30 Days Outside my Comfort Zone: Day 14

For my challenge today, I did pullups and then went and ran 4 miles in the heat and humidity, since I missed going to the gym this morning.  Like yesterday, it's not that exciting, but I didn't have much time to do anything else.

30 Days Outside my Comfort Zone: Day 13

This is a lame one, but between work, the run group, and doing this, I didn't have much else.  So, my thing for today was doing my taxes, which included having to do two different state income taxes (Georgia and Wisconsin.)  Lame, but I can't do fun and exciting stuff every day.

30 Days Outside my Comfort Zone: Day 12

For my challenge today, I went to a sit-down restaurant by myself and pretended like I was meeting a date there, but then that she stood me up.  I wanted to see if anyone would say anything, but nobody did.  It was a funny idea, though, and I am definitely going to try this again.

30 Days Outside my Comfort Zone: Day 11

My challenge for the 11th day was going on a first date with someone I actually like, AND letting her choose where we went to eat.  As a result, I ended up going to a new place, and I'm not that adventurous when it comes to food.  Luckily, the date (the girl I met from speed dating) and the food worked out really well.

30 Days Outside my Comfort Zone: Day 10

For my challenge today, I bought flowers for a friend.  It was her birthday, and she said that she's never had a good birthday, so I surprised her by having flowers sent to her work.  It was the first time I'd ever sent flowers to someone.  Flowers generally aren't my style, because they are kind of traditional, but considering my friend lives in Madison, there wasn't much else I could do long-distance.  She's a really sweet person, though, and a good friend, and she deserves a good birthday.  So, yeah.  That was my challenge.

30 Days Outside my Comfort Zone: Day 9

Today I got out of work late, and was tired, so no social challenge (and after yesterday, I needed a bit of a break.)  So, instead I did a physical challenge.  So, my challenge for today was to do a two-minute plank.  It was tough, and I was sore afterward, but I survived the two minutes.  I'll probably pay for that in the morning, but no pain, no gain!

30 Days Outside my Comfort Zone: Day 8

So today, after my run, I stopped and told a woman that she was beautiful.  I could see that she was a bit taken aback, so I told her to enjoy the rest of her walk and I kept going.  I met up with a friend to go for a walk.  Right at the end of the walk, I got stopped by the cops.  Apparently the girl had called 911 saying that someone had made "inappropriate comments" to her.  I told the cops what had happened and they were like "really? That's it?"  The cops were cool, though.  I told them about my challenge, and one cop was like "that would certainly be outside my comfort zone."  Then he asked me if she was attractive.  I said "eh, kind of."  So he's like "on a scale from 1 to 10, what would she be?"  I said "maybe a 7."  So he's like "well, then it was worth it."   Classic!

It is kind of sad that we live in a society where you can have the cops called on you for telling a woman that she's beautiful. 

30 Days Outside my Comfort Zone: Day 7

For today's challenge, I was having a hard time thinking of something, and didn't really have many opportunities, so I decided that I would drive home from dinner, but only shift gears with my left hand.  This may not sound like something very difficult or uncomfortable, but have you ever tried it?  There's a lot of learned muscle memory that I was combating with this, and I had to really force my right hand to stay on the steering wheel, while the southpaw did the shifting honors.  It wasn't really easy and it felt really awkward, but I did it.  So, not a grandiose thing, but it works.

30 Days Outside my Comfort Zone: Day 6

(A little late on posting this.  Whoops!)

For my Day 6 challenge, I had to wear an embarrassing article of clothing all day.  So, I chose to wear a Hello Kitty bracelet.  It was pretty uneventful, nobody really said anything about it.  It goes to show you that people either don't pay attention, or don't really care to say anything.

30 Days Outside my Comfort Zone: Day 5

Today, I have a bit of a twofer!  I went to an atheist group meetup through meetup.com (the same site that my run groups are on.)  I've never really met with fellow atheists.  My closest friends in Madison weren't religious, but usually I'm surrounded by religious people, so this was something new for me.  Plus, the meeting was at a Persian restaurant, and I've never had Persian food before.  When it comes to food, I'm not adventurous at all, because I'm a very particular eater, so going to a new kind of restaurant is always a bit unnerving for me.  However, the food was actually really good, and it was nice getting to talk with like-minded people.

30 Days Outside my Comfort Zone: Day 4

For today's challenge, I tried something a little different.  This wasn't a social challenge, more of a personal challenge.  And, it probably wouldn't sound difficult to most people, but I can assure you that this will likely be the most unpleasant challenge I will undertake this month.  My challenge: eating a vegetable.  I have had a lifelong hatred of vegetables, and while I can drink them if I mix them into a smoothie, eating them is a no go.  So, I grabbed some of the baby spinach I put in my smoothies and ate a little bit of that.  It was difficult, because my instinct was to spit it out, or worse.  However, I was able to get some of it down.  And it was awful. 

30 Days Outside my Comfort Zone: Day 3

Tonight, for my 30 Day Challenge, I went to a speed dating event.  I had heard about these and thought it would be interesting, but I'd never done one.  So, I thought this challenge was a good time to do it.  I went into Buckhead (inside the Atlanta Perimeter) to a club, where the event was being held. 

It actually was interesting.  The atmosphere at the club, wasn't the best, especially later in the evening, when they turned the music up to the point that you had to pretty much scream to be able to have a conversation.  However, I did have some decent conversations, so it was a worthwhile experience.  I don't think I'd do it again, but it was good to try once.

30 Days Outside my Comfort Zone: Day 2

Tonight, I went to the movies by myself.  I don't remember when the last time I went to the movies by myself was.  I think it was early on in my Madison days, which would be about 5 or 6 years ago.  I've always either gone with friends or dates, so it felt a little weird going by myself.  However, it wasn't bad.  I saw what I wanted to see (Furious 7) and spent less money than if I was on a date. 

30 Days Outside my Comfort Zone: Day 1

I kicked off my 30 Day Challenge by revealing to everyone on Facebook that I'm an atheist and have been since I was 19.  Some of them knew that, some didn't. 


The other thing I did outside my comfort zone was join in with some walking thing they did at work, because it's National Walking day.  I don't usually do stuff like that, because I think it's stupid, but I decided that in the spirit of the challenge, I should give it a try, so I did. 

Not an earth-shattering start, but a good way to stick the toes in the waters of April.