Challenge: Blog Every Day in May

When I was in high school, I wrote practically everything down in a weekly calendar.  Everything.  I kept up that habit in college, as it was easy to keep track of homework assignments, a crazy/weird retail work schedule, and any other responsibilities.  I still keep a planner that I carry around with me wherever I go, but lately I've been falling off the wagon in terms of writing things down.  I suppose part of it is because my lifestyle is shifting from super-organized-crazy-busy-plan-every-second to a little more fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants, which I'm enjoying, but it also makes me drop the ball/forget about things, which I don't like doing.

Today, one of my favorite blogs (Blue Paper Lanterns) posted a Blog Every Day in May challenge she's working on, started by Jenni at Story of My Life and it got me thinking - despite the fact that some of the prompts are challenging, I like the idea of being held accountable to a challenge that'll require me to plan ahead a little, do some thinking, and require me to write every day (which, I might add, was on my list of New Years resolutions which I am clearly NOT sticking to very well.)  I haven't quite decided if I'll stick to each and every prompt exactly as is, but I am going to do my darndest to complete the challenge regardless.  I can also appreciate that one of the rules of the challenge is that if I miss a day or two, I can play catch up instead of beating myself up over it, which I most certainly would do.  I challenged Jillian to join me in this venture as well, so I have a person holding me accountable, instead of just my calendar.

Today's prompt: the story of your life in 250 words or less.

(Can I just say, before I begin this, that writing something in 250 words or less is challenging in and of itself for me, as you can probably tell by now?  So I may go over the 250.  Actually, I probably will go over the 250.  Challenge fail?)

I was born on March 4th in a quaint seaside city in Massachusetts.  I've lived in my hometown the majority of my life, aside from the 4 months I lived in Arizona and the 6 months I lived in Los Angeles, until last spring when I moved back to LA for good.  I spent vacations traveling to Orlando, where I fell in love with Disney World, and summers in Maine, where I fell in love with country music, beer and bonfires.  I attended 4 different colleges/universities in 5 years, taking a semester off to do an internship, and graduated with a B.A. in visual communication.  The most exotic places I've been to are London and Puerto Rico.  I've driven cross-country twice, completing each trip in a little over 3 days.  I wanted to be a dolphin trainer until I realized I was bad at biology, and then wanted to be a Disney character until they rejected me from their college program (okay, part of me still wants to be a Disney character, I guess.)  My first real job was working for a cancer non-profit where I helped recruit volunteers to train to run a marathon or do a century ride while fundraising, and met some of the most amazing and inspiring people I'll ever meet in my life.  I'm currently learning how to cook by reading cookbooks, living with my boyfriend in my first real apartment, and getting back into exercising.

(Was that around 250?)

If you're interested in the challenge, you can get the skinny here: