Things to Do Before I Die

In high school Creative Writing class my sister had to think of 101 things she wanted to do before she died. She told me that it was harder than it seemed, so I decided to give it a try. I tried to stick away from cliché things like “get married” or “have kids”. I wanted them to be real things, some that I could achieve quite easily, or some that would take almost a miracle. I started the list about two years ago..but then the computer that it got saved on broke and I lost the list. Just recently (a few months ago) I decided to start the list back up. I am pretty sure I remembered everything that was on my past list and I added a lot more new ones too. Katherine is right though..it is harder than it seems. But every once in a while I think of a new one and jot it down. I am currently up to 65 things and since I’ve written this I have only accomplished 6 and two ½’s (to be explained later) out of those 65. sigh…It’s a long road.

So in lack of an idea of a better topic to write about I will now proceed to write all 65 things down. No..actually I’m totally kidding. I am only going to choose 15 ones. 15 because it’s my lucky number and you (the reader) would be bored with all 65..jeesh ..can you imagine??

1. go skydiving- this would be totally sweet and as soon as I get the money I’m there b/c Miami has a program or whatever to do it. Yea!!
2. find a four leaf clover- it may sound lame, but I have never found one and I’ve always wanted to…
3. learn how to play the drums- hopefully a certain Mike Carroll will help me with this one
4. learn sign language- I just think this would be really sweet. Also if Katherine learned it with me than we could communicate to each other all the time and nobody would know what we were saying. It would be cool and sort of evil
5. own a pet monkey-they are the cutest animals ever! I love them! And it’s going to happen!! No Joke. End of story.
6. be able to do the splits- I haven’t been able to do them since probably elementary school 3rd grade, but I really wish I was that flexible. Maybe my recent Pilates classes will help.
7. own a restaurant- this may have just started off as a joke between me and Matt but now it would really be cool if it happened. We talk about it occasionally and the plus side would be that Matt would actually be a chef like we all know he wants to be.
8. beat Twila in Peanuts- for those of you who don’t play cards Peanuts is a card game. Now normally I am not to shabby, but whenever any of us Henley’s play with Twila she ALWAYS wins by a lot. She is just really really good. One time I came five points away from her , but someday... I will defeat her!
9. learn how to ball room dance and tap dance- this is really two but I combined them because they are practically the same except different types of dance. I have decided that for my wedding I want the wedding party to all have to take ballroom dancing classes so we can all look smooth on the dance floor . As for tap dance maybe I’ll join a class here, maybe I should have taken that instead of Modern Dance this semester.
10. learn how to play golf- I want to learn how to play so I can see what the big deal is. Is it really that awesome of a game? I don’t know..hopefully I can get down to the bottom of this mystery this summer.
11. learn how to drive stick shift- so that I can eventually buy a Mini Cooper- this is actually two in one again. But I can’t do one without the other. Mini Cooper’s are such a sweet ass sweet car!!
12. see a Broadway show in New York- this is actually two combined again. I really want to go to New York and while there I want to see a Broadway show
13. play basketball in a wheelchair- does anyone watch Saved by the Bell? Well, in one episode they were trying to raise money for a charity or something so they had a basketball tournament, only they played in wheelchairs . Well, I don’t know how good I would be (especially considering I am not that great at regular basketball) but it would be so fun. They might have to lower the hoops though ..
14. be in a movie- this is one of my far fetched ones..but hey it could happen right. I don’t have to be the star or anything..I just want to be in one. Then maybe I could have my name on imdb.com and that would be soooooo awesome I could not even explain!
15. pull a fire alarm- this is my most recent one added (last Sunday). I got the idea because we had a fire alarm in our hall at 3:30 in the morning and had to stay out of the building for 30 minutes. It was absolutely ridiculous…but a real fire…but but.. there were cute firemen involved . Pulling a fire alarm I think would be funny. But I would have preferred to do it in high school.

These were just 15 random ones…but there are tons more…This is actually a cool thing to do, hence why I am doing it . So I would suggest trying to find 101 things that you want to do before you die. If you have anything that you have in mind already tell me and maybe I just might steal it from you and put it on my list .

Oh...the ones that I have accomplished are:

1. go to a concert -(I have been to The Killers, Flogging Molly, and the Rolling Stones)
2. see a shooting star- I did see one..but barely so I hope I see another one sometime
3. learn how to wink- it's still not incredibly good and I can only do it to my right eye..but still
4. get a manicure
5. own a green umbrella- it started off as a joke with somone..since I'm obsessed with the color green and Megan Snyder had one once and I was jealous. So ..now I have one .
6. see Put-In-Bay in the winter with snow- you'd think after 15 years of going up there I would have done this..but we just did this for the first time over Christmas Break and it was gorgeous!
1/2 (1)- learn how to play Fur Elise on the piano- Well, I thought I had the whole song, but it turns out there is more to the song. So I only know half of the song..therefore this one is half finished
1/2 (2)- learn how to play the "Happy Song" on the piano- my mom used to play us this song which she called the "Happy Song" when we were little and Katherine and I used to dance around the room to it..well apparently there is an upper part and a lower part (like Heart and Soul) and well I only have the lower part learned. She needs to teach me the other part sometime.

That's it...Rock On!!!