bucket list

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30 before 30 Update 3

It does not seem like it was 3 months ago that I made this list!

Let’s see how much I didn’t do this last month…

1. Crochet something else besides blankets or scarves-so something that isn’t straight lines.
  • Done.

2. Do a 30 day photography challenge

  • I did pick a challenge to do. I want to do it later in the spring or in the summer so the weather is better for me to include outside opportunities.

3. Visit 3 cities I have never been to before (1/3)

  • Nothing.

4. Tour at least one of the distilleries in the area

  • Nothing.

5. Send at least 5 snail mail a month

  • Done. I really enjoy mail, although I wish the stamps didn’t keep going up in price.

6. Become a “professional” photographer

  • I have some things coming up in March that will hopefully propel this business further. I was able to take pictures of our friend’s homecoming a couple weeks ago. (It was just as much for me as it was for them though.) We had planned on doing a Facebook ad in February, but decided to wait until the events in March happen so potential clients can see those in my portfolio as well. I have also been brushing up my flash photography for one event. I would rather do natural lighting and not press the flash, but the exposure of this event is just too good not to take the time to hone my flash skills.

7. Run at least 5 races (any distance)

  • I have signed up for one in April. I am hoping to do a couple 5ks during the summer. Anyone want to run with me?

8. Go camping with Tom

  • We are going to celebrate our anniversary this summer at Land Between the Lakes.

9. Pay for the car behind me in a drive through

  • I did not do this, however we did give a tip that was 100% plus more a couple weeks ago!

10. See Tyrone Wells live again

  • He will be in Nashville on May 7th, which is two days before my birthday! You better believe that I will be there, even if I am by myself!

11. Tour Fort Defiance here in Clarksville

  • Waiting for warmer weather.

12. Water ski with my dad

  • Also waiting for warmer weather.

13. Do a 5K with my mom

  • We need to get a plan for this.

14. Take a swing dance class with Tom

  • So with the upcoming deployment, I need to find a class this summer.

15. Read at least one fun book a month and one professional development book every three months

  • I am working my way through Monuments Men for fun and another book on the digital age for my professional read. Keeping on track!

16. Take a pottery or stained glass class

  • This needs to happen this summer as well.

17. Learn how to make sushi

  • I think I will wait to do this while Tom is on deployment since he doesn’t like sushi.

18. See both a Clemson and UCM football game live

  • I was hoping I would be able to do this with Tom, but with the deployment schedule not confirmed yet who knows. Although, I am sure I can convince my dad for a football road trip to distract me from my empty house. Plus I would really like to go to my undergrad for Homecoming so I can march with the band at halftime…some day.

19. Volunteer with MCFOTS and Special Olympics on a regular basis

  • I am fairly positive that Special Olympics isn’t going to happen so I am going to just change it to only MCFOTS, which is the animal shelter in town. I love it there. It definitely gives me my little dog fix. I do have to share about one dog horror story-now funny story. There is one dog who loves to play off leash, and we usually let dogs who have been there for awhile hang out without a leash in the yard to play. She however does not like to come back inside after play time. It was the first week of super cold temps here, so it was around 5 degrees. I chased that dog for about 45 minutes in my snow gear. I looked like a sobbing marshmallow (obviously I was crying) because I couldn’t get her to come inside for anything. I eventually had to lay on the ground with hotdogs as a trail to me to get her back on the leash. Needless to say, this dog has not been off leash since. She is otherwise the most darling dog. She cuddles so well once she is inside, and she never barks. She just really loves to run outside as much as she would like to dictate. I still want to bring her home with me. Who am I kidding; I want to bring them ALL home with me.

20. Explore Land Between the Lakes

  • Anniversary trip

21. Ride in a hot air balloon

  • My best friend and other half are going to do this with me.

22. Go to at least 10 “new to me” restaurants in Clarksville. (3/10)

  • We went to China Town. Yep we unintentionally started a tour of the Chinese restaurants with this one.

23. Stay at a bed and breakfast

  • Not yet.

24. Spend a day without electronics (phone, t.v. and computer)

  • I will do this one day in the summer when the weather is nice.

25. Go to the Kentucky Derby

  • I need to change this to Kentucky Derby themed 30th birthday party.

26. Go to non-touristy parts of Nashville

  • We are actually going to try to do this one this upcoming weekend.

27. Watch at least 10 movies that I have not seen before that won Best Picture at the Oscars and at least 10 documentaries (not necessarily Oscar winning) Movies (0/10); Documentaries (3/10)

  • I made my movie list, but I didn’t watch any. I also watched two documentaries:  Shelter Me and William and Katherine:  A Royal Love Story. The first is about different shelters across the nation and the good work they do. It wasn’t the best documentary; I am going to admit that I fell asleep in the last 30 minutes. HOWEVER William and Kate, I could watch for hours! This one was really fascinating. I learned a lot about the Royal family. If you are obsessed with the Royal family as I am, or just mildly interested, you should check this out!

28. Sew an item of clothing from scratch

  • I pinned a whole bunch of items on Pinterest to be inspired…

29. Find a church home here in Clarksville

  • We have, but I have been too sick to go the past couple weeks.Womp womp.

30. Become a mom

  • If you read my post on Sunday, you saw that we are definitely not pregnant. Dang hormones. We are going to a specialist this week to talk about some other tests and our options since all my blood work came back normal. Thank you to everyone for the sweet words of encouragement and all the thoughts and prayers in our direction. We know that it will happen when a baby is supposed to come into our lives. We just need to be patient and just continue to enjoy our time as a twosome (well foursome with the pups).
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I guess I did better than I thought! Who knows what the next month will look like!?!

