Bucket list

It's not very often that a movie, book, song, or even a person can change the way I feel about myself, but last night I was struck on the head with a whisk. After dinner, Megan and I had a movie night and she had been wanting to watch the movie Julie & Julia, so into the DVD player it went. For those of you who have not seen or heard of the movie, it's about two women who find joy in cooking. Maryl Streep's character, Julia, sets forth to become a professional cook and write her own French cook book. Amy Adam's character, Julie, makes every dish in Julia's cookbook within one year and then writes a blog about it. The movie is filled with punch lines and great humor, an inspirational message of hope and determination, and most of all, food! I had just eaten steak and potatoes for dinner, and yet my stomach continued to beg for more. Once the movie was over, I was struck with a huge urge to do something, anything! I wanted to climb a mountain, travel the world in a two person plane, or simply go fishing. There was so much energy and motivation building up inside that I decided to blog about it. After all of that, I've come to the conclusion that I want to start working on my list of things to do that I had begun writing last summer. Some of the items on the list seem a little random, some dangerous, a few comical, but all of them mean something to me. The list is comprised of both short term and long term goals that may take me years to complete. I consider this to be my bucket list of sorts. I'm only 21, but if I wait until I've become old and retired to start living the life I've always dreamed of, trying to cram it into 20 years...well, that's not really living at all. Here it goes:

• Swim near a shark


• Take ballroom dancing lessons


• Learn the basics in 5 languages


• Travel back to Vietnam and Cambodia


• Indulge in a good bottle of wine once a month with a friend


• Take a bubble bath once every 3 weeks


• Bait my own hook and remove my own fish from the hook when fishing


• Visit Canada


• Visit Mexico


• Open a savings account for a friend's baby and add to it every year


• Spend 10 minutes in a strip club


• Go on another long road trip


• Finish my novel


• Find 50 new ways to tell Bryan that I love him


• Cook a new recipe every week for a year


• Fly somewhere just for a day


• Go sky diving


• Learn to snowboard


• Start and Finish the 30 Day Shred IN 30 days


• Eat ice cream whenever I want


• Graduate with my bachelors degree


• Live in a different state for a full year


• Learn Spanish


• Take a multi-vitamin every day


• Learn to sew proficiently


• Have a cute and functional wardrobe that is 100% me


• Own real pearls


• Fly in a two person airplane


• Learn to rock climb


• Teach a class, any class


• Get a 3rd tattoo


• Have a near death experience


• Send someone a letter in the mail once every two weeks


• Leave a positive lasting impression on someone


• Learn to do yoga


• Go to the movies by myself


• Run the Breast Cancer 5k every year for 10 years


• Climb another mountain


• Go backpacking through a random country for a month


• Read all of Nicholas Spark's books


• Donate blood


• Go to the airport and buy a ticket to anywhere on the spot


• Learn to drive a motorcycle


• Donate money to a charity every year


• Refuse to back down on a dare (as long as it's legal)


• Never let money ruin my happiness

There are still plenty more that I'd love to do, but I'm sure this list of 45 things will give me plenty to work on until then. Living life to the fullest each and every day is something many people take for granted. I don't know when or how I'm going to die; it could be today on my way to work for all I know. No one wants to look back on their life and have a 3 clip slideshow of things that made them happy. So I have told myself that from here on, I'm going to be the happy, easy going, adventurous woman that I've always wanted to be. Sure I'll probably make a few more mistakes and break a few more bones by not being as cautious, but it'll be worth it in the end. I've got my mind made up, have you?