Well hello there, world. I’m back.

It’s been twenty-one days since I returned from New Zealand. It’s funny to think that, if I hadn’t come home early and had ridden out my visa until it expired, I’d be leaving New Zealand tomorrow. I can’t help but wonder what I would have accomplished had I stayed those extra twenty-three days. Would I have visited places I missed out on? Would I have gotten to spend more time with the friends I made there? Would I have wished I had come back earlier? These are the questions, folks.

The post-travel depression has subsided considerably, but that’s mainly because I’ve done such a doggone good job keeping myself busy that I haven’t really hadntime to slow down and think about everything I’m missing out on. Of course I miss travel still. Not a day goes by that I don’t think of New Zealand (but that’s partially because every single day someone asks me if I miss it, and that just sends me down the rabbit hole of wanderlust).

On the bright side, my Little Shop of Horrors obsession has bloomed into something beautiful.

That’s my way of saying I bought myself a Venus flytrap.

No one should be surprised. At all.

Life’s good though. Not traveling stinks, but life is still, in fact, good. I took a day trip out to Cannon Beach with my best friend. I met a lot of people on my dad’s side at our family reunion, and everyone there was quite pleasant. I successfully turned twenty-four. I’ve participated in the PDX Poetry Slam twice now and placed second on my first try. I’ve hung out with awesome people like Mac, Aileen, Amanda, Nate, and Kathleen on numerous occasions. There’s a possible writing job in my future. I’ve grabbed breakfast and lunch with several relatives, and am currently babysitting my little cousins all this week. I’ve got Martin staying with me the last week of July, I’m going to a Sara Bareilles concert with Stephanie shortly after that, and then I’m heading to Seattle for a few days in August to visit Rachel. I’ve got the 48 Hour Film Festival just around the corner, and after that I’m helping write a web series.

Oh. And OMSI has a dinosaur exhibit going right now – basically the universe telling me how much she loves me.

So life’s not static. I’m doing my best to keep moving; I’m keeping things interesting.

On that note, my Big Girl Blog is headed in a new direction. Here’s a sense of where I want to take it. As always, it’s subject to change and haitus, but for now this is what I’m thinking:

• Mundane Monday: Where I’ll talk a bit about what’s going on in life or, if life’s boring, I’ll ramble about things I love / find interesting / don’t appreciate / etc. etc. etc.
• Writing Wednesday: Where I’ll share tidbits of stories, (slam) poetry, scripts, and such that I’m working on.
• Fan Girl Friday: I rant and let me fan girl out. No one cares. You know the drill.

For the first Mundane Monday I thought I’d share my 2014 Summer Bucket List… because I already had it written up? And I’m lazy? Ugh, stop judging me!

It’s a time honored tradition of mine to write up a summer bucket list, and this summer is no exception. Am I gonna finish the entire thing? No. I never have. The nice thing this year, though, is that there’s no end date. During past summers, I would hack away at the list until school started back up, then I’d throw the list out the window cause life would become way too busy. This time I could easily keep it going longer, and then even add more things onto it and rename it my Autumn Bucket List. Who knows.

The point of my summer bucket list, like so many other people’s, isn’t to provide myself with cliche summer activities. It’s to keep myself moving. To do the things I’ve been meaning to get around to doing for forever. I’m a list lover because, to quote one of my favorite musicals of all time, “I make lists in my sleep.” (I cannot begin to emphasis how little of an exaggeration that is.) Lists are my sanity. They help me remember everything and anything I should / could be doing. It calms me so much to see all plans laid out on a piece of paper. Plus there’s no better self gratisfication than crossing something off a To Do list, or seeing you’ve completed everything you needed to do. Lists are my comfort zone.

So, without further ado, here’s my 2014 Summer Bucket List.

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Let’s Enjoy Life, Shall We?

