So if you’re anything like me you’ve heard of a bucket list… you know a list of all the things you want to do in your life! Visit Russia, finish a whole tube of chapstick… buy a house one day. Those kinds of things… goals if you will. I’ve had a bucket list for as long as I can remember… but it wasn’t until Pinterest came about that I sat down and thought about what I REALLY wanted on my bucket list… and then I got to pinning!
Over the years I’ve been slowly working away at my bucket list… checking things off and all that jazz! Although I still haven’t managed to finish an entire tube of chapstick… those pesky little tubes always go missing! So last week when I saw the reverse bucket list trend start to pop up (I think I read 4 blog posts last week about the good old reverse bucket list!) I knew this was one bandwagon I was DEFINITELY jumping on.
I have to see what I’ve accomplished with my life after all!
1. Keep a Diary for a Whole Year – I have kept a diary since I was a little girl… I love to write down what’s going on in my life! Looking back through all of those memories is one of my favorite things to do… but when I reach a particularly busy part in my life the entries tend to dry up (I’m missing most of my college years!) so my goal after college was to keep a Diary for a whole year. I’ve been going strong for almost two years now… although I’ve been a little lax this past month. Better get back to it!
2. Visit Italy – I have been to Italy twice! Once after high school with my mama (Italy was our last stop on our big European tour… I turned 18 while we were there and the cute Italian waiter brought me a bottle of champagne and gave me a kiss right on the mouth to celebrate! I was shocked… the kissing customs are just a little different in America!) I loved Italy so much that when I had the chance to return in college I jumped on it! I went for two weeks with my art history class and had a chance to explore the Italian country side… the shopping was amazing! I am obsessed with collecting Venetian masks and brought home one from each city we visited!
3. Visit France – Paris France was the entire reason for our grand after high school European tour… I saved up for four years and when I graduated my Mama and I booked a tour that included London, Paris and Rome. I studied French in school and was just dying to see Paris! Mama grew up as an army brat and lived in Germany and Spain during her school years… I think I caught the travel bug from her and I’ve been dying to go back to Paris ever since my first taste of Europe! I absolutely loved Paris… the sights, the culture, the history! I know most people find art history boring but it’s my favorite part… unless you count the architecture!
4. Visit England – England was our fist stop on the after high school European tour… I loved seeing the tower of London and all of the queen’s jewels. We tried to eat in a British pub (but were kicked out because I was 2 days short of my 18th birthday… which was complete rubbish! I mean we were just trying to grab a bite to eat… and I was in a large group of adults including my mother and a set of grandparents! I guess they were worried Grandma would get too rowdy! Haha!) We were there during the release of the second Fantastic Four movie… which is why there was a giant Silver Surfer stretched out upon the London Eye!
5. Marry the Man of My Dreams – I think this ones pretty self-explanatory 🙂 On May 17th 2014 I walked down the aisle to marry my best friend and the man of my dreams. Life is far from easy and we have more emotional days then I’d like… but there’s no way to have the highest of highs without the lowest of lows. At least I’m on the ride with my favorite person!
6. Own a Yorkie – I really can’t explain this one… during college I caught yorkie fever. I worked so hard that last year (26 credit hours, full time cheering, full time college newspaper editor, a part time internship and a freshmen mentor… and I graduated with a 3.89 GPA!) that my mind was completely exhausted. I just couldn’t see leaping straight from the daily grind at college to the daily grind in the work force. I needed some time off and gosh darn it I needed a puppy. The only problem is that yorkie’s are expensive… as a college senior I didn’t have 1,000 to shill out for a puppy! After a lot of research I found my Little Bitt for a much more reasonable price… and was a happy new yorkie mama!
7. Adopt a Shelter Kitty – Ever since I was a little girl I wanted a kitten… I would beg my parents for one at least once a year… and by beg I mean beg. There were full on presentations involved (with pie charts people!) the problem is that my mama’s allergic… which I really didn’t understand as a little girl. All I knew was that I wanted a kitten! As I got older my parents saw that this wasn’t a passing fancy… plus I grew exponentially more responsible from age 5 to 16. So for my 16th birthday I finally convinced my parents to adopt the long haired female orange tabby kitten of my dreams (after 10 years of presentations I knew exactly what I wanted… and that lighter colored female cats produce less allergens then their dark haired male counterparts! Go figure!). I googled for weeks and months trying to find a kitten to meet my specifications… did you know that most long haired orange tabby’s are male? I don’t remember exactly but I THINK it’s something like 1 in 10 is female. Finally I found my Lily… and we brought her home the same week my drivers ed class started… so I spend every day staring at the clock and waiting to rush home to my kitten!
