I sit here on my back patio today finally breaking down and writing a much overdue blog post.

For over a week now, I’ve been trying to write a fitting blog that memorializes the death of my farmer friend John. I’ve started it about 15 times and am unable to come to completion.

This year has been filled with death. I know of four people that have passed away since the beginning of the year. I hope that this isn’t going to be the trend of 2014. Not cool. Not cool.

This morning, my best friend Caren sent me a message that one of our former coworkers passed away. She articulates it well over HERE. Rodney was a cool dude. He taught me how to bust my ass with the least amount of energy expended. He taught me how to diplomatically delegate crap that I didn’t really want to do. He had a penchant for Newports and teeny Lithuanian women. He used to bust my balls about my current man of the minute, and I remember laughing with him when we would work the shitstorm of the Grand Luncheon Buffet together. Oh, GLB.

Life is short.

Life is precious.

Lately, I’ve been hyper focused on doing what means something to me, as opposed to doing what “looks” right or fits in the big plan. I don’t really have a big strategic life plan right now. I wake up, do what I need to do, play with my dogs, and do things that make my heart full. Selfish, quite possibly, but after 36 years, I realized that I need to define my own happiness, and not wait for a job, a man, or a random to hand it to me.

That being said, I’m still banking on winning the library so I can fully articulate my life of leisure.