Look Before You Leap: It's the Friday Five!

Borrowed from the RevGals:

Hello from your Fifth Friday Five team, will smama and Songbird~

It's Leap Day!! Whether you're one of the special few who have a birthday only once every four years, or simply confused by the extra day on the calendar, everyone is welcome to join in and play our Leap Year Friday Five.

Tell us about a time you:

1. Leapt before looked

I think that every ridiculously ambitious crafting project that I've ever "leapt" into and not finished would fall neatly into this category. Eventually, I came to these sad realizations.

2. Leapt to a conclusion

In 2003, while cleaning up a baseball diamond after umpiring an intramural game at Colourful U., I got a searing pain on the left side of my chest and it became very very difficult to breathe. I immediately leapt to the conclusion that I was FINE, JUST FINE, THANK YOU VERY MUCH. Despite being exactly a half-block from the hospital, I turned in the other direction and WALKED HOME. BECAUSE I WAS FINE. By the time I got home, I could barely breathe at all, and was in tears. I had to revise my previous conclusion and thanks to the Greatest Roommate Ever, the decision was shortly thereafter taken out of my hands, and an ambulance (and mom) were called. I had suffered an almost complete collapse of my left lung... Spontaneous Pneumothorax, they call that.

My mom still maintains that the fact that I so easily allowed myself to convince myself that I was FINE, was the first indication that I really was in dire need of help.

3. Took a Leap of Faith

In 2004, our church's music director put on a performance of Bach's St. John Passion as a part of his requirements for his doctoral program in choral conducting. I thought the music director was quite nifty, so in celebration, I bought him a really REALLY nice bottle of red wine. Clearly, this was not a gift that he expected to receive at all, but he gave me a huge hug as a thank you, and I remember thinking at the time, "Oooooh... good hugger... duly noted." It only took me (us?) another 8 months to hold hands. What can I say... some leaps of faith are littler than others.

4. Took a literal Leap

I was planning on competing in high jump and the 1500m in our junior high track meet, and at the last minute, added long jump too, just to see if I could. By some complete fluke, my first jump (4.0m - not impressive by Olympic standards, but pretty good for 12 year old girl standards, I thought!) was enough to win the gold, and unseat the Girl Who Always Won Long Jump. GWAWLJ was not impressed. Especially because she probably had a reasonable chance to do well at the City level meet that followed, where I flaked out completed and couldn't manage one clean jump.

5. And finally, what might you be faced with leaping in the coming year?

I think that there will lots of decisions that WH and I will have to leap through in the next year: decisions about career, and family and home... they are exciting decisions, but intimidating ones at the same time.