An Elgin Blog in the Courier!

Sure, it’s a sports blog, but still. The Courier didn’t have an Elgin blog, but now they do–All Around E-Town.

Other cool stuff the Courier has done lately:

-Written about the Pitchfork Music Festival

-Came up with a funny headline about a dentist

Tags: All Around E-Town, blog, Courier News, Elgin, IL, Illinois, sports
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What a weekend!

I was actively doing things almost the entire weekend, so no full blog post. But the Amazin’ Race was GREAT on Saturday, and there is already a blog post about our team available at the Downtown Neighborhood Association’s blog. Check it out!

Time for me to go to sleep. Blogging will resume again soon.

Tags: Amazin' Race, blog, DNA, Downtown Neighborhood Association, Elgin, IL, Illinois, scavenger hunt
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More 2040 planning stuff.

The Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning is coming up with a plan for how our region should look in the year 2040. They have a lot of interactive stuff going on:

*In case you missed my post the other day, be sure to click here and take the survey that allows you to voice your opinion on our how region should evolve! Anyone living in Cook, DuPage, Kane, Kendall, McHenry, Lake, or Will Counties should take it.

*The bicycle planning strategy paper is online. Click here to read it. Registered readers can leave comments answering questions such as, “Do you think that encouraging bicycling in your community would increase the use of transit? What facilities or programs would be needed to accomplish this?”

*Click here to read stories people have written about their communities, or to submit one of your own. This is a great way to share with others why you love where you live, or how you ended up in this place.

*They have a blog! Yes! If you care about the future of Chicagoland, grab the RSS feed and start reading and commenting like crazy! It’s another way to get your voice heard.

*We missed out on the Northeastern Illinois photo contest! Click here to see the winners. Out of 19 winning photos, 3 were from Aurora, 2 from Schaumburg, and 1 from Naperville. Elgin was asleep in this contest! Oh well. When they start the 2060 planning, we’ll blow everyone away!

Tags: bicycling, blog, Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning, Chicagoland, CMAP, community, Cook, DuPage, Kane, Kendall, Lake, McHenry, photography, planning, regional planning, survey, Will
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Seven Architectural Wonders of Elgin.

Did you know someone created a myspace page for Elgin, Illinois? Well someone did. I don’t know who, but it says he’s male, 18, and an Aries. Anyway, the other day he named the seven architectural wonders of Elgin, based on a survey of his myspace friends. Neat! Check it out, the blog post is complete with photos.

Tags: architecture, blog, Elgin, Illinois, myspace
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Interview with a blogger: Solomon Broad!

In 2007, Solomon blogged what he felt grateful for every single day. Click here to check out his blog. He was nice enough to answer some interview questions so Life in Elgin readers can find out the scoop on his motivation for this undertaking, and what sort of an effect it had on his life.

In 2007 you wrote down what you were grateful for everyday. What motivated you to do this?

Two things. The first is a book I read called “Wealth 101: Getting what you want, Enjoying what you’ve got”. It was written by a chap called Peter McWilliams, who wrote several “self help books”, all full of real world, *practical* advice on getting one’s life sorted. In Wealth 101, the author discusses what wealth is, how to get it, and most importantly, to recognise and appreciate that which one already has. There is a chapter in the book called “The Attitude of Gratitude”. I was in the bath one Saturday night, reading, like I usually do, when I read this chapter. It had a profound effect on me. It was almost like the veil was torn apart, and I could finally see how to make my life better. By the simple act of saying “thank you”, I could walk through the day with a feeling of gladness in my chest, a certain lightness. And who doesn’t want to feel good?

The second thing was a phase where I was suicidal. Every now and then, I suffer for a few days/weeks from depression. I very rarely actually feel depressed, but I develop a “what’s the use” attitude, and simply want to give up. Quite often, suicidal feelings come with this feeling of apathy. Every single day I don’t act on those feelings, I give myself the gift of life, which is the most precious gift anyone can give, either to themselves, or another. Every day I make the choice, either consciously or unconsciously, to carry on living, I give myself another chance to enjoy every good thing that this life has to offer. Which, I think, is an awful lot. So much more than any of us realise. I want, most of all, to feel good. Every day I have another chance to feel good. Blogging every day helps me keep track of all the things that make me feel good, so I can look back over them, and feel good all over again. It’s like having a second helping of a pudding.

Did it help you notice things you were taking for granted, or didn’t pay much attention to before? Care to discuss?

Oh yes. I never used to notice my morning shower, for example. It was merely a functional thing that helped me wake up in the morning, and got me ready for another grey day. Now, I realise how good it makes me feel. I get cleaned, warmed up, and a slight endorphin rush from all the hot water. It’s 20 private minutes to myself that nobody can take away from me. It helps me wake up from the groggy feeling I usually get in a morning. It’s fun, enjoyable, safe and perfectly legal. Nobody is going to look at me oddly for doing it. It makes me feel generally good.

