…These are the voyages of a being named Donna. Her life-long mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out her authentic self, embark on new adventures and to push herself beyond her limitations, to boldly go where no man has gone before—
Much like the formidable Captain James Tiberius Kirk when he commanded that he be beamed from his warm, cozy starship to some harsh unknown environment, I have also decided to take a monumental step outside of my comfort zone today.
I tend to be a creature of habit. Apparently, I am not alone.
Shopfront – Creatures of Habit, Springvale Homemaker Centre (Photo credit: avlxyz)
I eat the same thing for breakfast, a bowl of Barbara’s multigrain cereal with a splash of blueberries on top when they are in season. Nary a black, straw, rasp, or any other berry will ever grace my crisp brown squares of grain. I wear the same rings on my fingers—engagement topped by wedding (until it was stolen last week) on the left, and a band of tiny blue sapphires on my right hand. About every six months or so, unless I’m invited to something special, I switch out my necklace. 
Right now I’m wearing the symbol of a harpoon head made from a whale’s finger bone, a phalange, if you will.
Besides being a topic of conversation, the leather band doesn’t make my neck itch like most silver chains do. I’ve been using the same handbag since we moved back to the States nine months ago, even though I have many. The only reason I use a bag at all is to carry my reading glasses. When I had 20/20 vision my pockets did all my carrying for me—cash, a credit card, driver’s license, and phone—the glasses would have put me in cargo pants. My choice was to use a bag or be the bag. Since all those pockets would have made me look shorter than I already am, I opted for the obvious.
The trouble with tribbles terrible habits is that, although they are comfortable, they can become reeeealy boooring. At least when you take the time to step back and look at them closely, they do. Today, I happened to notice a small habit of mine the moment I started to write. Like a Klingon warship dropped from the heavens, Times New Roman reared its boring font onto the page. You can’t be serious I thought. Really? At warp speed, I sucked up my courage. “Scottie, beam me to FONTLAND!” I commanded, tight-fisted and white-knuckled. It’s the rematerializing I hate—too tingly for my taste. Once I secured a firm footing again, I scrolled the plethora of possibilities. Ah, plethora—how I’ve always wanted to use that word without sounding ridiculous. Ugh! I hope the jury is still out on that thought. So then, I scrolled, and scrolled until—GENEVA— caught my eye, actually, both eyes. I figured, why not? I like Switzerland—the cheese, the mountains, pristine lakes, and friendly people—but it was the horns that tipped the scales.
Yes, it was as simple as that. If someone out there could take a little wooden whistle and turn it into a humungatoid horn then I could surely change the font for this blog entry. And so, I did, even though, apparently you can’t see it. Yes! I did something new today. Then I got really carried away, and changed my socks—
Do something different.
Shake it up.
Big, small—step out—share it.
May the force be with you.
Donna Gwinnell Lambo-Weidner 
I’m in shake me up mode too! Thanks for the insights. I’m at the library and began to view the film and had to shut it off fast before I beam everyone up and out around me. On second thought, perhaps I should. 🙂
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Glad I didn’t use punk, tehno, or AC/DC…you’d have been banned from the building.
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I know the character map thing works ƫƱǢɇɸ and the bold with <b >and </b > with something in between, but so many places won’t take a change of font from the built in default. You would need to get Scotty to change the software. A lot of places won’t accept the html you would need to change the font for just one entry. Some things are like imposed habits of the culture or the burden of the established equipment — try changing the standard keyboard after millions have memorized the qwerty row and the asdf row; if you teach the babies a more logical layout, what will the adults do… blue cheese on dry cereal with kippers is good and not as bad as Klingon food.
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It would be nice to use different fonts in the comments but I don’t think it works. I don’t know if you can anthropomorphize like “Data” the robot but I suppose it’s like the computer has a stodgy habit even though memory has advanced. I’m in the habit of not trying things because it hardly ever works easily and fonts don’t seem like they’re worth the effort. Hey, they couldn’t even get everyone to use the dollar coins with women engraved on the face. Only a few vending machines give change in dollar coins which I have used in stores and never seen again. So this doesn’t seem to go anywhere:
TitleWriting here about whatever
and here the continuation
— Author
If it worked, I’d have a different font here. Beaming up is apparently easier. And it’s my more usual habit to say nothing…. because there’s no answer…
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geez, it’s hard to even show it. even though it didn’t work it anyway, it hid the attempt. Let’s see if I can show what I tried:
<FONT COLOR=”#9900ff” SIZE=”4″ FACE=”Geneva”><strong><p><em>Title</em></p>Writing here about whatever
and here the continuation
— Author
</strong></font>
That would have been purple Geneva, maybe. Times New Roman works everywhere, so why bother changing a habit into a drama unless there’s applause…or enlightenment.
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Thanks for trying Doug…I’ll just stick to colorful socks for now.
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That’s great Donna, I’ll have to think of something to shake up though..but I’m inspired!
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You go girl!
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It’s about time you shook things up!!! Wait a minute! You have shaken things up. You’re writing a blog! And a fun one too!
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