8. Get a Full Time Job – Remember all those months I spent looking for a puppy instead of a job… yeah that was a bad idea. When my little break was over I went searching for a job… and found that full time jobs are hard to come by…. especially full time Graphic Design jobs in Colorado Springs (an engineering town!). I worked part time jobs, design jobs, retail jobs, front desk at the eye doctor jobs… anything and everything to make a living. Finally in 2014 I was hired by Sherwin Williams… full time with full benefits. My first grown up job!
9. Start a Blog – I wanted to create a blog long before I ever hit publish on my first post. When I first graduated college and spent those months “relaxing” a lot of my life was spent online… and that’s when I discovered my first blog. Miss Mustard Seed. I absolutely loved it and spent every free second from then on discovering other blogs… I wanted to start my own so bad… but what did I have to write about? I wanted to write a home decor blog but I was living in my childhood room in my dad’s basement… not exactly fodder for a decor blog. So I bit my tongue and waited until it was my turn. When my hubby and I moved to Alabama and rented our first house… I knew it was time. Happily Ever After, Etc. was born and I haven’t looked back since!
10. Have my Own Home – See #9? Yup… through living in my dad’s basement, my first (gorgeous apartment), and living in my hubby’s crap-hole I kept repeating the same mantra over and over to myself. One day… we will live in a house. I will decorate the house. It will all be FINE! Haha! Seriously though… there’s only so much you can do with an apartment the size of a shoe box… I wanted a house with separate rooms to decorate! When we moved to Alabama I finally got my wish in the form of our first rental… the three bedroom, 2 bath you’ve seen us working on for the last year!
11. Complete an Entire Scrapbook – Scrapbooking is another one of those fun activities I haven’t done since high school. My mom and I use to scrapbook together on weekends… and when I went to college my girlfriends and I would spend Friday nights senior year with our scrapbook supplies and a good chick flick… we were wild and crazy I tell ya! My goal for senior year was to complete an entire book… not half a book, not a quarter of a book… but a whole book! And finish I did. I haven’t had the time, space or energy to scrapbook since college… but with the addition of my new craft room in new house I’m hoping to get back into it. I have a wedding album to complete!
12. Go to an NFL Game – My daddy is from a little town right outside of Pittsburgh… so you can say I was born and raised a die hard Steelers fan. I know I have black and gold running through my veins 😉 Moving around so much it was hard to go to a bona-fide Pittsburgh Steelers game… but finally when we lived in Colorado I was able to go to not one, not two but three Steelers games! The game on the left was my hubby’s Christmas present in 2013… his very first Broncos game… yes he’s a traitor and bleeds orange and blue. Even super awesome people have faults… I try not to hold it against him. The game on the RIGHT? The 2011 playoff game between the Steelers and Broncos at Mile High Stadium… Daddy scored us tickets in the first row on the 50 yard line… it was completely awesome! Even though we lost the game it was a night I’ll never forget! (Yes my step-sister is a Broncos fan too… there’s just no helping some people!)
13. Learn to Ski – When we moved to Colorado I had never skied a day in my life. Daddy however… Daddy loved to ski and quickly taught both myself and my little brother how to glide down hill. Of course the little broster takes a more daredevil approach… pointing his ski’s down hill and hoping he makes it to the bottom at the super fast breakneck speed he’s reached. I rake a more leisurely route… think stopping to smell the roses and all that jazz! Either way… I’m skiing!
14. Graduate College with 2 degrees in 4 years – Halfway through my college career I decided that I wanted not one but two degrees… but I didn’t want to go any longer than my original four years. So I received special permission from the dean to take 6 classes a semester instead of 4 and I studied really hard. Luckily I don’t need much sleep!
15. Meet Miss Mustard Seed – As I said in #9 when I first learned about blogging I was introduced to Miss Mustard Seed (figuratively speaking) online. I fell in love with her style and her enthusiasm for painting furniture, home decor and making a gorgeous life for her real life family. Here was a women doing everything I wanted in life… staying home with her kids, working for herself doing something she loved, creating a gorgeous home for her family… and getting paid for it! I didn’t even know that was an option! She’s basically my role model and I still can’t believe I’ve met her not once but twice. Both times were at the Chapel Market… so there were large groups of people and I doubt she remembers me… but that’s ok. Meeting her meant so much to me… and if I keep going back maybe she’ll remember me one day! Chapel Market 2015 here I come!
16. Take Down Wallpaper – I’m not sure why taking down wallpaper always seems so hard… I mean it’s not easy but it’s not rocket science! Either way it’s always scared the heebee jeebee’s out of me… but not anymore! When we moved into our new house my hatred for the green, red and yellow wallpaper border was stronger then my fear of wallpaper removal… so down it came!
