🌐 #GirlsRock #AtoZChallenge: R is for Rebecca Reid, global development globetrotter

I left school early for a job that sounded like a dream for me.

I got to cover the NFL and NBA (plus high school sports) for a tiny afternoon newspaper. I moved to Morganton, N.C. I slept in two three-hour shifts. One after my desk shift ended around midday.

The other, at night, after I filed my story from Hornets home games (Sometimes, I got up extra early to write instead.)

Rebecca Reid took a more global approach to that fresh-out-of-college job. She’s my guest for #GirlsRock today. I met Rebecca in Target during her 4-month stint in Charlotte. We became friends, and her story of success intrigued me.

🖤 #AtoZChallenge: I is for being IN progress, IMMUNE system meditations and INSIGHT (for #GratitudeAndShit)

He’s trying to figure out what happened to the rest of him.

Confession time: Do you know what the worst part about the #AtoZChallenge is?

It’s not remembering my ABCs. I was an English major, you know. It’s the pace of the thing when you don’t plan ahead enough. I’m behind in keeping up with the baddest (and I mean the baddest) Facebook blog group on the planet, too (the Peaceful Posse.)

To me that’s kind of fundamental, that part of this blogging thing.

By Easter Sunday, I should have read posts for at least three of my sisteren (The PP is mostly women) and those who’ve commented here and also a couple of others in my routine.

🚁 #AtoZChallenge reveal: A post smorgasbord

Much love to you, Seattle. Stay strong.

The A to Z Challenge is upon us.

I thought, man, I’m gonna need, like, a month or two at home just to write the daggum posts to do this daggum challenge this year. Well, I thought that a few weeks ago. And then this coronavirus thing happened.

So there’s no excuse now.

If I craft a post every time I hear COVID-19, that’s enough for 37 Aprils. And have enough to let a blogger named April have 31 for her next A to Z Challenge. Honestly, I don’t have to write much, because the Challenge has become the Month of Purge for me.

🤸‍♂️ 10 things grateful, including stuff that isn’t about my new job #GratitudeAndShit

I’m feeling a bit repetitive lately.

I’m grateful for the chance to write again, to have the time freedom to devote energy to blogging and this universe. I’d like to take that a step further, and get back to those posts I’ve missed so much. Posting all the great #GirlsRocks interviews I’ve had lately is one.

But I miss the Go Ask Daddy posts, too.

The girls ask fewer questions these days, but we have a ton in reserve. I learn a lot doing those posts. And the mindful Monday posts I hate to call Mindful Monday posts, also. There’s a lot going on in my noggin and I love hearing what you have to say about it, too.

🪂 Word to start the week: Glide

The cool thing about being a dad, I was telling Camdyn while putting on my shoes, is that we can wear anything we want.

She gave me that look again, the one you’d see from someone on a practical jokes show. I just kept tying my shoes and didn’t even care they were Adidas soccer shoes with black dress socks. With a Hornets jersey tee and grey shorts with a pattern of fish bones.

I can too, she finally said, and pull it off even better.

So it’s in moments like this I get a bit more clarity why I am these girls’ papa. Clearly, it’s to force them to think on their feet in ways no ordinary dad could do. It’s definitely not to give clarity to life, although I spend an awful lot of time in that sad endeavor, too.

6 words: 🥶 If you could freeze time for 5 minutes but still move, what would you do?

This one’s been on ice for a while.

Six Words posts sprung up on here every month. I had one with triple-digit entries! How in the name of Harry and Helen is going on here? 

Like a lot of stuff I could do younger, I can do this – you’ll have to wait longer for it, that’s all.

I ask friends, strangers, bloggers, and strange blogger friends to respond to a prompt in six words. Ernest Hemingway inspired it with his assertion you could tell any story in six words. Exactly.

🧿 #IBelieve IX: On enchilada sauce, life, and timeless cravings

You gotta believe.

It’s an essential part of being a parent. Or a blogger. Especially a Colorado Rockies fan. There isn’t much in this world that doesn’t get a bit sweeter with belief. In fact, the lack of it is grotesque, like those Poptarts without frosting.

Blech.

In the course of my discourse and my writing, I say stuff. Sometimes, it’s about Ingrid Michaelson or enchiladas. Other times, it’s about beliefs. Not just in Jesus or Buddha or the power of the changeup pitch, but sometimes.

🤯 Guest post: Author Britt Skrabanek, on how to protect your creative mind

A creative mind is a kind of mushy not often found in this world.

Not in a ‘this apple is too old to eat’ kind of way. More in a, ‘you can’t sit on a plate of flan or you’ll flatten it’ kind of way. It’s malleable in all the right ways, and when it’s healthy and strong, the best stuff comes shooting out of it.

Yeah, like sparklers.

Like a new pair of glasses or first-edition Chewbacca figure, it’s best to keep a creative mind protected 24-7 in the box it came in. But what fun is that? And what function? Just don’t sit on your glasses. Or lose Chewie’s crossbow.

🦸‍♀️ Weekend Reads VII: Moms Rock

God, moms.

No, that’s not a redundancy, although it kind of is. Moms do make the world go ‘round. You know I love moms. I feel like moms read this blog. Did you know when I started, I thought, I’m going to write a blog that dads and dudes will read and follow and love.

Yeah, right, a cohort said at the time.

It’s going to be women who read you, she was saying. Moms, mostly. They’ll identify with you and share your stuff with each other. They’ll share with their men, too, but mostly, the men won’t listen. They’ll wish their men were a bit like you.

10 things grateful, plus adios #AtoZ! 🦚

Man – I’m glad the #AtoZChallenge is over.

It’s fun. It’s just … extra. I love going to other blogs I’d not normally see. But the engagement is wonky, and I miss conversing with the regulars here. And visiting their blogs. And having time to post on social media and find your links there, too.

When you’re in the challenge, man, it feels like you’re kind of a narcissist.

Not to mention what it does to your non-blog life. I struggled to keep up, and sacrificed progress toward other deadlines. And sleep. Not snacks. I found time for snacks. But the rest of life was kind of a blur. Next time I do this, I’ll work ahead.