My Boring Life

photo © 2008 Owen Massey McKnight | more info (via: Wylio)

On Tuesdays I generally hang out with my best friend. We talk about our families, music, books, whatever. This week we were recapping our day. He told me about some new guitar designs that he was planning, some of the work he was doing in the shop, some entertaining conversations he had with some of the parents of his students. And then he asked what I'd been up to.

And I had absolutely nothing.

Seriously, I did a little laundry, mopped my kitchen, cleaned up in my sons' rooms and that was basically it. I've been in a huge reading slump for months now (I'm re-reading an old favorite right now, hoping it will jump start me back into my love of reading again), so nothing there. I've listened to some new music, but we've been working on new stuff for the band, so most of my listening lately has been Lady Gaga and Bon Jovi. I've been catching up on some television shows that I've missed on Netflix, so I haven't even watched any interesting documentaries lately. We're still in kind of a decompression stage with Jason finishing school and the kids' last day of school was yesterday, so we haven't had a chance to go do any family trips or anything like that.

It's hard to write anything interesting when you're not DOING anything interesting.

Don Miller talks a lot about living a better story. Right now, what I'm doing is not very story-worthy. And since knowing is half the battle (it's always amazing to me that it can take so long to recognize something that is right in front of me!), now I figure the other half is doing something about it.

So here are some of my plans. I relish your input on these.

• Read more: I've got a stack of books sitting here that I haven't read. I'm going go finish re-reading my all-time favorite (A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving), but then I'm going to tackle these other books. Included in the pile: Quitter by Jon Acuff, On Writing by Stephen King, Love Wins by Rob Bell, The Hunger Games trilogy by Suzanne Collins, The Guinea Pig Diaries by A.J. Jacobs and The 11 Secrets of Getting Published by Mary DeMuth. (affiliate links). There are others, but those are at the top. 
• Exercise AT ALL: I downloaded a Couch to 5K podcast. Tomorrow I'm going to wake myself up at o'dark thirty and go make myself start this. Forty is looming. It's time to make a change. 
• Listen to more music: I have downloaded some new stuff from NoiseTrade, but I haven't given any of it the real thorough listening that it deserves. Plus, I haven't busted out any of my instrumental music for listening in a long time. I'm going to try very hard to devote at least an hour a week to simply sitting still and listening to music. Not doing something while I listen, but just listening. I find so much inspiration from music, but I haven't given time to that inspiration lately.
• Visit with friends: I have two friends that I have been talking about getting together with for six months now and we STILL haven't made it happen. This is unacceptable, as they live within an hour or so from here. Tina and Becki - let's get something on the calendar. This is ridiculous.
• Plan day trips with the fam: We've deeply neglected doing much together as a family over the past year. And while that is totally understandable, we definitely have to fix that this year. We're within driving distance to the world's largest fully steerable radio telescope and we've never been. Our hope is to remedy that this summer. 
• Take a month off from blogging: I'm still planning to take August off from blogging (and really, most social media). I've already received my first guest post submission and I'm excited about all of the awesome bloggers who have volunteered to post for me. Seriously, I'm on track for a post almost every week day. If you're interested in participating, shoot me an email. I'd like to have all of the posts in by July 20th so I have time to get them loaded in and scheduled to post ahead of time.

There are probably other things that I need to do to live a better story, but those are at least a start.

What do you do to get out of a boring rut that you've found yourself in? Do you have any book suggestions, musical recommendations, or ideas on how to not injure myself when I go to the track tomorrow? What are your summer plans?