L!k3 OMG! New year resolutions

While I have been putting this idea in my head for quite some time, the original intent was to start up my website in January. I was just going to jump in and get my hands dirty and go, go, go. The perfect idea! It would be a New Years Resolution! yea... right....
Setting a New Years Resolution is setting yourself up for failure. In fact, most people that set New Years Resolutions fail each year. How depressing is that? I pretty much just set you up to fail! This is one of the many reasons I hate New Years Resolutions.
So let's talk about my "goals" for this year. My biggest goal to work on is this blog right here. There are so many times where I have so much spinning through my head and I need to get it out. I have quite a problem expressing myself. If you find that hard to believe, ask my family or anyone close to me. For years I have been told to hold in how I feel. Not only that, I did not even know how I felt or how I wanted to feel. To be honest, the last time I told someone how I truly felt, I was in and out of a mental institute for 4 months. Biggest lesson I learned at the hospital? Lie through your teeth. The first night I was there I met my roommate. His first words to me once the nurses left? He said, "you know what i'm gonna do when I get out tomorrow? I'm gonna get higher than 'a Ukrainian bird' " (I will never repeat what he said. Ever.) Greatest lesson ever (sorry mom) is that a lot of people can't handle the truth (yea great movie line, I know...) If someone asks how are you and you say depressed a hell, you know what they do? They walk away from you. I lost some of my best friends because I told then I needed help and they didn't know what to do. I was just too dark for them. Depression is a serious disorder, and to this day I still need help managing my problems. Luckily, I have a great support system, a new doctor, and of course the unknown, you guys. While every day here will not be exciting, every day will be me expressing my feelings, as well as detailing changes made through my life.
Some of the reason for this site is to give me a schedule. If expressing myself daily helps me, than so be it. But it won't always be about the past nor the present. This site will change me, and my hope is that it may change someone else if possible. So what am I thinking? Well, I have some random thoughts. Just now I bit into a carrot, and my first thought was mmmm beta carotene. Do carrots even have that? Anyways, so let's talk about some goals. One of the easiest to talk about but hard to take action is my weight. I'm very tall, but i'm starting to gain some fat, and its getting to a point of showing. I feel my pants getting tighter, my shirts not fitting the same. I'm getting stretch marks even. Later on, I will do a report on this, but point is, I'm getting fat. So instead of sulking, which I am really good at, I am going to take action. So I am proud to announce my first 30 day challenge: no pop for thirty days.
Now I could go on and on about this topic, but hey, I have the next thirty days to talk about it. So let's talk about what else I have going. Here are some challenges
- fast food nation: cutting the fat
- the great lettuce massacre: the myths of a vegetarian
- four wheel drive: a life on the road

And many other challenges to come! If you feel like you have a great one, leave it in the comment section below!

Finally, one of my big ideas in the works is my business idea: the bucket wish. I am a big plant nerd, and I think everyone should love being able to see the fruits of labor, no matter how big or small the yard is. We have so much waste, and my goal is to take someone's trash and make it into a liveable, loveable garden. Once again, more on that when I am closer to launching.
In summary, I appreciate everyone that is coming here to watch me not only transform my life, but hopefully the lives of many more to come. Thanks!

Vacations for a cause

Today will be a short lunch post. As I was going all over the internet looking for ideas, I found an indiegogo idea that I liked. Its called vacation for a cause. They donate money to someone in need when they plan your vacation! I myself think that its an amazing idea. I have not had many vacations in my life, and I never will due to not making much money. Anyways, share this idea! Back to work I go. A little later I will also have my first skool-ed post. Tell me what you think!

A change in plans

Life is what happens when you are busy making other plans. I'm glad one of my friends told me that a few years ago as I follow those words every day. Sometimes things go so well, and some times it can feel like your life comes to a sudden halt. This past Tuesday my good friend and coworkers wife passed away. She had fought cancer for just over a year. Every day, with all that was going on with his wife as well as raising his two kids with no help, this man sauntered in with a smile on his face and was ready to work. I am really amazed by Scott, now more than ever. I wish this could have gone any other way, but this is life. It is so weird how it takes a death to really make you think. What am I doing in life? What is my purpose? To me, my biggest question is am I making a difference in life? If nothing else, my goal is to change the life of someone, anyone. It could be my soon to be wife, my best friend, or some random stranger that finds this blog out of nowhere. I want to leave a legacy, no matter what it may be. And with that, I bid you goodnight. I am going to work on more content to really get this site going. And as the popular saying goes - the show goes on.

