Summary of My Life.

So my cousin was participating for a while in this challenge called "Blog Every Day in May." I didn't realize she was doing it until about two weeks into May (and realized that going from hardly blogging ever to blogging EVERY DAY was a bit too ambitious), so I figured it was too late to jump in.

But I looked at all the daily prompts and I really like some of them. So I'm cheating, and just doing some of them, and I'm not going to write every day because really, I probably won't, and this will probably extend past May since we've only got a week of it left. So here goes -

Day 1: Story of your life, in 250 words or less.

I’ve done the typical life things for a twenty-something: graduated college, held down a good job, become financially stable. But those things don’t define me. They don’t really represent anything I stand for as a person.

 I love to see beautiful things, taste delicious things, and do incredible things. I am a world traveler and a wife, a planner at heart, a soccer player and coach. I have tattoos that are a statement to the kind of life I try to live, I love wearing lipstick even though my husband doesn’t like to kiss me when I do, and I don’t brush my hair very often. I have learned to fear nothing and sometimes find myself crying, not because I’m sad but because this world is so beautiful and life is so short. I am a decent writer, despite my tendency to use too many run-on sentences. I am no longer a picky eater. I often suffer from book hangover. Some bucket list items are to see as many countries as possible, learn another language fluently, get a six-pack, participate in a polar bear plunge, compete in an amateur ballroom dance competition, take a trapeze class, pay a stranger’s dinner bill, and jump in a taxi and yell “follow that car!”

I think my husband is the handsomest man I’ve ever seen, I prefer to spend money on experiences, not things, and I ALWAYS dance like no one is watching.

Above all things, I am a WOMAN. Happy and alive.

My Non-Travel Bucket List

I have started writing down bucket lists before, but they all end up turning into just a list of all the countries in the world and weird things I want to eat. So I have challenged myself to come up with things I'd like to do before I kick the bucket that don't have anything to do with traveling.

DISCLAIMER: That statement about items having nothing to do with travel may not be entirely true.

• Obtain a CPA license (so I can have a business card with fancy extra initials behind my name.)
• Design and sew a quilt. And a dirndl. So I can wear it to Oktoberfest!
• Climb a mountain. A really big one! (Like, umm. Mt Fuji in Japan? Or Mt Kilimanjaro? Or....)
• Bake a loaf of bread that does not double as a blunt object to whack intruders with.
• Learn to speak another language fluently. (As in, not just "Thank you" and "Another beer, please.")
• Compete in an amateur ballroom dance competition (Still trying to talk Steve into this one...)
• Pay a stranger's dinner bill
• Do a "Trash the Dress" photo shoot with my wedding dress. (One of the three I ended up buying. [Online, for <$400 total. Whoop.] But first I have to fit back into one... :P)
• Dress up for ComiCon (or other comparable convention of nerds.)
• Dress up for a USA game (I feel silly putting this on my list, since I already know I'm going to do with for Women's World Cup Canada 2015.)
• Learn how to ride a horse (that isn't a pony tied to a post that walks in a circle at the fair.)
• Jump off a waterfall (Steve keeps telling me to do this. I'm scared. But it'll happen one day.)
• Attach a lock to a love bridge
• Jump into a taxi and yell "follow that car!" (Should've done this in Vegas. Really, really should have done this in Vegas.)

....so that's about all I came up with, until I decided to type "bucket list" into Pinterest and see what other people came up with (because seriously, I can't think of anything more than "travel to this place" or "eat this") - here is what I've added to my list:

• Hug a penguin (I'm not sure if this is legal.)
• Participate in a polar bear plunge
• Take a trapeze class!
• Throw a party serving fake alcohol and see how many people act drunk (Too bad I'm not in college anymore.)
• Throw a drink in someone's face (I wish I could get this mad. I'm past the rage point of my life, though.)
• Attend a masquerade (why didn't I think of this myself??)
• Have a paint fight (I imagine this will happen if Steve and I ever decide to stop traveling long enough to settle down and buy a house to paint.)
• Wade through a cranberry bog
• Finish an entire big pink eraser (Seriously. Has anyone ever finished one of these??)
• Swing from a chandelier (and hope it doesn't break)

Things I have crossed off my bucket list before I had a chance to put it on:

• Marry the love of my life
• Run a marathon (Well. Complete a marathon.)
• Sing karaoke in front of a bunch of people (Every Thursday, Red Lion!)
• Smash a pie in someone's face (Technically it was cake. Marcus.)
• Eat a spaghetti taco (I was mind-boggled for a moment, seeing this on someone's list. Then I realized... I've done this before.)
• Dance even if no one else is and even if I look like a fool (which I'm sure I do.)
• Live without fear. (I'm there, finally. So I have no excuse to not cross every item off this list.)

I know, I know, I'm cheating... It isn't really writing blog posts if I'm just making lists. But Steve will tell you, there is nothing I love more than making lists. (Other than him, or Billy, or traveling, or food.)

