Tuesday, July 20, 2010

The Ones I've Done

03. Climb a mountain - Stone Mountain a few times. But if only big(er) mountains count: Blood Mountain

06. Hold a tarantula - I worked at The Pet Company in Gwinnett Place Mall where we sold tarantulas as pets. My boss would put them all over his back and scare the pretty girls. Random memories.

08. Say “I love you” and mean it - I've said this numerous times to many people, and I actually meant when I said it to a lot of those people.

09. Hug a tree - The first time I did this I was getting high with some friends in the woods when one of them accused me of being a "tree-hugging hippie." Yes, I've always been a smartass, so I followed through.

13. Stay up all night long and watch the sun rise - I've spent plenty of nights completely sleepless. I remember staying up all night in Cocoa Beach, FL when I was 17 and on spring break with a bunch of girls. Christine and I were on the beach at sunrise and she took a picture of me with the sunrise behind me.

15. Go to a huge sports game - I've been to several "huge" sports games. Including: Atlanta Braves, Atlanta Thrashers (even playoff games) and Jacksonville Jaguars games.

16. Climb to the top of a lighthouse - St. Augustine Lighthouse - I was so terrified when I got to the top that I wouldn't look over the edge. Heights scare me.

19. Sleep under the stars -
Camping several times in tents, but one time I slept on a trampoline in the middle of nowhere. A rooster woke me up.

20. Change a baby’s diaper - I have a six week old baby. I change 15 diapers every day.

22. Watch a meteor shower - When I lived in the desert, they were a lot easier to watch than on the east coast. Out in the desert, you can see so many more stars at night, and there's hardly ever a cloud in the sky. Also, because of the time difference, meteor showers happen earlier on the west coast, maybe. I'll have to look into that.

23. Get drunk on champagne - Once I discovered that I enjoy champagne, I decided that every Tuesday should be "Champagne Tuesday." What a brilliant idea. Who says you need an excuse to get fancy? Wait... what do you mean Andre' champagne isn't fancy?

26. Have an uncontrollable giggling fit at the worst possible moment - My best friend, Tifany, and I have always identified with Beavis and Butthead. When Tifany and I started working at Atlanta Gastroenterology Associates together, a doctor decided to give (just the two of) us a class on the GI tract. When the doctor got to explaining the sphincter to us, we simply looked at each other and that was it. We were both red in the face trying not to laugh. To make matters worse, the doctor was writing all of this on a dry erase board and she didn't know how to spell sphincter, so she kept mouthing and saying the word "sphincter" over and over again. . . I had to leave the room.

29. Ask out a stranger - Not a proud moment at Eclipse a while back. Enough said.

30. Have a snowball fight - In Atlanta, we had snow slushy fights because we rarely got enough snow to make an actual ball. However, this never stopped every single person in Atlanta from making a dirty ass snowman whenever we got an inch of snow.

31. Scream as loud as you possibly can - Roller coasters. Concerts. Moments of insanity. I've done it all.

33. See a total eclipse - In elementary school we watched a solar eclipse through colored filter paper. In the middle of the woods somewhere around Atlanta, Brent and I watched a lunar eclipse with a deer. Really, it happened.

34. Ride a roller coaster - I've done this at: Six Flags Magic Mountain, Knott's Berry Farm, Disneyland, Six Flags Over Georgia, The Santa Monica Pier, Universal Studios Hollywood, Universal Studios Florida and countless county fairs.

36. Dance like a fool and don't care who is looking - This is the only way I can dance, but more notably, my days hanging out at Higher Grounds Coffee Shoppe.

38. Actually feel happy about your life, even for just a moment - I'm doing this one right now!!

39. Have two hard drives for your computer - Since I started college.

41. Take care of someone who is drunk - Tifany was the first. There have been many others since. I've also been on the other end of that.

42. Have amazing friends - Jeremy, Liz and Tyson have all been amazing friends at one point or another. They were my core and now we've all gone our separate ways.

45. Steal a sign - This was, for lack of a better word, a fetish of mine as a teenager. I had everything from street name signs, to construction signs, to shoplifting warning signs, to address signs from mailboxes. Getting rid of these things was no easy task, either. I had to cut them up into small pieces and hide them in the trash. Stealing street signs is a federal offense and I destroyed them like I would murdered bodies.

47. Take a road-trip - from trips to the beach to trips through the mountains to trips through nowhere trying to get lost. I'm a driver at heart and love to be on the road. Damn gas prices and responsibility keeping me from doing that now!

49. Take a midnight walk on the beach - Every time I was on vacation at the beach.

52. Be heartbroken longer than you were actually in love - My heart has been broken for 10 years from a four month romance.

53. In a restaurant, sit at a stranger’s table and have a meal with them - Fat Matt's Rib Shack in Atlanta. It's hard to sit down at your own table there.

54. Fly first class - Thanks to my uncle, I flew first class from Atlanta to Los Angeles and back. He bought me the ticket, but never told me it was first class. It was a lovely surprise when I checked in at the airport. I love my uncle Dennis!

56. Alphabetize your CDs - I am a perfectionist and I have been since way back when, when CDs were still relevant.

58. Sing karaoke - I have terrible stage fright to the point that I almost passed out while waiting for my name to be called at my graduation ceremony. Karaoke is fun with friends only, and something I never wanted to do in public. Somehow, after several drinks, my friend Liz talked me into signing "Date Rape" on karaoke night at our favorite dive bar, The Dumpster.

59. Lounge around in bed all day - More times than I'd care to admit

62. Kiss in the rain / 63. Play in the mud / 64. Play in the rain - All three on the same day. I skipped school with Tim and we went to Lenora park. The weather thought we should be at school, and tried to (literally) rain on our parade. We showed you, weather.

68. Fall in love without having your heart broken - I fell madly in love with my husband the day we met. I'm talking heart-racing, palm-sweating, nerve-racking, insane, die-for-you love. Its a big deal, which brings us to #72. Get married (December 18th, 2009)

73. Be in a movie - I'm 16 and on summer vacation when my mom calls me from work and asks me if I know who Tom Green is. Now, this was the late 90s when he was still relevant. She then informs me that he is shooting a movie at her work (Emory University) and they're looking for extras. So, I ran down there and signed up to be an extra in the award winning film, Road Trip.

74. Crash a party - Bar-hopping in Snellville, of all places, led to me attending a bachelor party by mistake. The boys were disappointed when I kept my clothes on.

77. Make cookies from scratch - a few times. This is not an interesting story.

80. Get a tattoo - I got my first tattoo when I was 15 at a flea market. It is a black widow spider on my lower back (no, it is not a tramp stamp) that matches the one on Tifany's shoulder. We were flipping through the flash art book and decided to go with the black widow spider because it was "bad ass." Neither of us has covered it up yet, but I'm pretty sure we both want to.

83. Get flowers for no reason - 2004 - Flowers with tickets to see Mindless Self Indulgence. A lovely surprise on a Tuesday afternoon.

84. Perform on stage - The plays put on at South Gwinnett High school, thanks to Mr. Buis (who was later fired for slapping a student), working my magic at Blood Oaks Haunted House (I didn't mean to kill him), and singing karaoke at The Dumpster.

88. Kiss on the first date - I think I've kissed on every first date I've ever been on.

89.
Swim Naked - The best summer of my life, the summer before my senior year of high school. My crew (Tifany, John and Nik) and I spent our days at the rope swing by the river or getting high in the park. We broke into a pool in a random subdivision late at night and stripped down to nothing and took turns jumping into the pool from the lifeguard chair. How no one heard us is beyond me.

