Bucket List

Have you seen the movie "Bucket List"?...it's cute. I don't know if I'd call this a real Bucket List; but it reminds me of it. I technically am stealing this from Amanda's blog and she stole it from someone else who stole it from someone else...and back and back. It was fun to contemplate this stuff! Try it...just copy my list and bold the stuff you've actually done in your life!

1. Started your own blog
2. Slept under the stars
3. Played in a band
4. Visited Hawaii
5. Watched a meteor shower
6. Given more than you can afford to charity
7. Been to Disneyland
8. Held a praying mantis...it seems I would have…but I don’t think I have
9.Climbed a mountain
10. Sang a solo…but I did do a duet with Melissa in church!
11. Bungee jumped
12. Visited Paris
13. Watched a lightning storm at sea…the storm was at sea…but I was across the street from the sea shore
14. Taught yourself an art from scratch
15. Adopted a child
16. Had food poisoning
17. Walked to the top of the Statue of Liberty
18. Grown your own vegetables
19. Seen the Mona Lisa in France
20. Slept on an overnight train
21. Had a pillow fight
22. Hitch hiked
23. Taken a sick day when you're not ill
24. Built a snow fort
25. Held a lamb
26. Gone skinny dipping
27. Run a Marathon
28. Ridden in a gondola in Venice
29. Seen a total eclipse
30. Watched a sunrise or sunset
31. Hit a home run
32. Been on a cruise
33. Seen Niagara Falls in person
34. Visited the birthplace of your ancestors
35. Seen an Amish community
36. Taught yourself a new language
37. Had enough money to be truly satisfied
38. Seen the Leaning Tower of Pisa in person
39. Gone rock climbing
40. Seen Michelangelo’s David
41. Sung karaoke
42. Seen Old Faithful geyser erupt
43. Bought a stranger a meal at a restaurant
44. Visited Africa
45. Walked on a beach by moonlight
46. Been transported in an ambulance
47. Had your portrait painted
48. Gone deep sea fishing
49. Seen the Sistine Chapel in person
50. Been to the top of the Eiffel Tower in Paris
51. Gone scuba diving or snorkeling
52. Kissed in the rain
53. Played in the mud
54. Gone to a drive-in theater
55. Been in a movie
56. Visited the Great Wall of China
57. Started a business
58. Taken a martial arts class
59. Visited Russia
60. Served at a soup kitchen
61. Sold Girl Scout Cookies
62. Gone whale watching
63. Got flowers for no reason…I have gotten several unexpected bouquets but they were all for a reason64. Donated blood, platelets or plasma
65. Gone sky diving
66. Visited a Nazi Concentration Camp
67. Bounced a check
68. Flown in a helicopter
69. Saved a favorite childhood toy
70. Visited the Lincoln Memorial
71. Eaten Caviar
72. Pieced a quilt…not very well…but I did it
73. Stood in Times Square
74. Toured the Everglades
75. Been fired from a job
76. Seen the Changing of the Guards in London
77. Broken a bone
78. Been on a speeding motorcycle
79. Seen the Grand Canyon in person
80. Published a book
81. Visited the Vatican
82. Bought a brand new car…but my KIA was only a few months old
83. Walked in Jerusalem
84. Had your picture in the newspaper
85. Read the entire Bible
86. Visited the White House
87. Killed and prepared an animal for eating
88. Had chickenpox
89. Saved someone's life
90. Sat on a jury
91. Met someone famous
92. Joined a book club
93. Lost a loved one
94. Had a baby
95. Seen the Alamo in person
96. Swam in the Great Salt Lake
97. Been involved in a law suit
98. Owned a cell phone
99. Been stung by a bee
100. Read an entire book in one day…the closest I can come is reading Bridges of Madison County in a weekend.
**101. Been such a cheater at a silly blog game that when you couldn't answer a question you qualified it with the closest thing you could come to without actually fulfilling the item:-)

Luck of the Draw

I asked Sean to pick a number from one to twelve and he picked TEN. So I went to the tenth folder in my pictures file. I asked him to pick a number from one to twelve again and he picked SIX. So...this is the sixth picture from my twelfth folder in my picture files.



