Can You Conquer Your Fears?

Everyone is afraid of something but do your fears keep you from enjoying life? Do they make you too dependent on others? Do they prevent you from being the person you want to be? There is a nice article at Zen Habits about all of this. Author Doug Heacock gives you "Five Great Ways to Conquer Your Fears."

Go Weightless: Try a Zero Gravity Flight

I've seen TV personalities laughing and floating on zero gravity flights but I never thought of it as an experience for the common woman. Well, I was wrong. If you have been saving your pennies (lots of them) you too can walk on the ceiling, gulp floating water droplets and have the time of your life.

Charles Platt has written a terrific article for Boing Boing about his experience aboard G-Force One, the special aircraft used by the Zero Gravity Corporation. The flights offered by Zero G are the only way one can experience weightlessness without going into space. The company uses parabolic flights to help passengers become lighter than air -- the same method that NASA uses to train astronauts. Anyway, Platt's article is both entertaining and informative and worth a read.

Just in case you're thinking you're too old for weightlessness, one of Platt's fellow riders was a woman who had signed on as a way to celebrate her 90th birthday. And, in case you're wondering why anyone would want to do this, here are a few words from Zero Gravity Corporation Cofounder Peter Diamandis as they appear in Platt's article:
“I’ve experienced it 70 times, and it’s still an amazing amount of fun. It’s a sense of pure joy, a magic show, a feeling of bliss, a return to a childhood state. It creates a true sense of wonder. It’s hard, as an adult, to have a new experience that is so transcendent, because normally everything you do is a slight variation of something else you’ve already done. But here is something completely different and wonderful.”

Skiing & Snowboarding Just for Women: Telluride's Women's Weeks for 2009

Sure the holidays are coming but put down your to-do list for a moment and think about the fun of skiing in the Rockies come January, February and March.

Telluride, Colorado, is going to host three separate "Women's Week" programs in 2009. Each "week" (actually a few days) is devoted to women learning from and skiing (or snowboarding) with other women. Each Women's Week begins with a welcome reception, instruction, video analysis of ski technique, after ski events, celebration dinner, stretching, spa, discounts, gifts and more.

For more information on each event, click on a date below. Or you can visit tellurideskiresort.com and click on the Ski and Snowboard School link.

Dates for Women's Weeks 2009 are:

January 21 – 23, 2009

February 8-12, 2009

March 1-5. 2009



image from Dreamstime

Books Can Have Adventures, Too

"...BookCrossing, where books have adventures of their own."


I haven't put this to the test yet but here's the concept: Your pile of paperbacks is taking over your living area and it's time to clean house. What to do?

1. Go to BookCrossing.com, open an account and register your surplus titles.
2. As you get a registration number for each book, type in where you plan to "release it." You can "release it into the wild," which means leave it so a stranger can find it or you can do a "controlled release," which means hand it to someone you know.
3. Paste a BookCrossing label and the registration number onto the book you are about to release.
4. Release the book.

Since your book has a registration number, the person who finds it (receives it) can look it up on BookCrossing and see where it's been. When the new reader is ready to release the book again, they can go to BookCrossing and type in the new release location. You'll be able to follow your book as it travels the world with assorted readers. According to BookCrossing's homepage, they currently have 724,017 registered humans and 5,215,158 registered books all around the planet.

Start a book club

You may be wondering how a book club could be adventurous. Well, if your reading has become limited to waiting room magazines or books for baby then a novel would be an adventure. If you ALWAYS read the same author/series/genre then branching out would be an adventure. If you are shy about expressing your opinion in front of a group then discussing a controversial book would be an adventure. If your days are filled with meetings or diapers or driving or anything that doesn't involve having relaxing fun and using your mind then a book club would be an adventure.

Here's what you need to do:
1. Call a bunch of friends and ask them if they want to start a book club. If you don't find a lot of interest have your friends invite some friends.
2. Hold a meeting (food and drink are always good here) and set up your ground rules.

Ground rules? Yep, here are some basics that will help you get things rolling. How many women should participate (just a few, the whole apartment building)? How often will you meet? How will you pick your books? Where will you meet? Will food be part of every meeting? Once you've got these basic areas covered you're good to go.

Listed below are a few online links to help you get your book club off to a great start:

Amazon.com is a great place to buy books for a group. The site offers good prices and free shipping for orders over $25.

About.com has links to discussion starters for a lot of popular titles, the site also has a list of general questions that can apply to most books.

Book-Clubs-Resource.com has discussion help as well as information about every other book club issue including on-line book clubs.

For FREE advance copies of new releases, check out Random House's e-newsletter ReadItForward.com

Why Obsession Can be a Good Thing

Piggybacking on yesterday's post about finding your "other" life. Here's an inspirational article from Zen Habits. Click here to learn why "Discovering your Obsession Can Lead to Your Greatness."

What's Your "Other" Life?

I became aware of “other” lives a few years ago when the two people who shared a nearby office told me about theirs. Yvonne revealed that after she left work, she became the late-night voice of a local radio station. I was stunned by this and then Ted disclosed that he spent his other life as the play-by-play man for college football. I was embarrassed that my other life revolved around sitting on a couch or possibly grocery shopping.

Since my initial discovery, I have learned that many people complement their “pay-the-bills” or “take-care-of-the-family” lives with other lives. Here are just a few of the real people I know: Christine is a curator by day but in her other life she is a make-up consultant for Chanel, Cynthia is a rocket scientist with NASA as well as an accomplished martial artist, Maria teaches special needs children and runs marathons, Lori is a nutritionist who travels the world as an amateur astronomer, Karen is a research scientist who spends her free time on a Harley.

Each of these women found that it was important to not only have a career but to follow a dream. What about YOU? If you don't have an other life, think about what you have always wanted to do. What would make your life more fulfilling-interesting-fun?

Stuck? Why not make a list of all of your interests, and see if anything sparks your imagination? If you're like me, this task may give you instant brain freeze so here's some help. Click here for Wikipedia's very long list of hobbies and here for another 206 ideas from NotSoBoring Life.com

I'm happy to say that I have another life these days and its keeping me off the couch. What's YOUR other life?

The Adventure Starts Here.

In these first few hours following the most amazing presidential election in my lifetime (in the history of this country!) I am stuck on the thought that no matter what you want out of life, it is do-able. Dreams do become reality. So today, while the hum of possibility still electrifies the air, think about what inspires you. Think about the adventurous path you want to follow. Grab a piece of paper and write down what you want to accomplish in life. Tack it to your refrigerator, look at it everyday and say to yourself, "I can do it, yes I can!"