96. Raise children - I'm working on this one right now and it is, by far, the greatest thing I've ever done.

98. Pass out cold - This has happened several times.

100. Pick up and move to another city to just start over -
2008 - I felt like I was doing nothing with my life and needed to make a change very quickly. I moved down to Jacksonville Beach from Atlanta on a whim with only a few pieces of luggage (see picture). Originally, it was going to be a temporary move to "clear my head" or "find myself" or whatever. After a terribly lonely three months or so, I started to enjoy my new life and decided to stay away for a while longer. I hope that I'll get to do this again, but with my family in tow.
102. Sing loudly in the car, and don’t stop when you know someone is looking with the windows open - Tyson and I went to a Snow Patrol concert at the Gwinnett Arena (I know, really?). I don't know what the hell possessed us, two kids that normally went to the Masquerade for punk rock shows, to go see this catastrophe of a concert, but it happened. After the show, ahem, concert we got in my car where I blasted NOFX and sang "Linoleum" as loud as I could with the windows down. I'm pretty sure I confused a lot of those Snow Patrol fans as they were finding their ways to their cars.

106. Lose over 50 pounds - After high school or after moving out of my mom's house or after I turned 21... I don't know what the cause was, but I gained over 100 lbs over the course of a couple of years. I don't really remember it happening. I woke up one day and looked in the mirror and wondered who that fat ass was looking back at me. I got up to about 220 lbs from my weight in high school of 103 lbs. It took me moving to Florida and completely changing my lifestyle to get rid of a lot of that weight. [just before moving and three months after pictures below] I got down to about 140 lbs before I got pregnant. At full term, I was still under 190 and am currently working to get back down to the 130 range.

109. Touch a stingray - Seaword and the Georgia Aquarium both have "petting tanks" where you can touch stingrays and even sharks, but I've gone a step beyond that. Summer of 2007 I was in Gulf Shores Alabama with Jeremy, Tyson and Laura. On a perfect summer day we were swimming in the perfectly clear gulf water (way back when, before the oil spill) when we noticed a group of about five stingrays swimming all around us. Because the water was so clear, we could see them perfectly. They looked like birds flying below the surface. The were dancing all around us, swimming back and fourth. I thought they were amazing until they took a turn straight towards me. [ Now, this was shortly after one of these things killed Steve Erwin, so I was a little apprehensive. ] When I noticed they were swimming my way, I did my best to get out of the way but they swim faster than me and one of them grazed my leg.

110. Break someone’s heart - MH - Sorry.

113. Break a bone -
I was 8 years old swimming in my uncle's pool with my cousins and we decided to have a race from one end of the pool to the other. I kicked off the side of the pool to get a fast start, but slammed my foot into the concrete step. Over a year later, I hit the same foot on the side of my bed. I complained to my mom that I "hit the foot that always hurts" and she took me to the doctor where we learned that I had been walking on a broken foot for a year. I was then put in a cast for two months and not allowed to swim for most of a summer... when I lived in the desert. Ugh!

115. Have a facial part pierced other than your ears - I pierced my nose myself when I was 17... twice. Both times, I got infected and I had to take it out. I got my tongue pierced at Infamous Tattoo, a shop in the middle of the scariest ghetto in Atlanta, where they tatted up and pierced anyone under age if the price was right. I got my nose re-pierced at Good Clean Fun by a skinhead and the piercing was ripped out at a show at the Masquerade three days later. I went back to Good Clean Fun to get it re-done and they did it for free.

119. Have major surgery - I had my first and only surgery at the age of 26, when my daughter had to be born via c-section. That terrifying story is worthy of a blog all it's own.

122. Sleep for 30 hours in a 48 hour period - I think everyone has done this when sick at one point or another.

127. Eat sushi - One of my favorite foods. Unfortunately, my husband refuses to eat it (or anything else you can get at a Japanese restaurant) so I have to find other "foodie" friends to go out with when I get the craving.

128. Have your picture in the newspaper - In 1996, I went to the 99x Big Day Out concert where I enjoyed great 90s bands such as The Offspring and The Goo Goo Dolls. Moshing and crowd surfing were in their prime at this all day music festival, and a shot of me crowd surfing made it into the 99x newspaper, 'Creative Loafing'. This was a very big deal, considering I was only 14 at the time.

132. Touch a cockroach - Not by choice, but it has happened.

133. Eat fried green tomatoes - I live in the South, duh.

135. Select one “important” author who you missed in school, and read one of their books - That same summer I went swimming with stingrays I decided to read The Great Gatsby, a book I rightfully ignored my freshman year of high school. Turns out, that book really is frightfully boring and not really worth my time. ...and let the hate mail begin.

