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.
~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ ~ ~
Let’s Enjoy Life, Shall We?
-
Watch a sunset
-
Watch a sunrise
-
Go on a wilderness hike
-
Have a picnic
-
Go out dancing
-
Do a photoshoot
-
Stargazing
-
Build a fort with blankets and pillows
-
Stay in bed for an entire day
-
Spend an entire day reading one whole book cover-to-cover
-
Roast hot dogs and/or marshmallows around a campfire
-
Buy flowers and leave them on a random doorstep
-
Leave little positive notes inside of books in a bookstore
-
Pull an all nighter
-
Perform slam poetry for an audience -
Have a night out on the town a
-
Have a water balloon fight
-
Do my Wreck This journal
-
Make jello shots
-
Do something nice/unexpected
-
Have a shopping spree at Powells
-
See Sara Bareilles in concert
-
Play Nancy Drew games with Aileen -
Start collecting tea pots
-
Get drinks and play games at Ground Kontrol
-
Have a TREAT YO SELF day
Oh the Places You’ll Go!
-
Go to California
-
Go to Seattle
-
Go to Canada
-
Go to Oaks Park
-
Go to OMSI -
Go to the Portland Zoo
-
Go to Cannon Beach
-
Go to Portland Art Museum
-
Go to the Saturday Market
-
Go to Ashland
-
Go to the Portland Film Festival
Feeling Crafty
-
Do five crafts DIY from Pinterest
-
Learn how to make fun alcoholic drinks
-
Learn how to bake a cake
-
Make a pillow with New Zealand fabric and out of plane ticket
-
Take a picture every day
-
Learn to cook ten new recipes
-
Chicken artichoke heart lasagna
-
Four cheese rigatoni
-
-
Make a NZ scrapbook
-
Put together Dipper costume for Halloween (Gravity Falls)
-
Put together Seymour costume for Halloween (Little Shop of Horrors)
-
Tie a message to a balloon and let it go
I’ll Be Watching You
-
Watch 50 movies I’ve never seen before
-
August Osage County
-
The Grand Budapest Hotel
-
The Fault in Our Stars
-
The Way Back
-
American Hustle
-
-
Rewatch The Office, LOST, Orange Is The New Black, and The Muppet Show
-
Start/finish three new TV shows
-
Lord of the Rings marathon
-
Have a John Adams HBO series (plus 1776) marathon
-
Watch every Muppet movie/production
-
Beat two video games
-
See plays at OSF
Keeping My Mind In Shape
-
Read 10 books
-
The Help
-
-
Reread all of Sarah Ruhl’s plays
-
Start learning basic guitar
-
Learn to say “I love you” in 100 languages
-
Find a freelance writing job that pays
-
Do my 5000 piece puzzle
-
Start learning basic Italian
-
Learn more harmonica
-
Produce podcast episodes on schedule
Words, Words, Words
-
Write more of “Twinship” and at least outline how it’ll end
-
Work on “Eleven and a Half Inches”
-
Finish second draft of “Obsessed”
-
Finish first draft of “Untitled Beach” screenplay
-
Write and memorize five new slam poems
-
Write a short story
-
Write a letter to a friend
-
Write two pieces for Tough Pigs
-
Start research for Max Factor screenplay
-
Start book on being in New Zealand
-
Write in big girl blog on a regular basis
Getting Around to Finally Doing This
-
Clean up iTunes
-
Buy venus flytrap -
Organize all my files on my computer
-
Organize both hard drives
-
Get drivers license / Get permit renewed
-
Pay off one of my credit cards
-
Organize all the folders of saved papers I have
-
Discover four new song artists I enjoy
-
Replace lenses in glasses
-
Go shooting with Nate
-
Get a part time job
-
Talk with Kathleen about apartment hunting
-
Look into getting a dog
-
Visit mom
-
Start saving up to buy a banjo / California trip / New York trip
-
Get keyboard on laptop fixed
A New Look
-
Workout on a regular basis
-
Start running again on a regular basis
-
Find yoga videos on netflix
-
Get another tattoo
-
Get a haircut
-
Look into dance classes
-
Run in a marathon
-
Ride bike twice a week