Before I Kick the Bucket...List

Hola All!

It has been a very slow week for me. Work is filling up more and more time as I prepare to do marketing for two of Best Friends largest events, Pet Super Adoptions and Strut Your Mutt. If you are looking for a new fur baby or have a dog and want to find something fun to do with them, check out those events. Ok, enough of the shameless plug...lol. 

Other than work, Hubby and I have just been sitting around watching our favorite trash TV, looking for a new home, and dreaming of vacations. (I desperately need some beach in my life right now.) While sitting around, I decided to go through some of my old blogs and websites and check out how far I have progressed in life. In my search, I found the bucket list that I made in 2009. 

Let me tell you a little about 2009. I had taken a job in  Star, NC, the center of the state. It was in the middle of no where. It was a small town of about 800 people and I was like the only black person there. I was single, broke, unhappy, and not really sure why I had taken a position that had me so secluded. Let me preface, though, that the company I worked for was a great place. Starworks and Central Park NC is an organization that is really working to build a sustainable economy in the counties in central North Carolina. They actually employ lots of young and innovative people from all over the country. But in the end, it wasn't for me. 

Well there I was bored and broke - two of the worst things to be - and I decided to make my bucket list. I looked at many different websites and read others' bucket list and made the following list. I look at some of these things and find them very insightful and I look at others and wonder what the heck I was thinking. Well I have made some edits to my original bucket list and you will see them below.

100 Things I Want to Do in My Life...

(in no particular order)

1. Write the story of my life. (I guess I am on my way to this with this blog!)
2. Break a world record.
3. Go without a cell phone for a month.
4. Spend one month's paycheck on a pair of shoes.

(Louboutins here I come!!!)

5. Learn to play one song on a musical instrument.
6. Learn a different language and use it for a year.
7. Fly on a trapeze.
8. Swim with a dolphin...in its natural habitat, not in an aquarium or in captivity.
(Because I have learned so much about dolphins and other animals in captivity, I have now changed my viewpoint on how I want to do this.)
9. Ride on the world's tallest rollercoaster.
10. Pay for my sister's entire college education. Help my sister find the right college. 

(My little sister will be going into the military, so she won't need help paying for college (thankfully!) but she will need help finding the college that is right for her. I want to do the whole college tour with her like my parents did.)
11. Kiss a perfect stranger without telling them of my intentions. Learn how to do standing paddle boarding. 

(I have wanted to do this every since I saw this on a show about Hawaii. It probably is harder than it looks, so looking forward to doing this!)
12. Fast for one week and give the money that I would have spent on food to the church.
13. Run a marathon.
14. Test drive an expensive car that I can't afford.
15. Attend the Super Bowl.
16. Be in a movie.
17. Win a ballroom competition.
18. Fall deeply in love -- helplessly and unconditionally. Stay in love and be married to the same person for a lifetime. 

(I have already found the person I want to spend the rest of my life with, so the goal is to keep the promises that we make in our vows.)

19. Drink beer at Oktoberfest in Munich.
20. Sing my favorite song in front of an audience.
21. Visit all 50 states.
(15 down already!)
22. Go to Carnival in Brazil.
23. Participate in La Tomatina in Valencia, Spain.
24. Get to my perfect weight then spend the next day eating junk food all day.
25. Dive off the Australian Great Barrier Reef.
26. Walk all of the stairs in the Statue of Liberty.
27. Play an entire 18 holes of golf.
28. Climb the Great Pyramid of Egypt. Visit the Great Pyramid of Giza. 

(Had to change this because it seems that it is illegal to climb the pyramids.)
29. Walk the entire Great Wall of China.
30. Eat a meal good enough to be my last. Be in a cooking competition. 

(I changed this because I have already had several meals that could have been my last. I want to give myself more of a challenge. Chopped here I come! Lol)
31. Elope in Vegas.
(Keeping this one. You never know what could happen...lol)
32. Spend New Year's Eve in New York.
33. Write an article for Lonely Planet.
34. Write all of my friends a letter in a single day.
35. Adopt 50 homeless shelter dogs. (Not all at once!)
36. Get my MBA...or my Masters degree. 
37. Go to an airport and buy a ticket to the next place leaving. 

