{Bucket List}

Travel the world. Try new cultures. Learn another language.  

Scuba dive.  After conquering fear of sharks. 

Get kissed in the rain.  Always take advantage of the puddles.

Inspire someone.  Be inspired by others.

Be truly thankful for everything. Even the smallest details. Especially the smallest details.

Paint something worth hanging.  Paint something beautiful and give it as a gift.

Teach English in China, give humanitarian aide in Africa, bake cookies for my neighbors.

 Laugh every day.

Make new friends and keep old ones close.

Sew a dress. (Learn to sew first.)

Be in a musical. 

Live to thank the people who cure cancer and Alzheimer's.

Love my nose, my legs, my skin.  And stop comparing them to everyone else's.

Love others more than myself.  Love myself.

Plant a flower garden.

Start making my bed.

Compose a song.

Change the things that need to change.  Cherish the things that don't.

Really know my Savior, Jesus Christ.

Marry my best friend for forever.

Fly kites. Without waiting for the wind.

Never stop reading.  

Never stop being excited for Christmas.

Take my kids to Disneyland often.

Taste Italian gelato. In Italy.

Do YOGA more often.

Leave anonymous love notes.

Expect nothing in return.

Build forts with my children and leave the dishes.

Dance whenever and wherever.

Always feel more than think.

Take care of my parents in their old age.

Tip waiters well.  (The good ones.)

Thank my husband for supporting us.

Wear hot pink heels at some point.

Go to a fancy New Year's Eve party.

Keep crying over romantic novels and films.

Read more Shakespeare.

Write a book.

See a sunrise on a mountain peak.

Keep all homemade cards, gifts, and drawings.

Take more pictures.

Take less offense.

View life as a beautiful journey.

Start now.

Success

You know that awful feeling when even though you're trying to do things right, everything turns out dreadfully wrong?  And you know nothing about how to fix it because you thought you were doing everything right in the first place.

So you step back and evaluate.  Maybe I should just focus on one thing right now, you tell yourself.  Just make one thing end up the way I'd like it to and the rest will just fall into place... (Insert sound of a buzzer calling out the wrong answer to a game show trivia question).  Wrong.  Dead wrong.

You now find that everything else you were failing at before...is still failing.  One area is stuck in pitiful standstill, while another is flying above your head like a hummingbird even your eyes can't keep up with.  As if that's not bad enough, even that one area you are most focused on--that one thing in your life supposed to turn out right--is not turning out according to plan.  You are, again, not living up to your expectations.  Or anyone else's.

Oh, and NOW, even those little, tiny details of your life--the areas you absolutely have no time to worry about--are falling apart.  Like the traffic that seems to conveniently congregate any time you are in a hurry.  Or those fresh pimples on your face that were supposed to abandon you after adolescence.  No, no, no, these things are NOT supposed to happen when you are loosing it everywhere else.  But they always seem to anyway.

Now what??  You fail at everything--even the 'clear-movie-star-skin-in-your-twenties' thing (what a joke)--and you have absolutely nothing going for you.  What to do?...Hide under a rock?  Retreat to your parents' house and let your mom do your laundry for you again?  Ooh, that one sounds nice...  Quit everything and start a new life as a hobo? (Homeless, but simplified life=achieved). 

These options seem a bit extreme. 

So instead of converting to hobo-ism, I re-evaluate.  Why am I failing?  Or why do I think I'm failing?  What is failure?  ...I guess, more importantly, what is success?  Success means to attain, achieve, win.  But to attain what?  Achieve what?  Win what? 

...Things that matter.

A successful person is someone who chases dreams and tries new things, are they not?  A successful person doesn't waste time, and yet doesn't forget to slow down and enjoy moments.  Success involves hoping and wishing and dreaming, but not stopping there.  Successful people act on their hopes, fulfill those wishes, and makes others' dreams come true.

The feeling of failure is not a result of 'un-successes'.  It's failure to perceive what success truly means. 

Discouraged is the man who never said never,

then heard It whisper his name.

When Trial had shifted to Shadow, 

Sorrow had found a new game.

Beaten is he who refused to give up,

but found he never could win,

for playing against one's own Shadow

is like stilling a bough in the wind.

Hopelessness befalls the tired man

who waited like a turkey for wings.

And when they came in he realized

that Time makes a fool of such things.

Lost and done searching; the sailor is Grim

when the light at the shore is too dim.

Eyes are no use for a blind man,

and hope without light can't begin.

But Hope is not the only thing

that darkness cannot hope to bring.

For lack of light removes one more--

the Shadow can't be evermore.

