Dream big you say?

Sitting around with the family recently, I asked them what they would be if they could be ANYTHING. If money was not an issue. Geography not a factor. Even personality types didn’t matter. Some members of this family were less-than-thrilled at having to put their thinking caps on. Oh, c’mon. Lighten up, I said!

But answering a question like this is actually really hard to do. Life creates lots of pieces of cardboard that box us in. And not all of these pieces are bad...I’m just sayin’ they tend to block our view, make things hard to see or imagine. It’s hard to completely get rid of the rules we’ve created. Things are too expensive, too far away, too hard, not practical enough, would take too long.

So, if you must know, I said I’d like to own a vineyard and make wine in northern California. Ahhh. Wouldn’t that be great? I’d have to study oenology, but I’m not afraid of more schooling! I envision myself wearing a navy blue bandana on my head, a tanktop, holey jeans...tan...walking barefoot through the—MY—vineyards checking on my grapes. Can you see it? And then I’d live in some cool house where all the doors and windows could be open all the time, without screens, because it’s Cali and there aren’t stupid mosquitoes. And we’d (because I’d have a really hot, funny husband) drink good wine every night looking out at our grapes.

I just received an email from my boss about our annual reviews. She encouraged us to fill out the self-appraisal worksheet found on our university’s HR site and then also to "dream big" when it comes to the "goals" section. In terms of our career path, what do we want? What would just be fantastic? I chuckled. What if I wrote that I’d really like to start my wine classes and begin looking at real estate in Cali? How would that go over? Is that dreaming big enough? This is made even MORE funny by the fact that my university has a no-drinking policy, at least for students.

Sigh. Maybe I should finish my current masters program before moving on to the next.(Christian Thought and wine—totally complementary!)

Maybe I should just take a Friday off and book a weekend flight to Napa to visit for the time being. (I’m reminded of the Sex and the City episode where Carrie is just flabbergasted at Mr. Big who has just told her he’s moving to Napa. You’re supposed to TAKE a napa, not MOVE to napa, she yelled.)

Well, I’ll fill my self-appraisal out like a good employee, but I never want to be completely boxed in. I always want to be picking away at the pieces of cardboard because there’s so much cool stuff to see and do and be! Like a vineyard owner.

Maybe I'll just ask for a new, faster laptop.