I Gotta Start Somewhere

I live by the 3 S's: Service, Safety, and Sweat. I love to help people, self-preservation is my unofficial middle name (because, you know, Dannette Self-Preservation is just not as easy to say as Dannette Nicole), and I work hard in everything that I do. I do not, however, live by the principle of starting. Well, let me take that back. I have no problem starting my car to drive to various church activities or the library, I can start and fold loads of laundry, and I can start fights with my siblings (it is my prerogative as the oldest child). However, when it comes to starting new activities, getting involved in creative outlets, or trying to complete self-help workbooks, I am seriously lacking. I freeze. Paralysis by analysis kicks in. My perfectionist tendencies drown me. And I go back to the comfort of my couch with a good book or Netflix period piece.

So here I am, a few months short of 30 years old, deciding that I need to make some changes. I don't want to be afraid to take chances and I do not want to run the risk of becoming stagnant when there are so many ways for me to stretch my soul. In the words of Sister Marjorie Pay Hinckley, " I don't want to drive up to the pearly gates in a shiny sports, car, wearing beautifully, tailored clothes, my hair expertly coiffed, and with long, perfectly manicured fingernails. I want to drive up in a station wagon that has mud on the wheels from taking kids to scout camp. I want to be there with a smudge of peanut butter on my shirt from making sandwiches for a sick neighbor's children. I want to be there with children's sticky kisses on my cheeks and the tears of a friend on my shoulder. I want the Lord to know I was really here and that I really lived". And okay, as a single woman with no children, a lot of this does not apply, but you get the idea. I want to learn to roller skate with my sweet new pair of roller skates, mark up the pages of Scripture study books, and learn how to play pickleball without fear. I want to show myself and God that I took advantage of all that life had to offer. So this blog is going to be a way to hold myself accountable with trying new things and as a way to remember the ways that I am pushing myself to grow. I can't promise that you will learn anything life changing here, but I can promise you can watch me change a life, even if it is just my own.

Here's to starting!