Rejected!

You know what's kind of sad? I had to have my wife explain to me the difference between Memorial Day and Veteran's Day. Please forgive me for my ignorance. (Edit: Apparently I'm not the only one who didn't know what it's about).

You know, it seems like almost weekly that I post something on here along the lines of "I failed" or "I missed a goal." I'm actually surprised at how often this happens while I'm trying to achieve my 111 in 2011, but I'm also surprised that I'm not getting discouraged by these missteps. Usually, when something gets difficult, I throw my hands in the air, roll my eyes very dramatically, and give up. However, that hasn't been the case this year (as evidenced by what I wrote here and here).

I've messed up quite a bit as I've tried to achieve my goals for the year. In trying to live a fuller life, I've probably made more "mistakes" than I ever have before. But that's definitely not stopping me. I'm reminded almost daily of how precious my life is, so I want to make the best of it, even if that means falling short a time or two.

My most recent "failure" came at the hands of the wonderful Pioneer Woman. Now before you start throwing stones, I have to admit that I love PW's site. When I first got my D-SLR camera, I spent hours going through her photography posts, trying to learn everything I could about the art of taking pictures. Because of my admiration for The Pioneer Woman, though, I decided to set a goal this year that is ultimately up to her discretion. I want to have a photo featured on her photography blog!

Every once in a while, The Pioneer Woman runs contests that are themed where you can submit one photo a day to her for judging. She picks the best photos from the lot and the finalists win prizes. Unfortunately, Ree (The Pioneer Woman herself) has millions of photos to glean from every time she puts on a contest. Therefore, the odds of actually getting a picture chosen are ridiculously minuscule. However, that wasn't going to stop me from trying.

The Evolution of Failure

So it's 7 AM, and I just learned the word "chronobiology." Since I already learned something new today, can I just skip to tomorrow?

_____________________________________________________________________________

"Fail" is a funny word. It's one letter away from being something shiny and fun to play with (foil, in case you were wondering) and about 53 letters away from being my all-time favorite meal (steak, mashed potatoes, and corn on the cob with a cold can of Pepsi - but you already knew that). 

Oddly enough, this word has been transformed into something almost positive in the last few years. It started as a simple way for a teacher to crush a student's hopes and dreams and has evolved into something of a buzzword that usually describes events that are so ridiculous that they actually aren't failures because they're so stinking funny.

Exhibit A: Failure that's actually failure.

Exhibit B: Funny failure, and therefore, a win, which isn't failure at all.

I fail on a daily basis. This is no surprise, because recent testing has shown that I am indeed 110% human. This leads me to believe that I could have probably created FailBlog, but instead of doing that and becoming filthy rich, I probably decided to take a nap or something. Priorities, people. Needless to say, I failed and created Life Before the Bucket instead. I'll get over it.

A couple of days ago, I failed twice in approximately five minutes. 

I'll let you decide if they were winning fails or failing fails.

My 111 in 2011: Falling Short

If you've been reading this blog for any amount of time, you may have noticed a trend. I have this really bad habit of going on what I have officially deemed "blog spurts." And they're just what they sound like. I get in the mood to blog and come up with 70 ridiculous ideas in a row to blog about. And then... nothing.

So, for the last 9 days I've been wanting to blog, but my fingers haven't let me. I'm not really sure what that means, except that I haven't been motivated in the least bit to blog. I'm pretty sure I know why, though. I knew that this post I'm currently composing would have to come eventually. I've just been avoiding it at all costs.

I know I tend to be pretty light-hearted when I write here, and that's purposeful. I believe we take life entirely too seriously. However, there are definitely times in life where reflection is good. This is one of them. Sort of...