Often successful blogs focus on a project or journey. I think this is a newer trend. The movie Julie and Julia is based on one's woman blog about cooking all of the recipes for in one of Julia Child's cookbook within a year. I've seen blogs about how people take a year and reject consumerism--only buying the absolute necessities while eating foods from their own gardens. Neither of these things are in my wheelhouse. I don't cook and I like to spend money.
However, I've thought about whether or not I should take on a challenge and write about it. Here are my ideas:
- 1. I could live in a nursing home and blog about it. This would be an ideal experience with my career. Of course, I refuse to eat institutional food (I only ate school lunch once in 12 years) so they would have to implement a feeding tube. I should add that this isn't a unique idea. Several people have done this and produced short documentaries, reality TV shows, newspaper articles, etc.
- I could limit my nutrititional consumption to only junk food for some length of time and write about how this affects me. This is along the same thinking of Morgan Spurlock when he did Supersize Me and documented how eating only McDonald's impacted his health. I certainly wouldn't go with McDonald's. I would choose a diet of Red Vines licorice, DQ Blizzards, cupcakes, and animal crackers.
- 3. I could start a dog rescue and blog about saving dogs from being euthanized at shelters. I actually know I could never really do this one because it would be too hard for me when I couldn't rescue every dog. I'll leave this idea to someone else.
- 4. I could move to a nudist colony for a time and blog about my experiences. Fortunately, nudist colonies are generally in warm areas, like Florida (why would a nudist live in Iowa?), so a benefit would be spending time in a warm climate. Obviously, a drawback would be having to look at old naked men all the time. I don't think people generally considered "hot" in our society become nudist. I'm not sure why.
- 5. Here is one I really wish I could pursue...I would like to blog about my students for a semester. (If anyone who doesn't know me is actually reading this---I am a college professor.) I'd like to take one of my classes and write about the development of my relationships with my students, the students' development of relationships with each other, and the issues and problems I have (which are sometimes very funny). I think I could make this really interesting. I also think it would be a good thing for other people to be able to put themselves in the shoes of a professor and see things from my perspective. Why can't I do this? Confidentiality, of course.
- Here's another one I would really like to do but can't. I would like to become a CNA (Certified Nurses Aide) at a nursing home. I could write about the perspectives on life I gain from getting to know the residents. Of course, I don't see a nursing home giving me their blessing to blog about their employees and residents. (As an aside, I assign a book to my students that details one women's experience of becoming a CNA and writing about her experience of working with individuals with Alzheimer's. It's called Dancing with Rose and I highly recommend it. I'll put the link on this page. It's a must read if you know someone with Alzheimer's Disease or a related dementia.)
- 7. I could go a whole year and refuse to buy anything that I did NOT have a coupon for. TLC has a new show called Extreme Couponing which may have impacted my thinking here. This would be an interesting gimmick, but I don't really think it would be a great financial decision. Bill has been doing a great job clipping coupons, but we get plenty of good deals without coupons as well. In addition, I get frustrated when people thinking they are saving money by using coupons when the coupons actually cause them to buy stuff they don't want or need in the first place. I see this on Extreme Couponing. A person doesn't use 100 bottles of mouthwash in their entire life, so who cares if they only cost a dime a piece?
- 8. I could take a kid and travel around entering them in pageants. This idea was inspired by Toddlers and Tiaras and Little Miss Perfect. I would have plenty of stuff to write about. I must admit that I am not a fan of pageants. I think they are ridiculous. In addition, they are expensive, which is one big reason I would never actually do this. Furthermore, I'd have to find a kid.
- 9. We could sell our house in town and move out to the country where we'd have a tiny bit of farmland and some small amount of animals (goats, chickens, cows to milk, etc). I have always lived in the Midwest, but I consider myself a city kid. I've never lived on a farm. Despite what some many think about Iowa, plenty of us do NOT grow up on farms. Anyway, I have a feeling this would be a comedy of errors. I'd learn a lot, but in the end have a deep sense of accomplishment and satisfaction. At least that's what I'd like to think would happen. And our dogs would have a larger area to run. Murphy's ears would be flopping in the wind as he joyously raced around the pasture.
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