*Butterfly in the Sky - I can go twice as high.....

Day 18 Health Activist Writer's Month Challenge

Today's prompt (yes I am on time with this one) is: Open a Book. Choose a book and open it to a random page and point to a phrase. Use that phrase to get you writing today. Free write for 15-20 without stopping.

I love books - I mean I truly love books. I buy them in paper form, I buy them on my Kindle (sometimes also in print if I really loved the story), and I buy audio versions via audible.com (again I buy the print versions for the really great ones). I keep my kindle in my purse for emergency reading, there are always a couple printed books scattered around the house (yes I read more than one at a time) and I always have an audio book to listen to while driving long distances (or even to the convenience store) and while cleaning.

Thus, I had a plethora of books in my bookshelves to choose from for today's prompt. Choosing a book was going to prove difficult - I mulled over my favorites including Diana Gaboldon's Outlander series (always looking for a chance to get others hooked on Jamie and Claires adventures), but then I saw it, tucked in between "It's Not Easy Being Green And Other Things to Consider" Jim Henson, The Muppets and Friends & "Furry Logic A Guide To Life's Little Challenges" by Jane Seabrook - Randy Pausch's "The Last Lecture" was calling to me.

Opened to page 100, closed my eyes and dropped my finger.

"At Christmas, I had made an adventure out of putting the lights on the tree. Rather than showing Dylan and Logan the proper way to do it - carefully and meticulously - I just let them have at it haphazardly. However they wanted to throw those lights on the tree was fine by me. We got video of the whole chaotic scene, and Jai says it was a "magical moment" that will be one of her favorite memories of our family together"

So there it is - the best way to enjoy life, family, friends and our time on this planet is to do it unscripted. Perhaps doing all things haphazardly isn't the entire answer (wouldn't want to manage diabetes that way) but the little things - they don't need to be careful and meticulous. Making mistakes (not all unscripted haphazard things are mistakes) is a way of knowing you are trying.

I will admit it took me a few years and using my Sweetstuff as a guinea pig to learn that I don't need to: touch up her artwork, remake a bed (btw I no longer even make beds), put out the kids clothes, re-fold towels they folded, or fix the placement of ornaments on the Christmas tree. I can see the difference between trying to make everything perfect when Sweetstuff was little and going the haphazard route with the boys - Sweetstuff is a 'bit' of a perfectionist (don't worry I hope to enroll her in a 12 step program soon) while the boys are more 'fly by the seat of their pants' kinda kids. Maybe it's gender or birth order related but I still accept a bit of responsibility for who my kids are and will become.

Life is too short to spend time trying to make it perfect.

*Reading Rainbow was likely one of my favorite shows on PBS as a kid