For my first post I would like to introduce myself.  I am an average woman. I was raised in a generation that was taught that others always came first. Growing up I was raised to believe you could not find true happiness unless you found a husband. One that would provide for you and keep you safe and warm for the hard life that lie ahead of you.  When I was growing up women were limited in what they could be. Although I was born into an era of women who burned their bras, and fought for women's liberation and equal pay for equal work this didn't prevent our Mothers from raising us to believe in the happily ever after.

I cut my first teeth on Disney Princesses and the damsel being rescued by the handsome prince. Snow white always got her Prince, and Ariel got her human, and Pocohantus got John Smith (which for the record is not really historically correct).  I watched as time and time again the girls always got their dream boat and lived happily ever after. The movies never showed how they handled having children or if they stayed home or were working Moms.  The movies never showed the handsome prince having a side dish in another kingdom or deciding they weren't cut out for family life. The movies never showed real life and all its hardships.

Now I understand why they never showed real life. Who would want to traumatize a young child into believing that life was hard and relationships were harder.  They wanted us to have happy childhoods and grow up into productive members of society.  The fact that as the children grew up and the husbands either died or divorced that we would be left alone.  That somewhere between the marriage alter and the death bed we would have to discover what made us happy and pursue our own dreams.

That is where I am now. My children are grown with lives of their own.  My husband is so busy with work that I spend a lot of time alone.  I keep myself occupied by volunteering and doing rescue work with animals. I returned to school to get my education but that chapter of my life will be done come the fall of 2013.  I garden, read, write, and try to find happiness in my day to day life but in the last few years I have lost several family members and this along with some other life altering things have made me take a long hard look at my life and decide I have given decades of my time and energy to others. It is time for me to find my own personal bliss and begin building a life I will be proud to someday share stories of with my grandchildren.

As I said I am the average run of the mill woman. I am not especially talented or beautiful.  I do not think I will find the cure for cancer or some other dreaded disease.  I seriously doubt I will ever fly in a space shuttle or walk on the moon.  But in my own small way I want to live a life that is filled with excitement and joy.  I want to find what makes me happy and decide if it is something I would like to spend my free time pursuing.

I already find a lot of joy in writing and gardening and have taken those things about as far as I can.  I have already discovered the joy of seeing an animal once cast off by its owners in a loving home with a family of its own. But it is time for the discovery of myself. Who I really and what makes me the happiest.  This blog will be an online journal of this great adventure and I am hoping that some that read it will become inspired by it and want to find their own bliss.

You don't have to wait until your kids are grown or you wake up one day alone to do this.  You can begin this journey right now with me.  I will post updates and links to thinks that make me go interesting.... Or just things that make me smile and count my many blessings.  This may at times be boring or mundane but at times so are life.  It is just a written record of this great adventure I am embarking on and wanted to invite others to join me and perhaps together we can all learn a little something about ourselves along the way.