Bucket List

Last year, around my birthday, I decided to set some goals of things to accomplish before the next birthday. I showed it to some friends and asked for advice and suggestions. After compiling the final list, I made a sign with each goal on it and hung it on my bedroom door so I would see it everyday. Accomplishing everything on that list was always on my mind and with the help and encouragement of family and friends, I basically accomplished it all. Here is what I did:

1) Submit and article to the New Era or Ensign - Writing has always been a passion of mine. It is a way for me to vent frustrations, to explain what I know or have fun. That is why, when I was picking a career, journalism was one of the first things that came to mind. After my initial diagnosis, and in the months and years following, I have learned many lessons from the condition and received many blessings. I took the opportunity to write those down, in the form of an article. I had a friend read it and had me send a copy of it to her. It turned out that she knew someone who works for the Ensign and she sent the article on to her. Wow! I don't expect that it will be published but just knowing that someone there has read my story in incredible.

2) Run a 10K - This is where the basically comes in to play. Initially, this was a 5K, but a friend convinced me I could do a 10K, so I set the goal for that. I set a date of October 20th to do this one. I had been running, training and had a set schedule to accomplish this goal. However, this schedule was messed up due to me getting bronchitis and laryngitis. Running is not the best thing with those.By the 20th, I was healthy enough to run, but probably not a 10K. I went out and ran, thinking positive thoughts, looking ahead and pushing myself a little harder and a little more. I ended up running a 5K, which was technically the original goal, but not. This one was accomplished how it could be at the time.

3) Leave Idaho or Utah - My vacations since coming home from the mission have always been to visit family and friends in these two states. Sad, I know. That is why I set this goal. After setting this goal, I found out a friend of mine was moving to Hawaii and I decided that was going to be my vacation. With a lot of support and encouragement (because I am really not good at spending money and doing crazy things), I bought my plane tickets. My bosses were on board for the whole thing and everything worked out so well. It was such an incredible experience and since then, I have kind of caught the travel bug. I really want to travel more places and experience new things.

4) Attend a Professional Sporting Event - My first thought on this one was to go to a Basketball or Soccer game. I almost went on a date to a professional soccer game, which would have been amazing, but I couldn't make it at the time it was going to start. Sad day. :( However, I decided that ice skating is a sport too, so I bought tickets to go to Disney on Ice! It was an amazing show (I will blog more about that weekend, with pictures later). I wasn't sure whether or not to count it, but when you see the athleticism or the skaters, there really is no question or doubt about it.

5) Fly a Kite with Clover - This one sounds easy, but it really was not that easy. Let me explain. Clover is a good friend of mine, who helped me put this list together. She insisted that I put that on the list. However, about the time that the weather got really nice for kite flying, she ended up moving and we had a really hard time trying to meet up, when there would be time to fly kites and the weather was decent. We did finally accomplish this one as well, but it took a lot more effort than I would have imagined and required a few more steps, that weren't originally part of the plan. It was great!

Those are some of the things that I accomplished in a year. Pretty good stuff!!!