New Year, New Blog, New Lists

So, I've decided to start yet another blog. Hopefully, I will actually maintain this one better than I have previous ones. I really think I will, for a few reasons...most of which are reasons for starting the blog in the first place.

First of all, I have been admittedly trolling around on a few other CF (Cystic Fibrosis for the as-yet uninitiated) blogs that have inspired me to start my own. A few years ago when I went out into the big wide world (web) looking for other real live humans with this crazy disease, I was frankly disappointed by what I found. Sure, they were out there, but most of what I ran across - "support" sites, message boards, and the like - were so despressing and not at all an inspiring picture of what my future would look like. Many (not all) of the people seemed to do little but do their treatments, inspect themselves for symptoms, and complain. Like I said, it wasn't everybody, and I know that I probably only got the tip of the iceburg in CF-internety-population, but I decided that if that's what CF "support" looked like, I'd probably just be better off without it.

Not long ago, I ran across the blogs of a few others which I have been reading for a while, some with CF, some not, some pre-transplant, some post-transplant, some-I'm-so-not-anywhere-near-transplant, etc. All of them were inspiring, and honestly, exciting to me in their own ways though, primarily because THEY ALL HAVE LIVES! They have jobs, and friends, and hobbies, and close-to-normal lives! Reading theirs, I realized that I too, could in fact have a blog that talked about my CF, and didn't hide from/disguise my CF, but integrated other, normal life things and still consider it a CF blog. So voila! This blog is born. I'll post later about how CF has affected/affects me, but for now, just know I'm excited to be blogging again, and even more excited to be able to comment and respond to the people I've been reading about without sounding like a creepy troller (and hopefully glean some wisdom from those-who've-gone-before-me about how to navigate various nuances of this crazy CF nonsense).

Second of all, also inspired by many of these blogs (and others that are less/non-CFish), I have created a "101 things in 1001 days" list, which I'll be posting later as well. The basic point is to make a list of 101 realistic, stretching things to do in the next 1001 days, or about 2.75 years. In college, once I got over the shock of getting and staying much sicker than I had been before, I put my nose to the grindstone and really didn't let up much except to take care of my health and the much-too-occasional night out with friends. While I am proud of and grateful for my renewed sense of work ethic, there's a little part of me that's afraid I'm going to keep working so hard and putting off the fun stuff for the future, that all of the sudden it will be the future (or, if I'm honest, the end) and I will have spent my whole life "waiting until." So, partly as a means of accountability, and partly as a lazy-girl's scrapbook of all this nonsense, I've started this blog to track my progress as I cross things off this list.

Seeing as how it's New Year's Eve, and I'm a touch compulsive about dates and starting things, the clock starts tomorrow on my 101 things. Here's hoping the next 1001 days are some of the healthiest and most fun yet. For now, I'm off to work out, shower, get ready, and start making potstickers for this evening! Happy New Years, everyone!