17. Move Across Country with the Hubby – I’ve moved a million bajillion times… with the army. Moving by yourself is sooo much harder! You have to pack your own stuff and load your own truck…. drive the truck across the country and then do the whole thing in reverse! I was definitely scared to tackle this one… but I’m so glad we made it!
18. Swim with Sea Turtles – Swimming with dolphins is still on my bucket list… but swimming with turtles? That one is taken care of! Have I ever mentioned that I lived in Hawaii for two years? Army brat remember? I lived there when I was about 12… which I like to say is the absolute best time to live in an exotic (and expensive!) place like Hawaii… because you’re old enough to remember it but too young to pay for things! Haha! Either way we didn’t swim with the sea turtles when I was 12… rather when I was a senior in college my bestie and I went to Oahu for spring break with my Mama. We stayed with one of my Mama’s best friends (who’s husband was stationed there at the time) and spent the week swimming, shopping and laying on the beach. I’ve had plenty of opportunities to swim with neon colored marine life while I lived there… but never the turtles. They’re wild and come to nest on several select sections of the North Shore… the day we went to see them the surf was almost to wild to swim. Luckily it slowed down just long enough for some of the “older” tourists and locals to swim. The beach is patrolled by volunteers who make sure that no one touches or gets too close to the turtles… and that you swim at your own risk. It is a fun experience but not easy… turtles are much faster in the water then they are on land… and these turtles are giant! At least as big as me!
19. Learn to Knit – If you’ve spent two minutes on this site you know I’m a crafter… and I have been ever since I was a little girl. When I was little I can remember going to my grandpa’s house and “exploring” all the toys and trinkets he had packed away. Things of my aunts and dad’s that he had left in their childhood rooms when they went away to school… and things that belonged to my grandma before she passed. Now I am a crafter and my mama’s a crafter too… but this is my daddy’s side of the family and neither of my aunts are big crafters. My grandma though… apparently she liked to knit. I never met her (she passed before I was born) but on one of my explorations I came across her old knitting box… it was still packed just the way she left it. Neither of my aunts had ever learned to knit and it made me so sad that her knitting and sewing were left all alone. So I asked my grandpa if I could have them and I taught myself to knit. I like to think I’m carrying on a family tradition… even if it did skip a generation!
20. Cheer for 4 years in High School & 4 years in College – This ones pretty self explanatory! When I was a little girl (3 or 4) I was extremely shy… like wouldn’t let go of my mom’s leg for even a second shy. My mom was worried about what would happen when it came time for me to go to Kinder-garden…. if I couldn’t even be without her for one minute! So the doctor suggested she put me in an activity so that I could get use to being separate from her while in the same room… and eventually on my own. She put me in Ballet lessons and I loved it. I danced Ballet, Tap and Jazz until I was a freshmen in high school… then I turned in my pointe shoes for pom poms. My mama cheered in high school so I wanted to try out in the worst way. Mama taught me a cheer and I learned a jump that ended in the splits (thank you Ballet)… luckily I made the squad! I cheered for all four years of high school and college… the only gal to go all 4 years on either squad!
21. Be an Editor for my College Newspaper – This is something I never knew I wanted… freshmen year of college all freshmen were required to go to the school activity fair. I was already cheering so I didn’t think I’d sign up for anything… but my dorm’s RA was the college editor so I stopped by her table (relieved to see a friendly face… she’s the gal on the far right side of the picture above). I had been an editor on my high school paper and when I let that little bit of information leek she pounced… apparently they were low on staff and looking for two new editors. Sports and Life. It was a paying gig (although it didn’t pay very much!) and I was desperate to fit in… so I said sure I’ll do it. I worked as the Lifestyle editor for the next four years and had a blast in our late night editing sessions. I made so many friends that I never would have made otherwise… and I learned a lot about writing articles. That writing information definitely comes in handy today!
22. Be a Summer Cheer Camp Instructor – The year between my freshmen and sophomore grades in college I was a cheer camp instructor. I never planned to do something like this but the opportunity came down through my college cheer squad and I jumped at the chance to audition. I spent a summer traveling all across the USA with other cheer guys and gals… driving rental cars, staying in hotels, being on my own, making a bit of money and having a blast teaching young girls how to cheer, dance and stunt. I think this summer was the “wildest” my college career ever got… I even went to the movies by myself once when no one else wanted to go!
If you made it through all of that writing you are my new best friend… and you now so much more about me then when we first started! So what do you think? Are you on board for the whole reverse bucket list trend? Have you already written one? Leave a link… I’d love to read yours!
Linking up with: Lou Lou Girls & Home Matters
