Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Cheese

You guys. Get a cup of coffee or something and sit down because I have MEGA news, and it’s gonna get verbose up in here during the back story.

I have mentioned before that I have several different things going on outside of this here DIY blog. While DIYing and crafting are major hobbies of mine, they are not the only ones. If I had to choose my favorite hobby it would probably be collecting hobbies. You will never hear the words “I’m bored” come out of my mouth. It is my life mission to learn as many things as possible, and I find myself adding things to the list constantly. I am interested in nearly everything, it seems impossible to choose something to focus on exclusively.

Over the past few years, I have managed to turn several of my interests/hobbies into side jobs, like floral work and sewing,  But it’s not just luck that opportunities present themselves to me. I have learned something so valuable since my abrupt exit from the traditional workforce almost 5 years ago, and I want to share it with you.

Meeting new people is the most important skill I have ever dared to possess. I have been working on this my entire adult life, but when you can hide in your house all day and blog “anonymously” on the internet, it is easy to forget how important connecting with people really is. Without the daily interactions of a regular job, I found myself reverting back to my comfortable loner behavior.

Last November I joined a new gym. It has changed my life. In addition to being in tip top shape, I have also met a whole bunch of people who I absolutely adore. Everyone brings such different interests and talents into the community, that you could get a tutor for your kids, a lawyer, a photographer, a contractor, a massage, and a haircut without leaving the building! Making the effort to put myself out there and get to know all of these amazing people has brought so much joy to my life.

If you’re still reading, thank you for your patience. I’m getting to the point. Slowly, but surely.

Back in July, I decided to do the Electric Run 5K with some friends at the gym. On the ride there, my friend put on some tunes -namely a band called The String Cheese Incident (any fans out there??). If there’s such a thing as love at first listen, it happened. Cue compulsive Cheese listening for months…

Fast forward about 100 re-plays of ‘Round The Wheel, the same 5K-running-Cheese-listening-friend tells me that since I loooooove Cheese so much, I should check out this festival they are playing in Florida.

I have never been to a music festival before- especially one that is 7 hours away and requires 3 nights of camping.

“Yeah….right….ok….”

What followed was seriously the most convincing pitch I have ever heard for anything. Slightly manic and crazy-eyed, but convincing. Turns out overly-enthusiastic-friend is some kind of habitual festival goer. Is there a name for this? Still, the whole idea seemed a bit out of reach.

Not-easily-discouraged-friend suggests that maybe blogging about the festival could be a mutually beneficial situation and offers to put me in touch with a contact at the venue. Ah. Well-connected-friend. At this point I’m thinking about how glad I am I joined the gym. Oh, and how awesome my friend is. Can you see where I’m going with this?

A few emails and phone calls later, I AM GOING TO MY FIRST MUSIC FESTIVAL. Suwannee Hulaween, here I come!

And I’ll be blogging all about it, starting with my costume…it is Halloween, after all! I’m pretty sure dressing up is all but required, so I’m bringing my A-game. I wouldn’t want to disappoint my 5k running-Cheese listening-overly-enthusiastic-not-easily-discouraged-well-connected-friend.