The heart is a funny thing.  Physically, it beats life; figuratively, it lends itself for love.  The heart is meant to share and yet we protect it.  It is the strongest, most powerful motivator within us and yet the most   f r a g i l e   part of ourselves.

Being an openly loving person, for many years I continually wondered, why?  Why are people so inhibited by the most beautiful and powerful parts of themselves?

Now I know.

And at times like these--alone in my dark house, inhaling the intoxicating scent of a Sweet Jasmine candle, Andrea Boccelli and light summer rain playing in the background--I wish I was still wondering why, rather than feeling why.  Because no matter how strong a heart is, it's something like clay. Once touched, it will never be the same. True, after working at it for a long time, a master sculptor can make it become absolutely anything he wants...but the process is certainly grueling...and I am no master.

I hold it true, whate'er befall;

I feel it, when I sorrow most;

'Tis better to have loved and lost

Than never to have loved at all.

--Alfred Lord Tennyson 

How I wish my heart could believe it.

Teeter-totter

Temperance.  The forefathers of our country wrote of it; Greeks philosophized about it; our biblical ancestors testified of it.  But in our highly competive culture of self-indulgence and immediate gratification, it is a virtue often overlooked and even forgotten.  So we have heard of it, but really, what is temperance? And why the heck do I bring it up?  (And what does it have to do with teeter-totters, for crying out loud?)

In Greek, temperance means "moderation or restraint in thought and action."  Modernly, it has been used to describe self-restriction from alcohol (Temperance Movement) and food in general (health).  Again, we know what it means, but why do we find Americans (and people today in general) overfed, overworked, overstimulated, and undersatisfied, undermotivated, underslept, and under-available to spend time doing things that matter most?

Truly, the old proverb applies: there must be a balance in all things.  Life is a balancing teeter-totter though, isn't it?  Rest would become boring without work and success would not matter nearly as much if we had never experienced failure.  If there was no bitter, we could never taste the sweet; without sorrow, there is no true happiness.

And while Life tries to shove 'balance,' (or opposition), in our face, we strive to achieve that perfect balance of all our endeavors.  I believe that's truly our task of humanity--to demonstrate temperance in everything we do; to moderate both the less-meaningful as well as the important roles, choices, and actions we pursue.  And so I say, achieve balance, practice temperance, and keep your teeter tottering & your totter teetering.  "Live the 'good' life."

"The best and safest thing is to keep a balance in your life, acknowledge the great powers around us and in us. If you can do that, and live that way, you are really a wise man."    Euripides

Purple People Pleaser

     Yes, that's what I am, a "one-eyed one-horned flying purple people pleaser".  Okay, okay, I really have two eyes, I can't fly, and I'm relatively hornless, but I'm actually wearing purple and I'm definitely a hopeless people-pleaser.  The problem is, I sincerely like helping people, but eventually, helping everyone all the time turns into servilely pleasing them, and then a downfall of your own slavish existence. 

     I'm like the character, Jane, in 27 Dresses -- I just can't say no.  And like Jane, too many people wanting too many things from you is exhausting and tends to cause emotional blowups.  That's where I am today -- Emotional  Explosion Day.  If one more person asks me to do one more thing for them, I will be a volcanic disaster -- just call me Vesuvius. . .Sigh, And yes, the answer is yes; I'll do your favor anyway. . .!!

"London Calling..."

One word: LONDON.  I don't know what it is, but the thought gives me warm fuzzies in my heart.  Now don't get me wrong--Paris, Rome, Dublin--they all sound lovely, but there is just something about England that makes me want to drop a few thousand bucks to take pictures with Big Ben, Buckingham Palace, Stonehenge, the Hogwarts castle, the Temple of Apollo (please see Keira Knightley Pride & Prejudice, best-proposal-in-the-rain-ever scene, if you haven't already...), and maybe even the queen, but we'll see.

. . .And as long as I'm in London (whenever I get there), I may as well "take pictures" of those other lovely European places, right?. . .

The breath-taking Colosseum in Rome, Italy

Romantic Venetian Gondolas; Venice, Italy

Le Louvre Magnifique!  Paris, France

The enchanting Faerie Glen in Scotland

Someday, these pictures will be taken with my camera, by me.  Someday. . .isn't that the worst word in the world?  Someday.  So indefinite.  So unreliable.  But someday, "someday" has to come true, doesn't it?  So I will plan and wait until somehow, my "someday" plans can be fulfilled.  So someday, London, Europe -- here I come.


For backpacking across Europe, see this site for estimated expenses, travel tips, and discount ideas.
To plan an escorted or independent tour around Europe, click here.