Saturday, August 3, 2013

Bucket List

Don’t be alarmed.  I’m not planning on giving up and dying any time soon.  My friend Cinder, the breast cancer survivor, told me, “You will never wait on your bucket list again.”  This comment reminded me of a book I bought several years ago named No Opportunity Wasted by Phil Koeghan, the host of The Amazing Race.   I’ve never watched that reality show but I remember seeing him on Oprah promoting his book and the Discovery Channel’s newest show with the same name.   The author had a near-death experience at the age of 19, during a scuba diving incident.  After surviving the harrowing experience, he decided to make a checklist of all the things he wanted to do before he died.
I’ve always found it fascinating to find out what makes other people tick and why.  It prompted me to make my own list almost ten years ago.  I’ve added to it way more than I’ve checked them as “done”.  A few of the “dreams” on the list are just that…dreams.  I love to imagine myself, along with Tim McGraw, riding 2.7 seconds on a bull named Fumanchu, but a 1999 discectomy left me feeling a little less…um…immortal.   Sometimes, like playing the lottery, it’s fun to imagine what you would do if money…or guts were no object.   It’s no wonder I love my job.  I hope, if nothing else, this post inspires someone to make their own bucket list.  Let me re-phrase that….WRITE DOWN their bucket list.  You know… the checklist like the one you would make before you went to the grocery store, ideally with little boxes intended for the purpose of someday being checked.
As most of you well know, I’m not shy about sharing my innermost thoughts and dreams, so why not post my bucket list?  Here goes….



 ___Take Stephani Chance’s tour to Italy’s Amalfi Coast with Jeff  http://pinterest.com/alnchance/lets-     go-to-italy-together/

___Ride in a gondola in Venice

___Learn how to speak Italian

___Swim with dolphins

___See Bruce Springsteen in concert

___Ride a Vespa through Tuscany

___Learn how to ride a motorcycle and ride it through Napa Valley

___Rent out one of the “painted ladies” in Haight/Ashbury in San Francisco and live like   
      hippies for awhile.

___Horseback riding on the beach

___Learn how to play a blues song on the harmonica

___ Ride a bull

___ Take the Cayamo (A Journey through Song) cruise ship the Lyle Lovett, John Prine,
       and John Hiatt.  Almost every year, they, along with about 20 other artists,
       perform and cruise to the British Virgin Islands aboard the Norweigan Pearl.

___ Tandem Skydive

_x_Stay in a haunted house for the night  (Waverly Hills Sanitarium, Louisville 2010)

___Visit the Jewish museum in NYC

_x_Paint an Impressionistic work of art   (Ok.  I cheated a bit.  I can’t draw so I bought
      a drawing from the Metropolitan Museum of Art of  “Ballerina in Pink” by Edgar  
      Degas.  I basically “colored” with oil paintings.   

___Experience Carnivale in Venice and Rio de Janeiro

___Be Samantha Brown (The Travel Channel) for a day

___Ride the fastest, longest, tallest, wildest rollercoaster in the world, wherever they
      may be.

___Have a real Argentinian teach me to dance the Tango

___Ride in a hot air balloon in Loire Valley, France

___See the tulip festival in Holland

___Tour the Grotta Azzurra (Blue Cave) in Capri, Italy

___Build a Victorian dollhouse exactly the way I want it, and then build a real life-size    
      version in Versailles, Ky.   Run it as a Bed & Breakfast.

_x_ Learn how to make stuffed grape leaves (7/20/13)

___Learn how to make pottery

___Be an editor of a magazine

___Publish a book named “Keeping You Abreast”, so that some of the 12.5% of women  
      who are diagnosed with breast cancer, don’t feel so alone.  What’s on YOUR bucket list?

























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