The challenge is to write for 20 minutes every single day for 30 days.  This may seem simple enough, but for whatever reason I have found keeping up with such a task to be rather difficult.  I hope that making it a part of this larger challenge that I am doing will encourage me to follow through on this challenge.

The larger challenge is about doing something new every single day.  This can be something large like going on a trip somewhere I have never been before (I plan to go to Italy this year, for instance) or as small as brushing my dog’s teeth.  I have made a record of all my things so far except for one that happened this last Sunday January 23.  I did do something new that day, but it was incredibly unexpected. 

Sunday mornings I have to drive to work rather early in the morning.  I tend to leave around 6:30a.m. to get to work by 7:30a.m. It had snowed Saturday night and when I got on the road Sunday morning it was clear that the snow plows had not been out yet, not even on the highway.  It was dangerous enough getting to the highway, I had trouble stopping a couple of times.  But I thought that once I got on I90 I would be fine.  Unfortunately the roads were truly awful.  At one point I lost control of my car and slid across three lanes of traffic and then back again before I was able to regain control of my car.  I was able to keep myself from spinning out or sliding into the median, and I was very lucky that there was no one on the road beside or in front of me.  It was truly terrifying.  Eventually I steadied the wheel and took my foot off the break to gain control.  Needless to say, I had never had an experience quite like that, nor had I ever had to regain control of my car after so completely losing control.  So this was a first, and I hope to God it will be the last.

Needless to say I was pretty rattled when I got to work.  It took an hour and a half to reach the church, and my adrenaline was pumping the whole time. 

That’s the thing about firsts, sometimes they just happen to you. 

I have been doing a lot of crafty things for my firsts lately, and there will be so many more, but I will also be going to more places as the weather warms up (it is currently 14 degrees Fahrenheit) I want to visit all the museums in my area, and I have several larger and longer term goals that I will need to begin work on as well. 

Today I decided it was time to figure out a way to remember how many days go into each month.  Are there any small things that you never got around to learning with any proficiency? Like calculating a percentage for a tip, or tying a tie?