GOMO // 12 Ideas to Get You Walking

Eventbrite, the largest self-service ticketing platform out there (!) coined the new term, "Go Out More Often," abbreviated "GOMO," made up to counteract this other term, "Fear of Missing Out," abbreviated (betcha can't guess) "FOMO."

I don't have any, like, any (ANY) desire to go out more often, and I can't relate to this fear of missing out that people seem to have.  I've got lots of school to do these days, and when I'm not doing school, I'd like to be all nicely cooped in my house doing crafty thangs.

BUT, I do enjoy a good walk now and then, so when I started brainstorming a list of ideas, I actually got really excited about the idea of going out more often, if only to go on a walk!  Perhaps you could use Eventbrite's event management software to host your own walk of sorts, like a charity event or something!

Many people who write posts for EventBrite put "Go on a walk" as one of their listees.  I decided to  go all out with that one option.  I tried to make all of these ideas free of the need to spend any money.  However, many of these, if not all, require a good bit of time.  Also, most of these would be best done someplace with many people, and like, in a cool dowtowny place.  As I made the list, I kept thinking of downtown Wake Forest near us.  It would be so much fun to tramp around there!

Sooo, here is a list of all sorts of different walks you could go on to Go Out More Often!

• Scavenger Hunt >> Come up with a list of things to look for, based on where you're walking, and check them off as you find them!
• Word Search >> Come up with a list of words to find, words you would expect to see where you're going, and some you wouldn't expect.  Bonus if you can find words you didn't expect to see!
• Talk to Total Strangers >> Come up with a list of random and silly questions, and then go to town or somewhere with many people, and ask random people your random questions!  And then give them candy or something for their participation.
• Random Acts of Kindness >> This isn't specifically a walk, but I mean, how can you do this without walking some?  Honestly, this idea kind of scares me a little.  I'm like, "You said what now?  You want me to advance out of the regions of my comfort zone and talk to people - total strangers (again)?!"  But it's a very good thing to be kind to everyone all the time anyway, and this is an opportunity to share the love of Christ!
• Hide-and-Go-Seek Walk >> This would be a good option if you have four or five people.  Together, plan your route, and then everyone except "it" will hide somewhere along the route.  (It might be a good idea to have everyone meet at a certain place after some amount of time.  You don't want to seek for too long!)
• Not Halloween Walk >> We've never done Halloween, and I'm totally cool with that, but I still really like the idea of giving out candy to total strangers (especially kids, but I digress).  So, carry around a bucket or basket of candy (or homemade cookies?), and randomly give it away!  Even better, do this sometime not around Halloween or the holiday season!
• Christmas Light Sightseeing >> Crazily, Christmas is not that far away, and pretty soon, Christmas lights will start to appear!  If you live in or near a neighborhood where lots of people decorate for Christmas, take the opportunity to walk (or drive) around and look at them all!
• Make Someone Else Go On a Walk >> This would be a fun birthday surprise!  Arrange for a friend to arrive (notice I did not say meet) at a specific location.  Before they come, grab some sticky notes or small pieces of paper and tape, and put them up around, on light poles and the like, with directions on each for where to go next, or maybe just arrows!  Where the friend first arrives should clearly be the starting point, and the last should clearly be the end point.  At the end, have some little (or big) surprise for the person.
• Color Walk >> Make some sort of chart (or not!) and tally how many times you see each color, and then make something using however many swatches of however many times you saw each color.
• Shop Hop >> Bar hopping is where you "hop" from bar to bar, so shop hopping is "hopping" from shop to shop.  You don't even have to spend money if you don't want to!
• Draw Your Journey >> As you go along, draw any interesting, or not interesting, places you see, and label what place it is.  You could also photograph, but to me, drawing sounds better for this.
• Night Walk >> Need I say more?  Try to do it on a really light, bright night.

And there you have it!  Which of these will YOU try out?

Seven+ Reasons Why Fall is the Best Season. Ever.

Tomorrow is the first day of Fall, and guess what!  I!  Love!  Fall!  Don't you?  PPPFFF, what am I even saying?  Of course you do!  But, maybe you have forgotten all the many reasons you love it, or, perhaps, you just want to know why I love it!  And so I shall tell you all the reasons!  And then you'll obviously have to agree that Fall is the best season.  Ever.

1.  It is beautiful to behold!

• Colors - All the colors of Fall are just so...scrumptious!  Seriously, this is one of the biggest reasons I love this season so much.
• Goes with deep purple (best color ever!) - Yes, deep purple is my favoritest color!  And Fall looks SO good with it!  I think so, at least.  I'm aware that not everyone agrees with me on that.
• Goes with my hair - And well, who wouldn't love that?  I mean, a whole season to match your hair?  Yes, please!
• Leaves - See this picture here, the one right below?  Yeah, that one.  Isn't it amazing?  I took that last Fall in Tennessee.  This is what I love.

2.  It smells beautiful to the nostrils!

• Air - Have you ever stopped to smell the roses?  Just wondering.  Have you ever stopped to smell Fall?  It's 10x better!  Literally, just go outside in the middle of Fall, and sniff.  I'm thankful to God for the gift of Fall for our nostrils.
• Food - To tell you the truth, when I think of traditional Fall foods, pumpkin pie is the first thing that pops into my head, and I really don't like pumpkin pie.  But other foods, like...
• Warm drinks - Okay, not even a food, I know.  Not like I actually drink warm drinks all the time anyway.  But the idea is nice, y'know?  (I talk more about this down ther' under numbah four.)

• Fire - Doesn't fire smell so good?  Perhaps not if your house is going up in flames, but y'know.  Usually it's a glorious smell.