(Gonna keep this on, but with the current airport security, this may lead to me being put in jail for suspicion of something. Lol)
38. Go camping for a week.
39. Be photographed professionally - naked.
40. Get a full body wax.
41. Get my mother to ride on a plane.
42. Drive to Mexico.
43. Take a Transatlantic cruise.
44. Become debt free.
45. Visit India.
46. Make an important speech on television.
47. Write a letter to the Editor of the New York Times.
48. Fill my iPod to the limit with songs.
49. Make a documentary.
50. Work a night at a suicide hotline.
51. Spend a week partying in Miami.
52. Be celibate for one year. Drive the Pacific Coast Highway in California. 

(Having visited California, I am very eager to explore more!)

53. Be the head of an organization.
54. Buy a house.
55. Buy 20 acres of land.
56. Donate to a charity anonymously.
57. Donate blood and plasma.
58. Suntan naked on a beach.
59. Make a large piece of art.
60. Read over 1000 books.
61. Swim in the Dead Sea.
62. Read the Bible from start to finish.
63. Watch a tornado.
64. Visit the world's largest farmer's market.
65. Make a cake from scratch. 

(OMG, I did this this weekend! I need to write a blog post about it!!!!)
66. Eat fish and chips in England.
67. Apologize in person to someone I have hurt greatly.
68. Forgive someone who has greatly hurt me.
69. Vacation at a nudist resort. Vacation on a private island. 

(After watching shows about nudist resorts, I have no interest in this! Don't know what I was thinking in 2009 with this.)
70. Participate in speed dating. Take a cross country road trip. 
(Hubby and I want to do this when we eventually move to San Diego.)
71. Drink champagne that is from IN the champagne region of France.
72. Spend an entire day making myself happy.
73. Buy an expensive pearl necklace.
74. Send a dozen roses to all of the women in my life.
75. Let a man sweep me off of my feet. Visit all of the U.S. National Parks. 

(Hubby does the original every day just by the way he treats me and the fur babies, so I wanted to make this something different. I have a love of national parks, so my new bucket task is to visit all of the U.S. National Parks, even the ones in Alaska!)
76. Have a child. Visit an orphanage and donate clothing for all of the kids there. 

(After contemplating life, I have decided that children are not something I want. Hubby and I agree on this, also. However, we love kids and want to make an impact in their lives, whether it is our friends' kids or kids we don't know.)
77. Make the perfect cornbread stuffing.
78. Dance with a stranger in the street.
79. Wash my hair in the first rain of spring.
80. Watch a music icon in concert.
81. Swim in Bora Bora.
82. Kiss someone until my lips get numb. Have a huge wine cellar with wines from all around the world. 

(I changed this one because the original was just boring and definitely was an indicator of how single I was in 2009...lol. Since I love wine so much, I think the new item is better for me.)
83. Become a vegetarian for a month. Develop a lifestyle of organic foods and clean eating. 

(I have deleted this because in 2009, I actually went vegetarian for 6 months. It wasn't for me. However, it did change my idea of how important good foods are to a diet, which is why I changed this.)
84. Eat an authentic Philly Cheesesteak.
85. Sleep in a zoo. Fully renovate a house.

(Because of my evolving views on animals in captivity, I took the original off the list. Lately, Hubby and I have tossed around the idea of buying a fixer-upper and fully renovating it ourselves. I would love to do this!)
86. Have a picnic in Central Park, NY.
87. Buy and sell stocks.
88. Hug a huge redwood tree.
89. Get my 401k to over $1 $2 million before I retire. 

(In today's economy, the original $1 would not have kept me through my first ten years of retirement. I am sure by the time I retire, this number will need to go to $4 million.)
90. Own all of my favorite movies.
91. Become certified in something.
92. Get a boob job.
93. Buy my mother a house.
94. Spend the day floating in a boat reading a book.
95. Kiss someone in the rain Hubby in a rainforest. 

(Changed this because anyone can be kissed in the rain, but it is more of a challenge to kiss in a rainforest.)
96. Fulfill a wish for someone.
97. Spend an entire day praying.
98. Give $100,000 to my church.
99. Take my little sister on vacation once every year until she no longer wants me to.
100. Eat real Paella in South America.

I think I like those changes. They reflect where I am in life now. Now I have something great to blog about for years to come as I knock out my bucket list. I hope you enjoy mine and make a list of your own!

Talk soon, XOXO!

Crystal