If anyone would like to partake in one of the tasks with me, just hit me up! I would love to have friends along this endeavor!

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30 before 30 Update 2

Here we are for another month’s update on my 30 before 30 list. There is not much to update since we were doing holiday stuff for most of the month and were gone more than we were home for December.

1.      Crochet something else besides blankets or scarves-so something that isn’t straight lines.

·         This totally happened if you saw my post from earlier this week. Next stop hats!

2.      Do a 30 day photography challenge

·         I have plans for the timing. Now I just need to find a good challenge. Any suggestions?

3.      Visit 3 cities I have never been to before

·         Nothing new here.

4.      Tour at least one of the distilleries in the area

·         Nothing.

5.      Send at least 5 snail mail a month

·        We sent all of our Christmas cards, so I happily exceeded this!

6.      Become a “professional” photographer

·         We are coming up with an Facebook ad for the Clarksville area for a promo in February, so hopefully that pans out. I just need to be patient and be ok with the slow start.

7.      Run at least 5 races (any distance)

·        I have plans in the works.

8.      Go camping with Tom

·         We have plans for this for next summer for our anniversary.

9.      Pay for the car behind me in a drive through

·         Not yet. I will be honest, I don’t seem to remember this when I am in the drive through.

10. See Tyrone Wells live again

·         Nope.

11. Tour Fort Defiance here in Clarksville

·         This is more of a summer thing.

12. Water ski with my dad

·         Also summer.

13. Do a 5K with my mom

·         We did talk about it over Christmas, but no plans yet.

14. Take a swing dance class with Tom

·         I am still trying to convince Tom to do this with me. This may come near the end of the challenge.

15. Read at least one fun book a month and one professional development book every three months

·         I caught up from November. I read two books over break.  Blogging buddy, Ellen, and I are planning on doing a virtual professional development read. We picked a book yesterday and will be reading a chapter a week, so I may have this done this next month.

16. Take a pottery or stained glass class

·         Things have been too crazy schedule wise to make this happen yet.

17. Learn how to make sushi

·         Nada.

18. See both a Clemson and UCM football game live

·         This will have to wait until fall.

19. Volunteer with MCFOTS and Special Olympics on a regular basis

·         I am loving volunteering for MCFOTS. It is a great shelter. And it is super fun to go play and love on dogs that aren’t mine for a few hours a week. (Well most of the time, last night I was not too happy with one dog who wanted to play chase for a half hour in 20 degree weather. She just wouldn’t come back inside from playtime! Also I sliced my thumb open on a dog treat trying to coax her inside. Overall, though my shift are pleasant and tug at my heartstrings.  Two of my favorites got adopted this week. (Which is good, because Tom and I almost ended up with a third boxer.) Like I said, this volunteering gig may be a bad idea.

20. Explore Land Between the Lakes

·         Summer plan.

21. Ride in a hot air balloon

·         Tom is off the hook on this one. My other half and best friend from college and I are going to make plans for this in Kansas City.

22. Go to at least 10 “new to me” restaurants in Clarksville.

·         Since we were gone most of December, nothing happened with this one. We still have 8 to go. Any of my Clarksville friends have suggestions?

23. Stay at a bed and breakfast

·         We have the place picked out in our old college town. We just have to find a weekend we can do it.

24. Spend a day without electronics (phone, t.v. and computer)

·         So this didn’t happen over winter break.

25. Go to the Kentucky Derby

·         Ok so reality sunk in that this will not be a possibility financially. However, I do want to go see the museum. And in cahoots with my sister in law, I want to have a Derby themed birthday party on my 30th.

26. Go to non-touristy parts of Nashville

·         No time this month. We did find some cool activities though that we want to do in upcoming months. Tom has a lot of ranges coming up so he will be gone a lot, so we’ll see how the plans pan out.

27.Watch at least 10 movies that I have not seen before that won Best Picture at the Oscars and at least 10 documentaries (not necessarily Oscar winning)

·         I didn’t watch any of the films, but I did watch a documentary. I watched “Behind the Myth” which is about the myths behind bully breeds and the horrible laws that have ensued because of it. It was kind of heart wrenching to watch, and I may have cried. It is a little outdated, but it does a good job showing the history of the bans and the grassroots efforts that have sprung because of the stereotype and trying to debunk it.

28. Sew an item of clothing from scratch.

·         We did get a new sewing machine. Now I just have to figure out my first pattern.

29. Find a church home here in Clarksville

·        We did find a church, but we have been the last few weeks with traveling.

30. Become a mom

·        We both met with my physician before we left for the holidays. The only thing we weren’t already doing that she suggested was for me to be taking prenatal vitamins. Apparently, you should start taking these before you get pregnant as well as the duration. I had no idea. So we got those for free at the base hospital, score! I also had some blood work done this week to check my hormonal levels. We will also be meeting with a fertility specialist in the upcoming month. For some, I know this may seem like we are being really impatient considering it hasn’t been a full year since we started, but the Army is covering all of these expenses so we figured we would take advantage of it while we know we are both here for a bit. Also my physician said that even with everything perfect, there is still only a 20% chance of getting pregnant, so we want to make our odds as high as possible.

I’d say that is still pretty good progression considering what was going on this month. Hopefully January will prove to be fruitful and exciting!

Anyone want to join me on any of these excursions?

Do you have ideas on how I should accomplish any of these tasks?