But it's better than nothing! And now that these things are written for the world to see, maybe I'll do them sooner rather than later!

Tying Up Some Loose Ends.

Remember this post from New Year, where I said my New Year's resolution was to blog more?

Yeah. Utter failure.

And remember when I promised over and over and over that I'd post some pictures of our place?

Yeah. That didn't happen either.

I am back to remedy both of those situations.

So here's a big WELCOME BACK from me, to myself. There are a lot of things that have happened in the time I've been blog-hibernating, and some thoughts on life that I'd like to get written down, so here goes New Year's Resolution: Take Two.

And here are some fabulously blurry pictures of the past three-ish months of our life!

I'll start with a couple pics of our place, since you've been waiting so long:

Our living room. Much more "us" than it would be if it was centered around a tv.

Our kitchen, on one of its cleaner days.

Our dining area, aka the other half of the kitchen?

Sorry folks, no pics of our bedroom or our office. Both are consistently messy and mostly undecorated (still! I know. We somehow lost all our thumbtacks in the move and didn't get around to buying new ones till like... a week ago) so you will probably have to come visit if you want to see them!

MISC PICTURES FROM FEBRUARY [Holy crap. I haven't blogged since February.]

Valentine's Day:

This is what I came home to at lunch on Valentine's Day!

Steve shucked those oysters himself. And put together the centerpiece flower arrangement.

AVENUE OF THE GIANTS, Humboldt County, CA

Eel River(?)

The view from above. 

 This is where the pictures start getting blurry, because I changed the setting on the camera to something that required the camera to be held very, very, VERY still.....

That is a tall tree. A very, very tall tree.

Between me, Billy, and my brother, we could reach maybe a third of  the way around the tree?

Party tree! The couple in the middle are my old friend Adrienne and her husband Evan, who  we were visiting in Humboldt.

The boys atop a fallen tree.

That is a redwood that had fallen over. For scaling purposes, keep in mind that my brother, standing on the ground right next to the tree, is a little over six feet tall.

A creek we found. I mostly posted this picture because Billy looks adorable in my jacket.

MARCH:

We basically didn't do anything exciting in February due to MY FIRST TAX SEASON aka I did not have a single day off work in the month of March.

APRIL:

As a celebratory MY-FIRST-WEEKEND-OFF-IN-TWO-MONTHS!!!, we met up with a bunch of our college friends in Santa Barbara for a mini-reunion and some hiking and avocado picking and other typical shenanigans. Steve and I took the train down rather than driving - and that train ride was like 17 hours long. Each way. But it was also kind of refreshing to travel around with just a backpack once more....

The view from the beginning of our hike.

Don't know if you can see it, but Iris has a big fancy camera - I took this picture as proof she was there, because she normally doesn't have any pictures of herself from our adventures.

We got lost on our hike, and asked some random guys for directions to Seven Falls (which, incidentally, were all dried up by the time we got there - 3 hours later) and they told us to continue on the trail we were walking on until we came to Pride Rock... We were pretty stoked to hear that other people use Disney references to describe landmarks besides us.

Steve and Blonde Matt helping me down a boulder. I was certain I was going to die. Thank goodness I had tall, strong, handsome blonde men to save me.

I was clinging like a barnacle to that rock.

Steve and Jane atop Pride Rock, SB version

Blonde Matt's and my feet..... You really can't tell from this picture how effing far down it was from the rock we were sitting on to the bottom of the canyon.

Carolyn, the dust from our hike washed off and adequately prepared for avocado picking.

Jane basically lives in the avocado grove. 

FOOD AND OTHER THINGS:

Carne asada tacos

Trying our hand at kalbi [Korean shirt ribs]

I guess the Deutschland jacket takes away from me pretending to be Asian?

Steve's glorious cheese pizza

Spanish sweet rolls... I forget what they're called. But Steve made them. From scratch.

Getting ready for some BEZZERWIZZER!!! [A fair warning to everyone out there: don't play trivia games with us unless you are a serious trivia game fanatic. Because that's what we are, and we will beat you every time.]

Korea Steve came for a visit!!!! :D

I love coming home to lunch already made.

Homemade turkey meatballs, courtesy of Steve.

Vegetable curry.

Some of Steve's fantastic french bread.

Homemade pretzels. Steve made the pretzels from scratch, and I stole a bite before taking a picture so it would look like a heart. Awwwww.

Steve's family's traditional Valentine's day cookie. This is a cake pan, so this cookie is much bigger than it looks.

Bacon, balsamic, and brussel sprouts. A winning combination.

Swiss chard pasta, courtesy of my dad's garden, and a pineapple-zubrowka martini.

Plantain empanadas - my mom's recipe.

Billy misses having his picture taken all the time. What a ham.

Multigrain pancakes (mix courtesy of the local flour mill) with strawberries & yogurt. And breakfast sausage. 

Bay scallop salsa-viche.

Just another day of lunch waiting for me at home.

Whew. I'm worn out and all I posted was a bunch of pictures!

But it's a good start, right? :P