3.  It feels beautiful on the skins!

• Cool weather - I'm a warm-natured person, so I really enjoy this.  Other people, however (eg. my mothah), don't like this so much.  And along with the cool weather, comes...
• Rosy cheeks - Small point, but so enjoyable.  And we don't get to enjoy the enjoyableness if we don't go outside in the wonderful cold and play in the leaves and run around and stuff, which is wonderful in itself.
• Zero bugs - YESSS.  LET ME JUST REVEL IN THIS GLORIOUSNESS FOREVER PLEASE.
• Start of fire building season - Okay, so, we actually haven't done many fires the last couple of years, but I have good memories of having warm fires in the family room, and standing right in front of the left vent because it's warmer than the right, hogging the heat, being freezing after moving away...funny how I somehow don't have many memories of really making one myself...
• Breeze - Bring on the breeze, please.
• Clothes - Yeah, I like to wear clothes in the Fall.  HAHAHA I'M SO FUNNY.  What I meant was, I prefer Fallery clothes to Summery clothes.  And sadly, I can't wear Fallery clothes in the Summer.  Why do I love Fallery clothes?  (See below.)
• Cozy - Cozy clothes are the best!  Just because I'm warm natured doesn't mean I don't like to be warm.  Quite the opposite!  I like the climate to be cold so that I can wear warm clothes.  Make sense?
• Start of bathrobe wearing season - I own three bathrobes, and each one is special to me.  They're fuzzy and soft and smell oh, so good.  (But somehow I'm the only one who thinks that?)
• Fashionable - Also Fall clothes are so fashionable, I think.  I much prefer them to Summery apparel.
• Boots - My gray boots are probably my favorite pair of shoes.  They're almost up to my knees, and they have heels, and they have straps around the ankle and up towardser the top, and the toes are rounded, not pointy, and as I said, they're gray, which is such a good color for boots, and they match almost everything, and they are JUST SO STYLISH.
• My favorite shirt - is a soft, long sleeve, darkish but not navy blue, uber comfortable piece of clothing, and it's not even absolutely necessary to wear a cami, which I think is superb!  It's so fashionable that I can wear it to church, but I love it so much that I also wear it to my ever'day life.  If I was a cold-natured person, I could probably wear it in the warmer months too, but I ain't cold-natured.
• Leaf Pile - So...actually this does not feel good on the skins...It's quite the scratchy situation.  But this was the best category to put it in.  Let's say the memories of leaf piles feel good nestled up in your brain.  :)

Yes, that's me, in the midst of jumping.  And that is my little bro in the tree.

4.  It tastes beautiful on the tongue!

• Warm drinks - I don't actually consume warm drinks often, but when I do...
• Hot chocolate - Yummy.  It's chocolate.  It's good.
• Tea - This is one of those things I occasionally drink, but don't enjoy it enough to drink all the time.
• Cider - We don't get this often, but it's fun when we do.
• Apple Pie - Not like you can't make this any time of year, but it's usually around Fall when we do.  Also chocolate pie, which is even better than apple, but that's not traditionally Fall-y.  (Wanna split a pi'?)

5.  It sounds beautiful to the ears!

• Wind in the trees - Go listen to it, and take in the wonder.
• Laughing - So this isn't something that only happens in the Fall.  For me, it happens every!  Single!  Day!  But with the coming of the holidays, come siblings from faraway lands, and with them come old stories and good vibes and...laughter.
• Fire - Crackling embers, hollow wind out the window, tea kettles screaming on the hearth...it all goes together so nicely.  Alright enough of the cheesiness.  (Heehee, does it worry you that this is the third time I've mentioned fire?)

6.  Holidays!

• Reformation Day - Which is on the same day as Halloween, isn't that funny?  But we don't celebrate Halloween!  Instead we celebrate the day that Martin Luther nailed the 95 theses to the door of the church, and began the Reformation.
• Early Christmas - For several years now, our neighbor and we have celebrated this holiday we made up, called Early Christmas.  We play in the leaf pile, traditionally (although I don't much anymore) roll down the ramp with roller blades, eat popcorn, and listen to Christmas music.  Oh yeah, and this is at the beginning of November.  Hence, Early Christmas.
• Anticipation of Christmas - Can we please all agree on the simple fact that anticipation of Christmas is almost as wonderful as Christmas Day itself?  And one of the reasons for that is...
• Gift preparing - Anyone else out there who enjoys preparing Christmas gifts?  So fun.
• Thanksgiving - OOH FOOD.  Me like.  Plus family, good memories.  All that.

7.  *lies through teeth*  It is less stressful!  No, but seriously!

• Minimal traveling - Not sure how accurate this is...we always travel for Thanksgiving (except for last year), and we have gone to a Fall conference in TN last year and 2013, and I'm sure there are other things...but, in comparison to, like Summer...
• Extra hour of sleep - Haha, no, not every night.  But during the time change, we get an extra hour of sleep instead of losing one.
• After camp ends, but before preparing for next year - Please don't misunderstand me here, especially fellow camp people.  I love camp, but it is also kind of (very) stressful for me.  It's relieving to have that time in between where I don't need to be preparing for it.

One of my first pics after discovering the wonders of manual focus.

This post had been in the making for over a year before being presentable to y'all today.  Of course that doesn't have anything to do with the fact that I didn't work on it for months.  It was only because there are sooo many reasons, and I wanted to list them in a clear and defined way, and connect the ones that are connected, and not let it all be a jumbled mess.  It may still be a jumbled mess anyway.  Heehee.

If your favorite season was already Fall, then good job, even though it's not surprising!  If not, did I convince you?

What is your favoritest season ever?  What could you add to the list?