146. Dye your hair - Red, black, blonde, white, pink.

148. Shave your head - For some weird reason, I was voted onto Homecoming Court my junior year of high school. In high school, I was part of the "goth" or "punk" crowd; not the popular homecoming court type. I wore my pretty dress and walked down the football field at halftime of the game with all the pretty girls in their sequence gowns. I obviously didn't fit in, but I guess my class wanted something different that year: me. Anyway, after the game my friends and I stopped at a nearby gas station, where I plugged my clippers into an outlet below the pay phone and shaved my head right there on the sidewalk.

149. Cause a car accident - I'm the only person that has ever caused $8,000 worth of damage to two cars when neither of them was even running. Oh, and to add to the amazingness of this collision, it all happened in my driveway.

64 out of 150. I have a lot to do over the next three years.

Monday, July 19, 2010

The List - Edited

I've taken some things off the list that I'm hoping to NOT accomplish before I'm 30. I don't really want to bury my parents or get divorce, so I'm replacing them with things I really want to do. Also, while I'm a huge fan of travel, chances are I won't make it all over the world so I took some of those out too.

01. Buy everyone in the bar a drink
02. Swim with dolphins
03. Climbed a mountain
04. Take a Ferrari car you can't afford for a test drive
05. Visit the Great Pyramid
06. Hold a tarantula
07. Take a candlelit bath with someone
08. Say “I love you” and mean it
09. Hug a tree
10. Bungee jump
11. Visit Paris
12. Watch a lightning storm at sea
13. Stay up all night long and watch the sun rise
14. See the Northern Lights
15. Go to a huge sports game
16. Walk the stairs to the top of the leaning Tower of Pisa Climb to the top of a lighthouse
17. Grow and eat your own vegetables
18. Touch an iceberg
19. Sleep under the stars
20. Change a baby’s diaper
21. Take a trip ride in a hot air balloon
22. Watch a meteor shower
23. Get drunk on champagne
24. Give more than you can afford should to charity
25. Look up at the night sky through a telescope
26. Have an uncontrollable giggling fit at the worst possible moment
27. Have a food fight
28. Bet on a winning horse
29. Ask out a stranger
30. Have a snowball fight
31. Scream as loud as you possibly can
32. Hold a lamb
33. See a total eclipse
34. Ride a roller coaster
35. Hit a home run
36. Dance like a fool and don't care who is looking
37. Adopt an accent for an entire day
38. Actually feel happy about your life, even for just a moment
39. Have two hard drives for your computer
40. Visit all 50 states
41. Take care of someone who is drunk
42. Have amazing friends
43. Dance with a stranger in a foreign country
44. Watch whales
45. Steal a sign
46. Backpack Visit in Europe
47. Take a road-trip
48. Go rock climbing
49. Take a midnight walk on the beach
50. Go sky diving
51. Visit Ireland
52. Be heartbroken longer than you were actually in love
53. In a restaurant, sit at a stranger’s table and have a meal with them
54. Visit Japan Fly first class
55. Milk a cow
56. Alphabetize your CDs
57. Pretend to be a superhero Be a superhero to your daughter
58. Sing karaoke
59. Lounge around in bed all day
60. Play touch football
61. Go scuba diving
62. Kiss in the rain
63. Play in the mud
64. Play in the rain
65. Go to a drive-in theatre