I try to be aware of the fundamentals of life every day - food, water, shelter, clothing. Maybe things like comfort and free healthcare too. Anything on top of those things is a bonus. Even so, I sometimes forget to say thank you to the Universe for the windows in my house, that keep heat from escaping, but let the light in. I forget to say thank you for the fact that I can use the window to help regulate the temperature in the room manually. I forget to say thank you for all the scientific advances that led to the discovery of glass, and plastic, and the concept of vacuum sealed double glazing. Is this bad? No. But everyone likes to be thanked. Perhaps I can’t go back in time to thank the guy/gal who first heated sand to the point of it creating glass, but I can carry those thanks in my heart, where they increase the good feelings.
The more things I find to be grateful for, the more I realise how much more than that there is. It’s like a funnel, and I’m holding the thin end. Like the previous example of a window, there’s all that extra stuff that I could be grateful for. All those extra good feelings I could have.

Did you ever reach a point where you didn’t want to do this any more? I’m thinking on a particularly bad day it might’ve been hard to feel grateful for anything.

At least once a month. I’ll often sit at the PC first thing in the morning, knowing that I ought (aren’t “ought to’s” terrible?) to start the blog, but I just can’t be bothered. Who out there is going to notice, or even care, if I miss a day? And then I realise that the only person I’d ultimately be cheating is myself. It sounds selfish, but I do primarily blog for myself, and my own good feeling. If I can pay it forward, and lighten someone else’s day, then that’s fantastic, it really is. It’s another thing on the list to be thankful for. But I do primarily keep this blog for my own benefit. Oddly, even on the worst day I had last year, I still found 8 things to be grateful for. It’s not really the worst days that make me feel like giving up. It’s the negative self talk, that makes me feel like quitting. I hear the voice, then my rational mind takes over, and reminds me how much of a benefit to me this blog actually is, and I keep on going. Posts on those kinds of days are very head orientated, and I can spot one from a mile off. It’s very much a case of “this, that, and the other”, instead of “this, and here is a long verbose reason as to why I’m grateful for ‘this’”. Another trick I have is to remind myself of just how lucky I am not to be someone else. I visit Google News, or wherever, and read stories about what it’s like in war torn countries, or where there have been natural disasters like famine, or earthquakes. Some of these people have nothing, “only their eyes to cry with”, if I may borrow a line from the novel Captain Corelli’s Mandolin. Kinda puts the fact I have no filter papers for the coffee machine into perspective. Yes, negative things still happen in my life. But even after I’ve just stubbed my big toe, I can still be grateful that I have 9 other toes that weren’t stubbed. Or that I have feet with toes on them to be stubbed. Some people don’t
have even that luxury. Mostly, it’s a matter of attitude. We all feel our pain completely, which at times makes us do things like give up trying. It’s easy, though, to turn it around to someone else’s pain. Which is what I try to do on the bad days. Sometimes, you have to be grateful for the miseries that you miss.

Are there any particular days that stick out in your memory, or that you’d like to discuss?

There are two days that really stick out. The first was April 30th, which was the day we had to have the family dog put to sleep. She’d been diagnosed as diabetic a few months earlier, which we’d been keeping track of, and it was going well. However, on the morning of April 30th, I went downstairs to find my mom in floods of tears, and the dog lying on the hearth, looking twice as old than she did the night before. She was having trouble breathing, had gone off her back legs, and her eyes were cloudy from the diabetes. We rushed her to the vets, who advised we left her with them. As I got in the house, the phone rang. It was the vets, ringing to say that “it would be a kindness…”
This was arguably the absolute worst day I had last year, by a huge amount. Habit came to my rescue, though, and helped me find 8 things to be grateful for. Things like family, and not having to go in to work. While it was an *horrific* day, I’m also proud of myself, in a way, for being able and strong enough to keep trying to find things to be grateful for.
The other day that sticks out is July 12th. On this day, I took a trip across the country to Wales, with an old friend, who I always call French (long story). It was one of those magical days where nothing at all goes wrong, and you feel really connected to everything and everyone, and songs on the radio are playing for you, and everyone is smiling just for you. Or maybe that’s the hypomania talking. Anyway. We’d driven over the previous night, and slept in the back of his car. I woke up in the morning to a bird singing in the hedge - what a fantastic way to wake up! - and we spent most of the day driving and taking photos. I managed to get one of a shrimp that I think I’m justifiably proud of, that you can see here. I was on a high for the entire day, I think partially because I was away from everyone and everything, and could do exactly as I pleased.

Did you tell anyone you know in “real life” about your gratefulness journal? What reactions did you get?

I’ve mentioned it in passing to friends, but I prefer to keep my online time separate from my family/friends time. Online, I can drop the pretence of being a “good son” or what-have-you, and be honest and open with people. My family don’t know the address of my website. They have no idea how many people I talk to on MSN. I’m just glad that I can have this time and space to myself. Life is not always as we would have it. But also it’s not always how everyone else would have it. I just choose to give more weight and presence to that which feels good. Life really is too short. I can say that with some certainty. ;)

Anything else you’d like to share?

Life isn’t always easy. Sometimes you step in a puddle. You can’t change that fact. What you can do is change your shoe, sock and trousers. And your attitude. Because in 10 years time, do you really still want to be thinking about the time you trod in that puddle? Is doing that really going to benefit you any?

Finally, I’d like to extend my thanks to Jessica in Elgin for the opportunity to share this with you all. Keep blogging.

Tags: blog, blogging, England, gratefulness, interview, solomon broad
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