Loving On Shorts

Short stories, that is.

This or some other year of this has been living on my nightstand recently...

I love reading.  Always have.  When I was a child, I would sneak read late into the night under the blanket with a light.  At least I thought I was being sneaky.  Mom or dad would usually come around at some point and tell me to get some rest already, which likely means they were onto me.  Throughout high school, I was of the nerd variety that didn't view assigned reading and the subsequent class discussions and essays as a chore.  I loved it!...well except for when we read Ethan Frome.  That was a snooze of a story if I may say so.

At some point thought, I strayed away from regular reading.  I'm not quite sure when it happened.  I'll still pick up a book and plow through it on an airplane and on vacation, but in my day to day life I've gotten too "busy."  In other words, I don't make the time to make it a priority.  That got me to thinking on something much larger recently.

To often, we stop educating and developing ourselves as adults.  Or maybe that's just me.  I've been working to make a conscious effort to pick up that dropped ball on that end.  This blog (and regularly writing, even if it's not highly edited and critique worthy) is part of that conscious decision.  Reading shorts has been a wonderful way for me to get back to nightly reading.

Part of what I do at my current job (well only for one more week) is festival planning and adult workshop planning.  We regularly struggle to fill seats in our adult workshops, but come family festival time it seems we can't have enough staff and volunteers on hand to assist with the turnout.  One thing I've learned is that parents will take the time to bring their children out to learn about gardening, butterflies, insects, the environment, composting, etc, yet adults don't make that time for themselves.  It's been eye opening.

I spent New Year's Eve in Phoenix with my family and some cousins and uncles/aunts (Hiiiii Phoenix Hetts!).  My Aunt Barbara got creative on us for an activity for the evening.  She whipped out a bunch of canvases and paint and told us to get to work.  No if, ands or buts.  The reaction from us at first was somewhat reluctant.  I'm not an artist.  I don't paint.  What am I going to do with that great big canvas?  Then my younger brother (who's not so young) who is mentally handicap and attends a dayhab 3 times a week that keeps he and his friends busy with life skills development and activities jumped right in and began painting with no hesitation.  Dayhab does for him something I don't do for myself -- it continues to develop him.  Seriously though, can I go to dayhab?  The rest of us got motivated.  It was relaxing and required us to channel our creativity.  I can't remember the last time I did that.  The final result.  That's mine on the far right.  Dan's is on the far left.

Seriously though, when was the last time you painted?  Planned a trip to a museum for fun?  Played an instrument?  Attended a lecture or workshop?

For me, I've decided it's too few and far between.  Time to make a change.