Fortyfication - Life begins at 40

[Tuumble]

A side project for me this year is to keep blog/diary on a 'life begins at 40' theme. This is because I turned 40 at the very end of last year.

Fortyfication will involve me making multiple daily updates of 40 words each and the issue of nine PDF ebooks - one every 40 days - with more detailed notes on my progress. These will be published at cost of 40p each with 40% being donated to charity.

I want to see if I can achieve an average of at least 40 downloads a month over the course of a year. On that basis I will only earn £192 but I think it's a realistic first target to have. If it goes well I can alter my figures accordingly.

After the year is up I want to compile the best bits from the ebooks and blog into a hard copy book during 2010.

All this has been partly inspired by another book I've been reading called The To-Do List by Mike Gayle. He was closing in on his 40th birthday and decided he wanted to get his life together so he compiled a 1277 item To-Do List which he essentially completed over the course of a year.

Remember, the blog is: Fortyfication

[Angela]

I love it!! Best wishes with this, and happy belated birthday!

Lots of love and fortytude,
Angela

[Tuumble]

I knew the list was a good idea - I've just spoken to a 1980s work colleague I haven't seen in seven years (on a half-marathon course). We're going to meet up again soon.

Published list is up to 175 items but I've got 250 written down...

To-Do List « Fortyfication

As I thought - this is going to be fun!

[sk8joyful]

Originally Posted by Tuumble

A side project for me this year is to keep blog/diary on a 'life begins at 40' theme.
This is because I turned 40 at the very end of last year.

Happy Birthday!

and always remember Life begins... each day as you Cheerfully awaken...

[sk8joyful]

sorry, dbl posted

[bbdream8]

Hey Tummble,

This is an interesting idea and I look forward to your success. I will drop by your blog and take a look.

Cheers
Vincent
Personal Development Blogger

Originally Posted by Tuumble

A side project for me this year is to keep blog/diary on a 'life begins at 40' theme. This is because I turned 40 at the very end of last year.

Fortyfication will involve me making multiple daily updates of 40 words each and the issue of nine PDF ebooks - one every 40 days - with more detailed notes on my progress. These will be published at cost of 40p each with 40% being donated to charity.

I want to see if I can achieve an average of at least 40 downloads a month over the course of a year. On that basis I will only earn £192 but I think it's a realistic first target to have. If it goes well I can alter my figures accordingly.

After the year is up I want to compile the best bits from the ebooks and blog into a hard copy book during 2010.

All this has been partly inspired by another book I've been reading called The To-Do List by Mike Gayle. He was closing in on his 40th birthday and decided he wanted to get his life together so he compiled a 1277 item To-Do List which he essentially completed over the course of a year.

Remember, the blog is: Fortyfication

[Tuumble]

I'm ticking away with my (still incomplete) 1000 item to-do list at the pace of an arthritic snail with heavy shopping but I am at least averaging about one item a day.

I won't consider it failure if I don't complete the list because by merely having a list and achieving some of those on there I am doing more than I would've done without it. It has just focused the mind a little more than usual.

A while back I was contacted by someone on Facebook who shared the same surname as me and probably unsurprisingly, considering the oddness of the name, we are related. There's not that many of us Orbells about so whenever I cross paths with a namesake it's a fair bet that we have a connection somewhere along the line.

Anyawy, Philip sent me a three page PDF of my direct decendents going right back to a John Orbell who died in 1515. What was interesting about this document is that it shows that my particular branch were not great travellers: The last 200 years we have all lived in Lincolnshire and the 300 before that were all Suffolk.

Last summer the family and I took a trip out to Suffolk to visit the villages and towns mentioned on that PDF which included places of birth, deaths and marriages (though not in that order). I have to say they knew how to pick where they lived as the area is gorgeous and one particularly nice place is the village of Clare.

I'd been to Clare before but never knew its significance for the family so it was great to learn that the grocers in the main square has been run by the Orbells since the first World War.

In the following picture you can see the church from the castle mound and if you look closely below the tower you can see a row of buildings in white. In amongst that row is a green shop frontage which is the Orbell grocers.



Here's another shot of the village...



We went and spoke to the owner, another John Orbell, and he was a really nice chap. Not sure where the family branch splits but we are related to the same 16th century John I mentioned earlier. Apparently he regularly gets asked about the family name by relatives from all over the world: Canada, Australia, South Africa, New Zealand.

In fact in New Zealand you can visit Lake Orbell which was named after one after one of us. Maybe we get about a bit afterall.



Cor, I have my own lake but it's a shame it's the other side of the World. That's a visit for another To-Do List!