

I have also acquired a regular writing habit and will keep going with more posts all summer long. There is much to write about, and I hope you will be here for it.

In the immortal words of Sylvia Plath,

“Everything in life is writable about if you have the outgoing guts to do it and the imagination to improvise. The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt.”

 

Bonus Post – Jeopardy Champions

Last week, I watched the Jeopardy Tournament of Champions. Although it will never be the same after the passing of longtime host Alex Trebek, the thrill of victory hasn’t changed.

This year’s winner, Sam Kavanaugh, is a substitute teacher from Minnesota. He was holding back the tears as the host announced his $250,000 cash prize. I read somewhere that he lost his job during the pandemic, so this win was incredibly bittersweet for him.

His approach to the game was both strategic and courageous. He bet it all on the Daily Doubles and won almost every time. He also started each round at the bottom of the board with the hardest clues. Personally, I love when players never stay in one column for too long. It is much more challenging to answer the $2,000 clues in various subject areas than running the entire category.

Seriously, if you are a librarian or an English lit major, it is a given that you are going to get all the right questions in the Shakespeare category. Where is the fun and element of surprise in that?!

Anyway, back to Mr. Kavanaugh, he was pretty emotional after winning the match against two equally brilliant women. My son, Andrew, and I watched it together, and he asked me why the newly-minted champion was crying. I told him it was because these people train for this show for a long time.

Andrew gave me a strange look because the concept of training for a game show was foreign to him, so I explained.

Auditioning for Jeopardy isn’t like trying to get on The Price is Right. You need more than a fun personality and cute smile to get a spot on Jeopardy. According to Wikipedia, the online test, a 50-question qualifying exam is administered to pre-registered applicants, who have 15 seconds to answer each question. If you pass that test, you get an in-person audition where you answer even more questions and compete against others in a mock-Jeopardy round.

Potential contestants not only need to know random facts in topics from colonial America to world history and pop culture to science and medicine, but they also need to access all of that information within seconds. It is a sprint and a marathon at the same time.

Basically, to get on this game show, you have to be a hard-core trivia buff. These people are usually longtime fans of the show. They have the home game and the app. Friends and family at home support them and help them practice. I know this firsthand because when I was younger, my family helped one of my dad’s friends train, and he went on to become a five-time Jeopardy champion. He thanked us on national television, which was very nice of him.

As you can tell, I’m a fan of the show. When I watch with Andrew, I answer a good amount of questions, and he is impressed. I chalk this up to my age and interest in lots of different topics. But I’m no Jeopardy player. I’ll stick to holding my own in a trivia tournament.

Anyway, congratulations to Sam Kavanaugh. Your performance was a joy to watch and well-deserved.

 

 

 

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