Harder than I thought it was going to be

This "no saying the F-word" thing is turning out to be much harder than I ever suspected it would be!  So far I have made it into day #4 before I blew it.  Some days I start over more than a half a dozen times.  I am currently on day #2.  Again.  It's looking like getting that "No saying the F-word for 7 days" off my list is NOT going to be the easy one!

So why is this so difficult for me?  I was certainly taught better than this.  Saying "Gosh" or "Gee" would have gotten me a scolding growing up, and if I had ever let loose with an f-bomb in my Dad's hearing, I might not have survived it!

And even after my Dad metamorphosized into Mr. Live-and-let-live, he still frowned on vulgarity and coarseness. 

Profanity was NOT something I grew up doing.

In my early 20s I was reading a lot of Stephen King books, and good old Steve liberally salts his books with the F-word.  And I found myself thinking it a lot.  The cure was simple:  stop reading Stephen King. 

Of course it was my 9-1-1 days that really got me going.  You hear a lot of "F#@%" when taking calls from panicked and angry folks.  And my co-workers weren't much better.  Gradually I picked it up.  There were two memorable moments of my use of that word while at work.  Once was during a call.  I don't remember what the call was about, but the guy was literally using the F-word every other word or more.  It got so bad that I couldn't understand him and I needed to do so.  Finally I said "Sir, if you don't stop saying "f#@%" I won't be able to help you since I can't understand a word you are saying."  Silence on the other end, and then he calmly proceeded to answer my questions with no more profanity.

Lucky for me he took it well.  Profanity is expressly NOT allowed, and every word we said was recorded, so if he had complained to my supervisor, I would have been toast.

The second time was even more spectacular.  I was dispatching on one of the police nets and we had a little flurry of cop #1 decides to go to cop #2's call, while cop #1 goes off the call, meanwhile cop #3 calls in a traffic stop with a license plate and then cop #1 decides to go help out #3.  This makes for a lot of typing really fast, with mostly numbers, so that we have a record of who is going where and when they decided to go another place.  I was frantically typing things in and realized that I messed up one location.  Frustrated, I muttered "f@$&" under my breath.  Seconds later a message flashed across my screen from the sgt - "I heard that"  I nearly died!  My foot was still on the send pedal when I spoke, so every cop in Gresham hear me, as well as anyone with a police scanner tuned to that frequency.  Several other cops sent joshing messages, but I waited in fear for the sgt's call to my supervisor.  If he had complained, I was toast.  Lucky for me, he was forgiving.  But that scared me straight for a long time.

These days I find that I can censor my mouth around family and friends.  It is when I am stressed and/or frustrated that I slip up.  But not stressed over big things.  Silly little things will bring out the F in me.  Yesterday morning as I was driving to meet a friend my ear muffs rolled off the seat and onto the floor.  No biggie.  But I realized that I had just said "f$@#!"  And my response to the realization that I had just blown four days??  You guessed it - I said "F@%#" again.

sigh

You might ask why this is such a big deal to me.  You hear it all the time from all sorts of people these days.  But it still strikes me as coarse and unladylike.  I know.  A silly sounding reason.  But it's the reason that I want to knock it off.  I don't want to sound like someone making an appearance on Cops.  I don't want to sound white-trashy and common.  I want to sound like a mature, grown-up woman with control over her mouth. 

So I am back to finishing up day one and getting started on day two.  Just six more days to go....

Nothing

Impossible is just a big word thrown around by small men who find it easier to live in a world they’ve been given than to explore the power they have to change it.

Impossible is not a fact.  It’s an opinion.

Impossible is not a declaration.  It’s a dare.

Impossible is potential.

Impossible is temporary.

Impossible is nothing.

- Mohammed Ali

I have this quote on the front of a notebook filled with my list of 101 things that I am going to accomplish in the next 1001 days.  As you know, some of the things on the list are simple:  keep fresh flowers in the house year-round, go to the Pendleton Round-up, call Mom once a week. 

Then there are those which will take a lot of time and effort to accomplish:  make a wool quilt for Scott to take reenacting, take an online class each term, become an instructor at work, donate and save as much money as I spend. 

Others are more difficult because of the time and/or money involved:  PR a marathon, camp alone at least three nights, see a Steeler game at Heinz field. 

And a few seem to fall into that “impossible” category:  climb Mt. Hood, lose 90 pounds, hike the Pacific Crest Trail across Oregon from the California border to the Washington border.

But there really aren’t any impossible goals on my list.  Each and every one is attainable.  With the patience, hard work, dedication, and willingness to sacrifice to make them happen.

It’s easy to call my Mom once a week.  Pick up the phone and do it.  And it’s enjoyable.  Mom is fun to talk to.  She is still a busy lady.  She has friends and kids and work and church to tell me about.  And, of course, I love her.  So calling Mom once a week isn’t a chore at all.

Donating and saving as much money as I spend will take some self-discipline and self-sacrifice.  Even though we are just talking about my “personal” budget, not the family budget, to slash it into thirds is easy on paper.  But in reality it is tough.  While it is fun to imagine the savings growing and growing, and it is satisfying to make those donations, it is hard to realize that some of the other things on my list are going to take a while longer if I stick to this one.  Yes, you’re right:  I am an American and I hate to say no to myself.

Which leads me to some of those “impossible” tasks.  Let’s be honest, people climb Mt. Hood and hike the PCT all the time.  People who know what they are doing.  People who have prepared.  People who have the right equipment.  People who are in shape.  So it seems that in order to accomplish those two tasks I am going to have to succeed in that other impossible task:  lose 90 pounds.  Because I can’t climb a 11,249 foot tall mountain or hike 430 miles in the late summer/early fall when I am furloughed from work (maybe 6 weeks of time to do it before the rains start up) if I am lugging all of this extra weight with me.  And so out of shape that you can hear me gasping for air half a mile away!

The great thing about this list is that right now, almost all of the things on it are impossible to complete this week.  There is so much time and effort and money involved in completing all 101 items, that it would be impossible to do it all right away.

But if I break down each task and tackle it one step at a time, this list moves from impossible to possible.

Finish my dad’s photo album?  Not right this minute.  But if I work on it for an hour a week, completing one section before I start on the next, labeling photos, and archiving documents as I go, I will find it is completed well before 2013.

Watch all of Katharine Hepburn’s movies?  Not this weekend.  But give me one movie a week and I can do it in 45 weeks.  And have a blast in the process.

Lose 90 pounds.  Not by New Year’s Day.  Or even by my birthday in April.  And the task looks nigh on impossible if I try to lose 90 pounds.  But lose 5 pounds, now that I can do.  And again.  And again.  And again.  I have over two years to get it done, so I know that I can do so.  And there is no reason I have to lose all the weight before I hike the PCT or scale Mt Hood or PR a marathon or run a race in sub-10:00 miles. 

Difficult?  You bet!  Hard work?  No doubt!  Impossible?  Not even close.

What impossible things can YOU accomplish?