Week 36: Celebrations Slideshow Part 3

People are sometimes confused by my 60 until 60 project.  What? Me? Confusing?

OK. I admit, it's ever-evolving (as a good Agile project would be!) I'd also say some of the confusion comes about because I'm not only trying to accomplish 60 goals, I'm also doing a whole bunch of one-on-one celebrations!

I figured that I'd have a 60-week birthday party and celebrate individually with friends and family! Since 60 weeks will cover their birthday, too, even better if we can do the celebration around their birthday and I like to treat them to something they like to do.  At a big party,  I wouldn't be able to lavish my loved one with the individual attention they deserve, so I'm enjoying these individual 'parties' even more than a traditional big party.

The celebrations have been really fun! A few of them were planned before I started my project and made it to my goal list, while others have been more impromptu.

I knew I'd want lasting memories of my celebrations, so Goal #27 on my list is:

Create slideshows of the celebrations I have throughout my 60-week ‘party’

Even though I didn't specifically state that I wanted to have 60 celebrations, I'm shooting for that many (keeping with the 60 theme!) and I also have a little set of guidelines I've been using for these celebrations and the resulting slideshow:

• I like to have a one-on-one celebration
• I like the first picture of the slideshow to be a selfie with the background showing what we're doing together
• I ask the other person to pick a song and I use about a 30-second clip of the song to play in the background of the segment in which they're featured
• We pick out an activity that's either a passion for the other person (and maybe they teach me about it!) or do something we both enjoy. 

Here's a little log of my celebrations for "Part 3" of my celebrations:

• 0:0 #22. Ursula - Keystone - Ursula is an old friend who worked with me at Sun and she invited me for a Keystone retreat! Even though it was snowing in May, the scenery was beautiful and we had a wonderful time hiking, talking, and relaxing.

• 0:20 #23. Matt and Stella - MeowWolf - This is the first celebration that was with a couple (my son and daughter-in-law) rather than individuals, but it was one of my favorite celebrations and on my original goal list! Go to the Meowolf exhibit in Santa Fe with Stella and Matt 

• 0:48 #24. Diego  - Video Game Shopping - I took my grandson, Diego, shopping for his birthday and let him pick out anything from Gamestop. We had lunch at the mall, getting one of his favorite meals, Hawaiian pizza and then went back to his house to play his game (and even I did pretty well!)

• 1:08 #25. Sandy - Krav Maga (and since I lost the video of me learning Krav Maga, substituted Sandy doing 'Karate Form-Basai Dai - slow speed.) Sandy is a friend from the Grey Wolves Meetup group. I really enjoy the celebrations where I get exposed to a new skill. I had no idea what Krav Maga was all about until Sandy taught me and now I feel a little better prepared to defend myself!

• 1:33 #26. Isaac - Photography of Insects - Isaac is probably the most creative (and youngest!) friend I ever met from an online dating site four or five years ago. His profile was hilarious and said he was willing to meet anyone of any age. Even though he's about 20 years younger than me, I wanted to meet this witty fellow and we became friends. He's quite the nomad, so when he was in town this summer, I let him stay at my place and he showed me his latest hobby: Photographing insects! It was quite fascinating!

• 1:59 #27. Dave O - Breakfast at Walnut Cafe and Coalton Trail Hike - Dave is a friend who I met when I took the Rebuilding seminars (for divorce recovery) in 2005. I really appreciate how Dave keeps in touch and we get together for lunch every few months and catch up. Dave recently retired and actually is busier than ever, but we were able to enjoy a delicious breakfast and hike on a summer morning.

• 2:26 #28. Reneya - Beauty and the Beast at Boulder Dinner Theater - My granddaughter and I both love Beauty and the Beast. She's such a wonderful performer herself and taking her to the Boulder Dinner Theater was a big treat for both of us!

• 2:55 #29. Michael B - Crested Butte - Michael is a good friend I met a few years ago at a Conversation Meetup. We love deep discussions and I feel grateful to him for helping me achieve Goal #2 on my list: Hike in beautiful spots Including Crested Butte during wildflower season

• 3:28 #30. Lisa M - Pedicure - Lisa and I became "BFFs" in 2016 when I worked in Minnesota on a contract at Optum. She even let me live in her spare room for the last month I worked in Eden Prairie and I'm always amazed at what good friends we became in such a short time frame. She's like another sister! Though our celebration this year was getting pedicures together, we went to the Bahamas together last year, so we know how to celebrate!

• 3:55 #31. Nancy B - Wine Making - I met Nancy because she's the girlfriend of Chris, the host of the annual Minnesota Island adventures! When I was in Minnesota last month, Nancy took a day to celebrate with me by teaching me more about viticulture and share with me her own beautiful vineyard and gardens! Very impressive! We, of course, enjoyed wine (sticking with the theme) at a beautiful, historic restaurant, W.A. Frost.

• 4:22 #32. Mike M. - Brian Setzer Concert - Mike is responsible for introducing me to Rockabilly and one of my favorite artists, Brian Setzer. When I heard that Brian Setzer was coming to Chautauqua, I knew that would be the perfect celebration to have with Mike. I worked with Mike at McKesson and even though we'd vowed to be "Life and Death Buddies," I hadn't seen him for the past few years, so I was very excited to reconnect with him for this concert!

• 4:47 #33. Becky - Tubing - Becky is a new friend, but someone I already feel very close to. I met her in June at a Meetup and I found out she was visiting from Sarasota. Since Sarasota is one of my snowbird spots, and Becky visits the Boulder area frequently, we agreed to house each other when visiting! Becky and her cute dogs are perfect house guests. When Becky suggested Tubing as her choice of celebrations, I was a little iffy about the whole thing because of my Tube to Work Day experience. However, this was the easy 'lazy river' kind of experience that turned out to be perfect for a summer day.

Having these one-on-one celebrations has been one of my favorite parts of my 60 until 60 project. However, creating the slideshows is not so fun! I've been using an old laptop that's extremely slow because it has MovieMaker on it and I haven't found comparable free software on the Mac.  

If you're curious about the first 21 celebrations, here are the Part 1 and Part 2 slideshows:

What's working well

• I love having an intentional private celebration with a friend or family member so I can really focus on my relationship with that person.
• It's been a fun way to get to know new friends or reconnect with friends I don't see often.
• I love the variety of outings and music that are picked.
• I love that some of these celebrations are with people I just met and some are with very old friends and family members. They're all different ages from all walks of life.
• Even though making the slideshow is kind of a pain, I feel lucky that I'm able to get the music and that MovieMaker lets me include both video and photos and mix with audio.  There are a lot of cool features.

What could be better

• A lot of the people in my life are very busy and I don't want them to feel pressured about this.
• The photographs and slideshows are very amateurish and probably boring for everyone but me and my fellow 'partier.'
• I'd love to do full blog posts about each of my celebrations - I really appreciate everyone who does one with me. But I also worry that they won't like the pictures or that they won't want to be on my blog for privacy reasons, so I keep it pretty short.
• Somehow I lost the videos I took for Sandy's and Diego's celebrations.
• Despite my many requests, Isaac has yet to give me his 'song.' I tried using Kodachrome as background music and that ended up causing me copyright issues. Switching out songs turned out to be a pain.. I just ended up using one of the sound clips from a different celebration..
• I've been doing a lot of fun events that don't make it on my slideshow because they aren't planned by me.  For example, I just went to my friend, Samar's, beautiful wedding last weekend!  It feels like I should include these, so maybe those will be added in my final slideshow.