Why Life is a Highway?

Choosing to have my own blog was an exciting, but fearful, move for me.  I had so many questions about how to begin, how to set it up, will anyone care what I write about, what will I call my blog?  

What name do I give my blog?

My blogger-daughter, Lindsay from Trial by Sapphire, told me long ago that I should be a fashion blogger. Well, I love putting outfits together and I think I'm really great at it, but I just felt there was more to me than trying to look good for work and play.  Then my eldest daughter, Summer, said I should blog about travel, which I love doing!

So I posed that question to my family -- thinking of my personality and how I've lived and am living my life, what song pops up in your head?  We are a musical family, and there are times when we'll break out in song when a sentence in our conversation sounds like a lyric from a song, then we'll start singing the song!  Sometimes we can't finish the song because we're laughing so hard.  It's so hilarious!

Anyway, here are the suggestions given to me by my sweet husband and daughters:

Come Away with Me (Nora Jones)
On the Road Again (Willie Nelson)
Come Fly with Me (Frank Sinatra)
The Long and Winding Road (Beatles)
These Boots Are Made For Walking (Nancy Sinatra)
Magic Carpet Ride (Steppenwolf)
Ticket To Ride (Beatles)
Life is a Highway (Rascal Flatts)
Leavin' on a Jet Plane (John Denver)
Proud Mary (Tina Turner)

You can see how the titles reference fashion and travel, and my long life going into my late 50's.  I was quite complimented with their choices, and Life is a Highway was my pick for the name of my blog. I chose this song because it spoke volumes of the past several years of my life.

You know,  I always considered my life charming.  I have a wonderful family, I had jobs that I loved, my children were making me proud, and I was traveling.  It was all great until the devastating news from my internist that I was seriously ill.  My first round of tests proved inconclusive, so I had to repeat the test.  A week later, I'm told that tests were showing that I might have multiple sclerosis but something wasn't quite right, and he wanted to repeat the test.  A week later, the diagnosis is very clear.

I have lupus.

I was beyond devastated.  After making some adjustments in my daily activity, I kind of saw my life a little differently.  When I had the energy, I felt like Superwoman trying to save the day -- go to work, drive the kids to where they needed to be, cook dinner, help with homework, yada yada yada.  But I was doing it faster, like I needed to make up for lost time,  for all the time I had to lay in bed and rest, calling in sick to work when I absolutely couldn't stand on my feet, and I just didn't want to look back on those sickly, horrible times anymore.

Anyway, Life is a Highway is a representation of the life I've lived/am living, and I'm going to follow that road to look for new travel adventures, to find more ways to fight the symptoms of my disease, to find and share ways to de-stress, and how to look good while doing it all!

Photo by Daniel Sevilla Photography

Life is a highway
I want to ride it all night long
If you're going my way
I want to drive it all night long



Listen to the song here, written by Tom Petty and sung by Rascal Flatts!

The graphic designs are courtesy of Google Images.