Zero Attention Span

Sometimes, I amaze myself with how completely scatter-brained I am. I have the shortest attention span of anyone I know .. I mean like zero attention span!  Constantly I flit from one thing to another.

You may already have gathered this from my varied crafting interests.  Yes I scrapbook - actually I hardly scrapbook these days - mostly its card-making and digital photobook creation.  My love of paper crafting all extends to quilling.  Some people have never even heard of quilling, and it can be a challenging to find qullling supplies - thank goodness for online shopping.  I also enjoy teabag folding and iris folding - the latter more so than the former.

Then there's yarn and thread.  I knit and crochet as well as quilt and cross-stitch.  Unlike my mother, who was a talented seamstress, sewing clothes is somewhat beyond my capabilities. Yes I can follow a pattern, but I have sewn pants where one leg is wider than the other, and of course, another attempt had one leg longer than the other. Yup, my poor mother would turn in her grave if she knew - so best I stay away from that.

I love the piecing part of quilting as much as I do the actual quilting. If I had to choose I would probably choose hand-quilting but who has that much time? And I love embroidery. Cross-stitch is what I've done mostly, but I just love making pretty things! Ribbon embroidery is another favourite craft.

Did I tell you how much I enjoy jewellery making? The funniest thing about this is that I have little use for pretty beaded earrings, necklaces and bracelets myself, but I love making them.  Last Sunday I took an "advanced" beading class to learn some new techniques, that I'll be blogging about soon enough.

Oh yes blogging ... I have this blog, and www.bc-outside.com, and www.inpursuitoffitness.ca and www.monierakhan.wordpress.com.  That last one is supposed to develop into a travel blog for one day when I become a world traveler.

And then, there are bikes.  I love bikes! That means I ride a road bike, a mountain bike and a commuter bike and I have a spin bike in my basement - a well used spin bike I might add proudly.  Don't for a moment assume that this means I'm athletic, skilled, or fast as a cyclist.  Hours and hours on the road bike make me happy but that doesn't mean I go fast, and I always always always get smoked by everyone on the climbs.  So you may be surprised to hear that I love the long steady climbs like riding up Cypress Mountain.  

Mountain biking  is so much fun, but its usually the easiest trails available and even then I do them gingerly and usually end up with my face in the dirt at some point.  It's safe to say that my enthusiasm far exceeds my skill level.  My enthusiasm is exceeded only by the joy I find doing these things.

What does my winter look like? I snowshoe, ski and snowboard.  I'm a great snowshoer (I'm also a great walker!!), a mediocre snowboarder and a bad skier. Fortunately for me, the requirement for talent is in no way connected to the fun factor. This year I want to start cross-country skiing.  What I really want to do is ski touring  but I'm too cheap to make the investment in gear, and ski touring isn't an ideal option when you're doing things alone. Mostly I play outside alone, and the risk factors with solo snowshoeing are far more manageable.

Fitness? Of course I do 100 things.  I love yoga and pilates, but also enjoy bootcamp and Zumba.  I've been known to run trails and rock-climb too on occasion.  When I'm working out regularly I will lift weights, and sometimes, with great determination, I even get myself to the pool to swim laps.  When the weather's agreeable, my bike (any one of them) is usually my favorite piece of fitness equipment.  My second favorite piece of fitness equipment are my hikers!  I wasn't joking when I said I'm a great walker :)

I could go on about my desire to be artsy and my budding obsession with copic markers and Zentangle .... but I think you get the picture by now.

Then there's my never ending list of learning: I'm learning HTML and CSS now, then I want to learn PHP and MySQL, and learn about SEO and understand Wordpress instead of just using it. But I also want to take my Spanish from pedestrian to functional and I want to learn French so that the next time I'm in France in July I can actually follow the Tour de France!

So here's my theory.  I fully understand that this lack of focus, combined with zero inborn talent, means that I am highly unlikely to excel at any of these activities.  I also fully understand that one of the best things about being in your forties is the ego issues disappear and you care far less about sucking at something. 

When you're having this much fun doing it, who cares how badly you're doing it.