This is a picture of Crater Lake Oregon. It's one of my highlights of our Oregon travels. I still remember the hushed awe as we walked up the slope of the crater and got our first glimpse of the impossibly blue water. Is it the reflections of the blue sky that makes it so blue? Is it the purity of the water that makes it so blue? Or is it the magic of that moment and the grandeur of how that was created that makes it so blue?

"I Voted"

A long time ago I used to wait for my mom to come home from the High School where she'd vote. What I remember I liked most was the way she made voting seem like some exclusive club that one day I'd be lucky enough to join. I always loved seeing where she'd put her little "I Voted" sticker. I remember feeling proud if she'd voted early and everyone could see her sticker and know she did her part. There are three things that her example left me with.

*#1...it's important to vote. No matter how late she'd been from work she always ALWAYS went to the polls.

*#2...it's no one's business who you voted for. It's your privilege to cast your secret ballot and if you want to share that info you can...but it's no one's business but yours. To this day I have NO IDEA how she ever voted. I could guess her political stance; but I'm guessing I'd be wrong. And I VERY rarely share my ballot contents...even with Sean. This year in fact; he very gingerly asked me...knowing that I'd be unlikely to share that info.
I shared some...but not all :-)

*#3...your vote is yours. Remember that sticker I talked about? It was always decorated with a flag and a little "I Voted" slogan. When she came home with her sticker still stuck to her lapel I so badly wanted to have it. I don't know if it was because I liked stickers or because it was so rare that she'd wear something on her clothes or that I knew there was something special about what that sticker represented. And you know what...my beyond-generous mother never ever gave me her sticker. Her vote was hers...my vote is mine...your vote is yours.

SO...that being said...I cast my ballot on Sunday morning. It's not as exciting as it used to be. It's all absentee so I don't go to the High School and amuse the old ladies by forgetting my precinct yet again. They don't even put the little sticker in your envelope anymore. And instead of stepping across the line to use the little hole-punchy thing all I had to do was roll my window down at the Post Office to deposit my stamped ballot envelope.

And now tonight as Sean and I sat in the living room watching most of the election coverage I felt important...I felt like I was part of that exclusive club my mom had been a part of. I've voted before...in other elections...local and national...and it's not important what my ballot said. What is important is how moving I felt as I watched both the concession speech and the acceptance speech. Now...I'm not going to lie...my emotions are easily manipulated...anything can get me to cry...the sad orphans on TV...the tune of my mom's favorite hymn...the swell of the opening song to Titanic...the A-Ha moment on Clean House...anything can get me to cry. And even tonight I wouldn't say I really cried...teared up would be a better way to say it.

I teared up as I realized that tonight would go on my "Where were you when" list. I'm sure you remember your folks saying they remembered where they were when...fill in the blank...Kennedy was shot...men landed on the moon...etc. etc. etc. When September 11Th occurred I remember telling my students that that day would do down in their memory as a "where you were when" moment. I started to list off the things already on my list...Princess Diana getting married (I was in the great room at the Wallowa Lake Lodge)...the Space Shuttle exploding (in my 5th grade classroom)...Princess Diana's car crash (Mark told me in the living room of my old house after we got back from stock car races)...the Twin Towers falling (sitting on top of a desk in my colleague Dave's classroom). And tonight I get to add where I was the night my country elected the first black president. I tear up even now...wow...to type it. I don't think I ever thought something different would happen in my lifetime.

#1...it was important for me to vote...I made sure to get my ballot done on time.

#2...it doesn't matter who I voted for...well it doesn't matter to you. In fact I kind of giggle to myself knowing that it's something only I know...and that maybe you're trying to guess who it was.

#3...my vote was mine...no matter how many cynical people will tell me that my vote doesn't count because "it all gets decided before our polls close anyway"...my vote is mine...and you don't get to know it...and it's important that I did it...even though I didn't get a sticker.