Once upon a time

I remember the fourth grade speech class very clearly, just like the back of my hand. Ok, hold on one second...  have I always had that mole there? Well anyways, like I was saying, speech class was when I was first introduced to Demonstration Speeches. Didn't we all love those speeches? I know I did, teaching all the other fourth graders some random skill that they would never use. Oh I kid, I loved my speech teacher... Just not the speeches themselves. Anyways, one of the first rules of speech class was that there were no rules (haha did you get that reference? high five? no? ....ok...) Our teacher told us that the one thing we could not start our speech with "today I am going to teach you..." or we would drop  a letter grade. Some kids still did, but I learned a valuable lesson from that class.
Today I am going to talk about my life. I want to start a blog, and I want you to understand why. First, let me introduce myself to you. My name is Andrew, and I live a fairly regular life. I was born in Omaha Nebraska, and for the most part I have stayed in this area all my life. My childhood was rather ordinary, I went to a small Lutheran school, graduated with seven other kids, and moved to a public high school, where I graduated with 500+ kids. Talk about anxiety! As a kid I had a pretty bad anger problem, but by the time I hit high school I was strung out with high anxiety. To this day I sill struggle to staying calm in many situations. After high school I moved on to big boy college. I received a full tuition scholarship to a school, but still had to pay room and board. I applied for Architectural Engineering, and all my problems went away. By this point if you can't figure out that I am witty and sarcastic you should just give up. A few weeks later some great news came. My ACT score was 1 point too low to be considered for the AE classes. I could take pre-AE classes, and drag out college to 6 years, or pick another degree. They naturally voted for me to try something else (one reason why to this day I hate counselors) and put me in construction management. Want to know how that went? I dropped out about a month later. Gave up my full tuition scholarship. Sometimes I really regret that move, but I know it made me who I am, and the important people in my life have understood that. After dropping out of college, my life became a huge mess of trying to find myself. Almost five years later, do you want to know where I am? The same boat. I have a great job at an eye clinic, and I have some great friends, but I still feel like I have no direction, no passion, no motavation to become better. So in conclusion, this is my way of changing my life and trying something new.
For the next few months, I shall be doing some challenges in my life. Why would I want to do that? One, because I love challenges. I love someone saying that I cant do something, because that in itself is a great reason to try and do it (except for smoking, sorry about that one dad).  My ultimate reason for wanting to try new things is because I feel like I truly want to find myself, find what I love, and find my passion. Some things may be very boring, other things more exciting than a mystery novel read under the sheets with the lights off. I want to know what makes me tick, and what better way to do that than to try new things and see what I think of them. I feel sorry for my fiance, because she has to deal with this kind of personality every day. One day I like playing a card game, the next day I want to collect figurines, and the following I want to sell everything in my house. Poor girl, I am amazed she still loves me. The end result is I hope to find myself, and in turn learn things about me that I would never know. I want to live out my life to the fullest, and challenge myself out of my personal comfort zones to discover my true love. So then the next question is: what's in this for me, the person that finds this and reads this, what should I expect from you Andrew?
Well, beautiful reader of mine, I want you to read this if you have ever felt like you have no direction in life. I want you to read this if you think you are just spinning in one place in life. Ultimately, I could have 1 fan (thanks Jess) or I could have a million, and I would still want to do this project. So, let me write a little about what you can expect from this blog. The first thing that you will get from this blog is discovery. I love google, and could probably spend my entire day just googling random facts and learning new things. I just love learning new things, and trying to apply them in every day circumstances. One example is learning a new word everyday, and trying to use it in context. One thing I hope to acheive is a common ground experience with the audience, as well as spreading any awareness I possibly can. A lot of challenges that I have thought up for myself are because I stumbled upon someting so interesting that I wanted to change my life. You can expect links to other sites that will teach you things that many people that live in boxes don't realize. There are some very interesting things out in the world that people don't know, and there are also some very scary things. I want people to see there is more to life than what you see in the news. Also, I want to show emotion in my blogs. If I am mad, I will say I am mad. If I am happy, I will express that too. I spent a lot of my life trying to hide my emotions from people, and this is my chance to step out. My final thing I leave with you is motivation.  I want to motivate you, my loyal audience, to be anything you want to be. Don't let people control your life, do what you want to do. It will make your life a lot happier. My goal is to help people, and I don't care if this blog just helps my fiance understand me more, or keeps me in touch with my family better, or helps a little girl that feels like she has no where to turn. I want you to read this and know that I care about you, and want the best for you. This is the time to change your life, to start something new, and to find your passion. This... is a Ritsch man's legacy.
Andrew Ritsch
More to follow: challenges, schedules, and daily checkups