My Ideal Day: A Day in the Life Sunday

Have you ever spent time thinking about what your ideal day would look like? Well, I had not until Becky Robinson asked me that very question. As part of a campaign with Jason Womack, author of Your Best Just Got Better, Becky is asking people to describe their ideal day.

I'm in. Are you?

My ideal day is a day without a plan. It begins with me waking up on my own. It's quiet inside the house and even quieter inside my head. Moleskine is hand, I write, capturing free-flowing unedited thoughts while observing how easily they connect if I stay out of their way.

I exercise. It could be a bike, run or hike but it is outside and my thoughts are on nothing other than the movement, the sounds and my strength.

By the time I finish, the family is awake and humming along. Breakfast is a must and an ideal weekend breakfast is brunch-like with oatmeal or French toast complete with nuts and fruit and coffee with Baileys. Oh, bread pudding! The fall in the air today has me remembering a Vermont maple farm brunch I read about but I could be just as happy at a local coffee shop with indie music and a great artisan bakery.

We eat, talk, read, watch TV, walk the dog - whatever. The activity, or lack of activity, is not important. What's important is that we are together, in the moment, with a quiet understanding and total acceptance of each other as individuals and as a family unit. 

My ideal day is not only about what I am doing, it is also about whom I am doing it with. My ideal day is about the state of my relationships and  being present for them by quieting my inner noise. Now . . . a day at the spa, a new look and a great dinner wouldn't ruin an ideal day either.

Photo credit: iStockphoto

Alaska, Udo and Heart: A Day In the Life Sunday

This idea for this post was stolen shamelessly from Jennifer V. Miller and her recent post, What the Heart Knows.

Jennifer writes, "The heart knows what it wants. You just have to listen." and proceeds to share her story about fun salt-and-pepper shakers she picked up on her vacation last year in northern Michigan. She loved them at first sight.

Reading her story, I remembered traveling through Alaska in 2008 with the family unit and coming across Udo, the fisher boy.

I saw this in a store in Juneau. Or was it Ketchikan? I can't recall. What I do recall is I picked it up, put it down and left the store. I did some shopping with the clan and kept thinking about it.

The figurine called  to me. I had to have it so I went back and bought it.

Legend (aka the store clerk) has it that Udo brings you luck when you rub his mukluks. I think of our Alaskan adventure whenever I see it. Yes, I have been know to rub the mukluks from time to time.

So, as Jennifer asked her readers, I now ask you, "What is your heart saying? Are you listening?"