Top 40

Over the past several months, many of my friends and I have hit the big 4-0 milestone, and celebrated in any number of ways. I don't think it's a coincidence that our urge to get healthy has bumped up a notch at the same time.

One of the women, Perrie, is an incredible inspiration to me. In addition to turning 40 in December, she is also celebrating 5 years of survivorship after being diagnosed with breast cancer in 2004. Perrie came up with the intriguing and sometimes frustrating goal to list 40 things we'd like to do this year...things that force us outside our comfort zone and signify non-scale milestones.

I have really struggled with this after putting two things on the list that I had already done, and not by choice. To celebrate my birthday, a group of girls surprised me by taking me to a Greek restaurant where I was plied with Ouzo and urged to belly dance on the table. Later, we went to a local bar (doubling the average age of the patrons as soon as we hit the door) where I was cajoled and bullied into riding the mechanical bull. Outside my comfort zone? YOU BET!

But after those two things, it's been tricky. The belly dancing class we took in December gave me one more, but three is a long way from 40!  Luckily, though my weight loss has pretty much stalled with the restrictions on walking and general laziness during the winter, my friend has rolled right along and is over 60lbs down!  To celebrate, we took a Zumba class on Friday night.  What an awesome workout!  My foot was a little tender, but I just couldn't help moving to the music.

So I'm up to four things on my list.  A tenth of the way there with no new ideas in sight.  Oh, I take that back.  I did set a goal for myself to enter a quilt in a show other than my own guild.  So that's five. 

What challenges you?  What would you put on the list?