Simply Amazing

I am almost finished with Friday Night Lights. It's a television drama about a high school football coach and his family who lives in Dillan, Texas and oh my word I love that show. It's so real to me. It has been my almost-nightly escape for several months now as I discovered it early this past summer as my sister Lori told me I should watch it.

She was right.

But now I only have two episodes left so I'm not sure how I'm going to handle not having Tim Riggins and Tammy Taylor in my living room every night before I head to bed. They've been such good company.

I am amazed at the talents of others. These people can act and make me believe that it is all for real. And the producer of the show? He's the same guy who produces Parenthood, another favorite of mine. I definitely plan to find out what he is producing next so that I can follow it from the start. He has, in my opinion, a unique way of creating a show that makes it stand out from the rest.

Yesterday at lunch we had this Lunch & Learn that I attended with two of my co-workers. Buncombe County has a health incentive that runs for six months and during the course of six months, one has to accumulate 150 points in order to earn an additional lump sum of money at the end of that time period. One of the ways to earn money is to attend Lunch & Learns. Anyway, yesterday's topic was Emotional Spending which, really, isn't my problem. We've lived on a tight budget for so many years that I've never given myself the freedom to engage in retail therapy so much. But Emotional Eating? I got that one down. It's my gift. Anyway, at one point during the seminar, the lady who was leading out passed out magazines and had us find advertisements that clicked with us. I ended up with a Popular Mechanics magazine--not exactly my magazine of choice--and so I began to peruse it, checking out colorful ads of oil for cars and Goodyear tires and men's running shoes.

Nothing tempted me.

But then I saw this really cool watch that had all kinds of fancy gadgets and had a good looking man wearing it and climbing some rugged cliffs.

Ah. Success.

I could buy that for Roy and he will be my James Bond.

I looked over at Heather, my co-worker, who also had a Popular Mechanics and whattayaknow...she had settled on the same ad! Clearly she's not a lover of Motorola or Goodyear either.

And then the lady began to talk about how these companies have become so sly in their advertising methods. They know exactly what to do to appeal to us, even unconsciously, so that we spend our hard-earned pennies on their products.

And again I thought people are so intelligent, so capable. How in the world did they figure that out? And of course it's a bit conniving and manipulative. I get that. But still, the intelligence behind it all is astounding.

We have so much capability at our fingertips. We are only as limited as we think we are. That, to me, is one of the beautiful aspects of teenagers. They are bursting with dreams and possibility. But one doesn't have to be 17 to dream. We all have gifts to share with the world, and if we take the time to figure out what we want, well...it is just a matter of giving it all we've got and making our dreams reality.

My stepmom, Jo, is a phenomenal gardener. When she and Dad visited a couple of summers ago, one of our favorite things to do in the evening was ride around campus in our golfcart checking out all of the flowers and trees and such. She knew absolutely every one of them. Who knows that stuff?? Jo. And if you are ever were lucky enough to see their home, you would know from the moment you looked at it that she has a gift for creating a piece of paradise in her little corner. She has taken the barren, red dirt of windy Oklahoma and turned it into a slice of heaven...despite the heat and wind and dust. It's beautiful.

I am a firm believer in dreaming big, in imagination, in the pursuit of our own definition of amazing. Life is too short to do otherwise.

This past weekend, I was telling Jared how I love being mindless for a bit of time each day--sitting blankly in front of the television and letting it entertain me. He looked at me curiously and said, "Why?"

I simply laughed.

He's right. All those hours wasted on mindlessness could culminate into something grand if I chose. And maybe, when I finish this last episode of Friday Night Lights I'll spend some some time pursuing  one of my own dreams that I have tucked away in the corner of my imagination.

Maybe it'll even turn out to be simply amazing.