Do you remember that Dunkin Donuts commercial they used to play all the time in the early/mid 80’s where the little guy with the mustache is like “Time to make the donuts…” and you can tell its like ungodly early in the morning and he is 100% uninspired about the donuts, but the whole point of it is no matter what, some little guy is cranking out fresh donuts all hours of every day… Well that is how I am feeling about this blog right now. “Time to write a blog post…” That kind of has a nice little ring to it… Anyway, it would be nice if I could post every day or even every other day so there could be something fresh albeit without pink frosting and sprinkles for everyone (I use the term “everyone” loosely, I mean all of you dozen or so awesome people, including the Goldbergs and my mom, who check in for my ramblings), but somehow there are not enough hours in the day when I have something fantastic to say, and in my spare moments sometimes it feels like I don’t have anything worth saying. (Although you can ask Dan, this is rare).

Today however is my day off (don’t get all excited and hate me for having a weekday off, I am working Saturday. If you want to hate me, hate me because I basically never work a full 40 hour work week. I don’t think I have done this since I moved to Colorado. Not that I couldn’t do it, I have for most of my professional life, but I have just never liked it and considering this is working for us, I am going to keep it this way for as long as I can).

Anyway, today is my day off and so there loomed BLOG in all caps on my to-do list. A race report is my favorite default blog topic, because it saves me from having to think of a topic, but I haven’t ran a race since the Boulder Backroads half marathon a couple of weeks ago, so that’s out. What else… I would like to pre-write a race report for my upcoming marathon, but that’s a little too new-agey and personal to write on my blog, although I might do it for myself, just to create my future, or hold the space or whatever. A lot of people in Boulder talk about “holding space” and I am not sure what that means, but I like saying it. It makes me feel crunchy and enlightened, like part of the Boulder gang. When we were kids my older brother used to tell jokes I did not understand but I would always laugh at the punchline anyway. Old habits die hard, I guess.

Anyway, speaking of new-agey holding the space of creation of destinies, the best advice I ever got from my mom (beside “Never trust a man who says ‘Trust me'”) was that if you want something really badly you need to say it out loud four times. Actually, she got it from Elizabeth Gilbert when she said it on Oprah, but I consider it advice from my mom because I never saw that Oprah episode (and while we are on the topic, why, why, WHY is Oprah not on Hulu? Oprah is all about helping people, which is great, but what about helping the people who don’t have a TV? What about us, Oprah? We are people too and we would like to watch your show! And you too, Ellen! I don’t want to see clips. I want FULL EPISODES!). So anyway, my mom said on Oprah, Elizabeth Gilbert (author of Eat Pray Love) said if you want something, you have to say it out loud four times. I was very skeptical at first, but I did it. And just to clarify, I wasn’t like “I want to find my keys. I want to find my keys. I want to find my keys. I want to find my keys” even though I misplace my keys a lot. And my phone too. I save this for important requests.

I have done it for a few things and IT WORKS. I don’t know how, I don’t know why, but the beauty of it is you have absolutely nothing to lose. It only takes less than a minute. Even the most busy of people have time for this! I am tempted to use it right now to just to request the universe grant me something to write about, but I don’t want to waste the power of The Great Four Time Ask. So far I am three for three since 2008 and I don’t want to screw up my streak, so I am going to save it for something more important and write about nothing in the meantime.

And about writing about nothing- I have realized something really interesting lately, at least interesting to me- Writing and working out are very similar… For one thing, both are things that you might be really inspired to do, but chances are you aren’t. You need to just get started and then there is a very good chance you will get into it once you get going. Or you might just slog through it and hate the whole thing but at least when it’s over you feel like you at least did something and you feel a little better than when you started. Also, working out and writing aren’t like other tasks, such as cleaning your car or unloading the dishwasher- you can’t just put it off till tomorrow. You need to do it regularly or else you will lose your ability to do it. Of course you can get back to where you were, but it will be harder and it will take time. You lose a little fitness or creativity every day you stay away. You need to be disciplined, because you can’t just wake up one day and write a novel (or maybe you can, I don’t know about that, if I am wrong, can someone tell me how, if you know?? Please???), the same way you can’t just get off the couch and run a marathon (well). It takes practice, and sometimes you will feel great in the process and sometimes you won’t but you have to just keep doing it. Actually that is what our book club book is kind of about, why we as humans have a hard time with discipline… once I finish the book (I only have till 6:30 tonight!) I will write book review. Oh how lovely, another freebie blog topic for when I feel like the Dunkin Donuts guy, and I’m all Time to write a blog post… Stay tuned.