Wednesday Morning Freewrite

Photo by @Carol Ann Weaver

I have been up since 4:30, and I hoped to have my time with God and then hop straight into studying and maybe even taking my test to be certified as a Corrective Exercise Specialist, but I have enjoyed exploring things this morning like . . . 

• When is it that our neighbor with the elaborate Christmas light display actually turns on his lights? I get up early in the morning, and there are no lights, but then sometime during the early morning, he turns them on. So yesterday, I knew it was some time between 4:30 and 5:03. So I looked until 20 till the hour. So I sat down and had a Centering Prayer time for 20 minutes and set my alarm and saw them come on little by little at exactly 5 am! Silly, but our whole family wanted to know. So I was the detective.
• How many books have I actually read of the 1000 Books to Read Before You Die List? So I updated my list on List Challenge, and I have read 337 (but several of them I have read are not on this list so it is 342). I am number 9 on the list. :) 
• I made a list of all the things that remain close to being completed but are not done:

DONE: The Corrective Exercise Certification - woke up thinking I could take the test today and probably pass, but I want to really LEARN it so will take this morning to LEARN (since LEARNER is my #1 strength on the ClintonStrengthsfinder). TOOK THE TEST FROM 5-6:30. I didn't realize there was a Practice Exam I could have taken. I saw it when I clicked on it but decided to take the test. I needed every single minute of it, and I thought I did terrible, and then I saw I got an 87%! GO FIGURE. 

Route 66 of the Conquerers Virtual Challenge - 59.6 miles out of over 2,000! (51 miles now - I took a bike ride before the test.) 

OSU Canvas Page for next term - two hours at tops of work to do to get myself set up for Winter Term.

DONE: OSU PAC 194 Submission of Grades for Fall term - it has not opened up yet. It used to always open during Dead Week but NO! It will take me 5 minutes. I am all ready to submit. (As soon as I was done with the test, I got on line, and the grade upload was OPEN! Fall Finis!)

Abiding Podcasts - I have copy to do for THREE podcasts already recorded. Another two have not been recorded yet, but that is out of my hands, and no one has told me when I will get them. Had to let that go. 

DONE! The Sacred Way book - 8.25 pages left!

Master of the Senate - 85% to go, but I am so burned out on LBJs disgusting morality! I really am ending up TOTALLY disliking that man. Immoral and unethical. Enough said, but someone is in line to want this book after me, and I have ten days to complete about 25 hours of listening! (83% left, but now I can blitz it!) 

That is where I am at with all of that. I have 3 minutes more of this freewrite, and I really have to go to the bathroom, but I am going to complete it.

I have been surprised how much I have enjoyed studying for this Corrective Exercise Specialist Exam, and how much of it is a review of what I learned in the Certified Personal Trainer Exam, and how much it has cost me, but probably I have saved that much money in doctor's bills because I know how to keep my back in proper alignment now and am so much more self-aware of where my body is in space. So this has done nothing but benefit me in every way. So I am totally enjoying it, and I am pretty sure I could do great on the exam. I have gotten 100% on all my quizzes, but you never know if the Exam will be like the quizzes, and so it is better to just learn the 500 pages of material rather than sweat this! 

Anywho, I love my life. I will close with this poem by John O'Donohue from my time with God this morning:

You need to be generous to yourself in order to receive the love that surrounds you.

You can suffer from a desperate hunger to be loved.

You can search long years in lonely places, 

far outside yourself.

Yet the whole time, 

this love is but a few inches away from you.

It is at the edge of your soul, 

but you have been blind to its presence.

We must remain attentive in order to receive.

John O'Donohue

Followed by this poem:

When a great moment 

knocks on the door of your life,

it is often no louder than 

the beating of your heart, 

and it is very easy to miss it.

Boris Pasternak