66. Visit the Great Wall of China Watch the sun rise and set in the same day on both coasts of Florida
67. Start a business Produce income with your hobby
68. Fall in love without having your heart broken
69. Tour ancient sites
70. Take a martial arts class
71. Play D&D for more than 6 hours straight Play board games all night
72. Get married
73. Be in a movie
74. Crash a party
75. Get divorced Find out your blood type
76. Go without food for 5 days Take a professional dance class
77. Make cookies from scratch
78. Win first prize in a costume contest
79. Ride a gondola in Venice Vegas
80. Get a tattoo
81. Raft the Snake a River
82. Be on a television news program as an “expert”
83. Get flowers for no reason
84. Perform on stage
85. Go to Las Vegas
86. Record music
87. Eat shark something new
88. Kiss on the first date
89. Go to Thailand Swim Naked
90. Buy a house
91. Be in a combat zone Get a Brazilian wax
92. Bury one/both of your parents Draw and frame a self portrait
93. Go on a cruise ship
94. Speak more than one language fluently
95. Perform in Rocky Horror
96. Raise children
97. Follow your favorite band/singer on tour
98. Pass out cold
99. Take an exotic bicycle tour in a foreign country
100. Pick up and move to another city to just start over
101. Walk the Golden Gate Bridge
102. Sing loudly in the car, and don’t stop when you know someone is looking with the windows open
103. Have plastic surgery a day at the spa
104. Survive an accident that you shouldn’t have survived Stock an emergency disaster kit
105. Write articles for a large publication
106. Lose over 50 pounds
107. Hold someone while they are having a flashback Have your fortune told
108. Pilot an airplane Go on a helicopter ride
109. Touch a stingray
110. Break someone’s heart
111. Help an animal give birth
112. Win money on a TV game show
113. Break a bone
114. Go on an African photo safari
115. Have a facial part pierced other than your ears
116. Fire a rifle, shotgun, or pistol Fire a gun
117. Eat mushrooms that were gathered in the wild
118. Ride a horse
119. Have major surgery
120. Have a snake as a pet
121. Hike to the bottom of the Grand Canyon
122. Sleep for 30 hours in a 48 hour period
123. Visit more foreign countries than U.S. States Take a spontaneous trip
124. Visit all 7 continents Learn to surf. Again.
125. Take a canoe trip that lasts more than 2 days
126. Eat kangaroo meat Buy expensive sexy lingerie
127. Eat sushi
128. Have your picture in the newspaper
129. Change someone’s mind about something you care deeply about
130. Go back to school
131. Parasail
132. Touch a cockroach
133. Eat fried green tomatoes
134. Read The Iliad and The Odyssey
135. Select one “important” author who you missed in school, and read
136. Kill and prepared an animal for eating Go fishing
137. Skip all your school reunions Go to your school reunion
138. Communicate with someone without sharing a common spoken language
139. Get elected to public office Go to at least 3 city hall meetings
140. Write your own computer language Learn basic html
141. Believe that you’re living your dream
142. Put someone you love into hospice care Interview your grandmother
143. Build your own PC from parts
144. Sell your own artwork to someone who didn’t know you
145. Have a booth at a street fair
146. Dye your hair
147. Be a DJ
148. Shave your head
149. Cause a car accident
150. Save someone’s life