1. Watch a sunset

2. Watch a sunrise

3. Go on a wilderness hike

4. Have a picnic

5. Go out dancing

6. Do a photoshoot

7. Stargazing

8. Build a fort with blankets and pillows

9. Stay in bed for an entire day

10. Spend an entire day reading one whole book cover-to-cover

11. Roast hot dogs and/or marshmallows around a campfire

12. Buy flowers and leave them on a random doorstep

13. Leave little positive notes inside of books in a bookstore

14. Pull an all nighter

15. Perform slam poetry for an audience

16. Have a night out on the town a

17. Have a water balloon fight

18. Do my Wreck This journal

19. Make jello shots

20. Do something nice/unexpected

21. Have a shopping spree at Powells

22. See Sara Bareilles in concert

23. Play Nancy Drew games with Aileen

24. Start collecting tea pots

25. Get drinks and play games at Ground Kontrol

26. Have a TREAT YO SELF day

 

Oh the Places You’ll Go!

27. Go to California

28. Go to Seattle

29. Go to Canada

30. Go to Oaks Park

31. Go to OMSI

32. Go to the Portland Zoo

33. Go to Cannon Beach

34. Go to Portland Art Museum

35. Go to the Saturday Market

36. Go to Ashland

37. Go to the Portland Film Festival

 

Feeling Crafty

38. Do five crafts DIY from Pinterest

39. Learn how to make fun alcoholic drinks

40. Learn how to bake a cake

41. Make a pillow with New Zealand fabric and out of plane ticket

42. Take a picture every day

43. Learn to cook ten new recipes

    1. Chicken artichoke heart lasagna

    2. Four cheese rigatoni

44. Make a NZ scrapbook

45. Put together Dipper costume for Halloween (Gravity Falls)

46. Put together Seymour costume for Halloween (Little Shop of Horrors)

47. Tie a message to a balloon and let it go

 

I’ll Be Watching You

48. Watch 50 movies I’ve never seen before

    1. August Osage County

    2. The Grand Budapest Hotel

    3. The Fault in Our Stars

    4. The Way Back

    5. American Hustle

49. Rewatch The Office, LOST, Orange Is The New Black, and The Muppet Show

50. Start/finish three new TV shows

51. Lord of the Rings marathon

52. Have a John Adams HBO series (plus 1776) marathon

53. Watch every Muppet movie/production

54. Beat two video games

55. See plays at OSF

 

Keeping My Mind In Shape

56. Read 10 books

    1. The Help

57. Reread all of Sarah Ruhl’s plays

58. Start learning basic guitar

59. Learn to say “I love you” in 100 languages

60. Find a freelance writing job that pays

61. Do my 5000 piece puzzle

62. Start learning basic Italian

63. Learn more harmonica

64. Produce podcast episodes on schedule

 

Words, Words, Words

65. Write more of “Twinship” and at least outline how it’ll end

66. Work on “Eleven and a Half Inches”

67. Finish second draft of “Obsessed”

68. Finish first draft of “Untitled Beach” screenplay

69. Write and memorize five new slam poems

70. Write a short story

71. Write a letter to a friend

72. Write two pieces for Tough Pigs

73. Start research for Max Factor screenplay

74. Start book on being in New Zealand

75. Write in big girl blog on a regular basis

 

Getting Around to Finally Doing This

76. Clean up iTunes

77. Buy venus flytrap

78. Organize all my files on my computer

79. Organize both hard drives

80. Get  drivers license / Get permit renewed

81. Pay off one of my credit cards

82. Organize all the folders of saved papers I have

83. Discover four new song artists I enjoy

84. Replace lenses in glasses

85. Go shooting with Nate

86. Get a part time job

87. Talk with Kathleen about apartment hunting

88. Look into getting a dog

89. Visit mom

90. Start saving up to buy a banjo / California trip / New York trip

91. Get keyboard on laptop fixed

 

A New Look

92. Workout on a regular basis

93. Start running again on a regular basis

94. Find yoga videos on netflix

95. Get another tattoo

96. Get a haircut

97. Look into dance classes

98. Run in a marathon

99. Ride bike twice a week