The List

I found this list of 150 things to do before turning 30. I tried to trace it back to the original author, but wasn't able to do so. I've seen this list on several blogs throughout the internet and now it's my turn to take it.

My 27th birthday is two weeks away and I just had my first child six weeks ago. I'm afraid I'm feeling older than I should, and want to make sure I have some of these experiences while I'm still young. I probably won't get to all of these in the next three years, but at the very least it will give me something interesting to write about.

There are a few I can cross of the list already, they are in bold.

01. Bought everyone in the bar a drink
02. Swam with dolphins
03. Climbed a mountain
04. Taken a Ferrari for a test drive
05. Been inside the Great Pyramid
06. Held a tarantula
07. Taken a candlelit bath with someone
08. Said “I love you” and meant it
09. Hugged a tree
10. Bungee jumped
11. Visited Paris
12. Watched a lightning storm at sea
13. Stayed up all night long and saw the sun rise
14. Seen the Northern Lights
15. Gone to a huge sports game
16. Walked the stairs to the top of the leaning Tower of Pisa
17. Grown and eaten your own vegetables
18. Touched an iceberg
19. Slept under the stars
20. Changed a baby’s diaper
21. Taken a trip in a hot air balloon
22. Watched a meteor shower
23. Gotten drunk on champagne
24. Given more than you can afford to charity
25. Looked up at the night sky through a telescope
26. Had an uncontrollable giggling fit at the worst possible moment
27. Had a food fight
28. Bet on a winning horse
29. Asked out a stranger
30. Had a snowball fight
31. Screamed as loudly as you possibly can
32. Held a lamb
33. Seen a total eclipse
34. Ridden a roller coaster
35. Hit a home run
36. Danced like a fool and didn’t care who was looking
37. Adopted an accent for an entire day
38. Actually felt happy about your life, even for just a moment
39. Had two hard drives for your computer
40. Visited all 50 states
41. Taken care of someone who was drunk
42. Had amazing friends
43. Danced with a stranger in a foreign country
44. Watched whales
45. Stolen a sign
46. Backpacked in Europe
47. Taken a road-trip
48. Gone rock climbing
49. Taken a midnight walk on the beach
50. Gone sky diving
51. Visited Ireland
52. Been heartbroken longer than you were actually in love
53. In a restaurant, sat at a stranger’s table and had a meal with them
54. Visited Japan
55. Milked a cow
56. Alphabetized your CDs
57. Pretended to be a superhero
58. Sung karaoke
59. Lounged around in bed all day
60. Played touch football
61. Gone scuba diving
62. Kissed in the rain
63. Played in the mud
64. Played in the rain
65. Gone to a drive-in theatre
66. Visited the Great Wall of China
67. Started a business
68. Fallen in love and not had your heart broken
69. Toured ancient sites
70. Taken a martial arts class
71. Played D&D for more than 6 hours straight
72. Gotten married
73. Been in a movie
74. Crashed a party
75. Gotten divorced
76. Gone without food for 5 days
77. Made cookies from scratch
78. Won first prize in a costume contest
79. Ridden a gondola in Venice
80. Gotten a tattoo
81. Rafted the Snake River
82. Been on a television news program as an “expert”
83. Gotten flowers for no reason
84. Performed on stage
85. Been to Las Vegas
86. Recorded music
87. Eaten shark
88. Kissed on the first date
89. Gone to Thailand
90. Bought a house
91. Been in a combat zone
92. Buried one/both of your parents
93. Been on a cruise ship
94. Spoken more than one language fluently
95. Performed in Rocky Horror
96. Raised children
97. Followed your favorite band/singer on tour
98. Passed out cold
99. Taken an exotic bicycle tour in a foreign country
100. Picked up and moved to another city to just start over
101. Walked the Golden Gate Bridge
102. Sang loudly in the car, and didn’t stop when you knew someone was looking with the windows open
103. Had plastic surgery
104. Survived an accident that you shouldn’t have survived
105. Wrote articles for a large publication
106. Lost over 50 pounds
107. Held someone while they were having a flashback
108. Piloted an airplane
109. Touched a stingray
110. Broken someone’s heart
111. Helped an animal give birth
112. Won money on a TV game show
113. Broken a bone
114. Gone on an African photo safari
115. Had a facial part pierced other than your ears
116. Fired a rifle, shotgun, or pistol
117. Eaten mushrooms that were gathered in the wild
118. Ridden a horse
119. Had major surgery
120. Had a snake as a pet
121. Hiked to the bottom of the Grand Canyon
122. Slept for 30 hours in a 48 hour period
123. Visited more foreign countries than U.S. States
124. Visited all 7 continents
125. Taken a canoe trip that lasted more than 2 days
126. Eaten kangaroo meat
127. Eaten sushi
128. Had your picture in the newspaper
129. Changed someone’s mind about something you care deeply about
130. Gone back to school
131. Parasailed
132. Touched a cockroach
133. Eaten fried green tomatoes
134. Read The Iliad and The Odyssey
135. Selected one “important” author who you missed in school, and read
136. Killed and prepared an animal for eating
137. Skipped all your school reunions
138. Communicated with someone without sharing a common spoken language
139. Been elected to public office
140. Written your own computer language
141. Thought to yourself that you’re living your dream
142. Had to put someone you love into hospice care
143. Built your own PC from parts
144. Sold your own artwork to someone who didn’t know you
145. Had a booth at a street fair
146. Dyed your hair
147. Been a DJ
148. Shaved your head
149. Caused a car accident
150. Saved someone’s life