Beyond my Bucket List

Dear friends,

I'd like to take a quick moment and thank you for following along with my adventures.  Though I know I haven't met all of you who read this blog, I'm thankful for every one of you.

Last week, I had the opportunity to get to know a fascinating woman.  This is a woman who has achieved great success in her life.  When I first met her, she was speaking to a group I was a part of and I found myself oddly drawn to her.  I couldn't exactly pinpoint why it was, but I made a point of introducing myself to her at the completion of the event.  Not only was her story incredible and inspiring, but there seemed to be something radiating from within her.  Happiness?  Success?  Contentment?  I really didn't know what it was, but I liked her.

She agreed to have coffee with me and impart some wisdom on career paths.  We talked a bit on careers, but quickly discovered we share a love for adventure, travel and new experiences.  The conversation changed gears and we shared some of our favorite experiences as well as a few items from our bucket lists.  I found that she had done some of the things I have not yet checked off my bucket list, so once again, she was inspiring me.  I enjoyed my time with her very much and left considering a lot of my favorite memories and adventures.  

I truly hope each and every one of you has a Bucket List.  I mean a true, written down list that you do everything you can to pursue the dreams on it.  I certainly have mine.  It is an ever evolving list.  There are currently 20 items on my list that have yet to be checked off and, believe me, I'm focused making them all happen.  Little by little, I WILL achieve everything.

There is another list I keep as well and that's the one I want to share with you today.  It is a list of some of the experiences I've had and skills I've learned that I treasure.  Some were crossed off my bucket list, others were more random opportunities.  It's important to remember the things you've accomplished.  Sometimes when I feel like there is still so much I want to do in my life and feel overwhelmed trying to figure out how I am going to manage to do everything, I look back on the things I have done and revel in how much fun I've had.  The list below is a piece of the list I copied and pasted from my personal document.  The grammar is massively inconsistent  so please forgive me.  I just wanted to share some of these things with you and remind you that not every accomplishment or adventure has to be extraordinary, expensive or life-changing.  An adventure is an adventure because it brought you joy and opened your eyes to something new, whether it be great or small.

Things I've Done

Bungee Jumped

Parasailed 

On the field for first NFL game of the season

Climbed the fence at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway

Water-ski

Own & ride motorcycles

Own a boat

Can drive a backhoe

Can drive a bobcat

Can drive a forklift

Got tattoos

Slept on the beach

Barrell Raced in a rodeo in Bandera, TX

Played cowbell in a steel drum band

Traveled to Italy

Swam in Mediterranean

Swam in Gulf of Mexico

Swam in Atlantic

Swam in Pacific

Learned to weld

Hunting

Own a home

Ride a mechanical bull

Drive a houseboat

Clean fish

Clean turtles

Hiked up a mountain for the sunset

Helped deliver a calf

Hang Glide

Participated in a 5K

Rode a painted horse in the Rio Grande

Listen to a Native American Storyteller

Spent time with Grampa in hospital & nursing home & held his hand when I thought I’d lose him right then

Was in a TV commercial

Learned to mountain bike at Women’s mountain biking clinic

Sprint Distance Triathalon

Met Garth Brooks!

Install laminate flooring in a whole house

Put on fireworks show at the lake

Mud Run

Trap shooting

Ziplining

Album release party in Nashville

Built a cabin porch in my living room

Hiked on the Appalachian Trail

Book Review - DREAM MORE by Dolly Parton

I picked up Dolly Parton's new book, Dream More: Celebrating the Dreamer in You the day it came out.  As soon as I got home with it, I got into my most soft, comfy clothes, slipped on some colorful, fuzzy socks and curled up in my bed with too many pillows to count and my three favorite stuffed animals.  Then I opened up the book to begin reading.  I didn't quit reading until I reached the back cover.  Yes, I stayed up and read it cover to cover.  It's not a terribly long book, but I just couldn't put it down.

Dolly has a bit of a unique philosophy on life, dreams, God and happiness.  In this book, she puts it all out there as her philosophy relates to dreams we have in life.  It's a great stocking stuffer and a truly inspirational read.  I highly recommend you pick it up.

The whole book is basically a deeper exploration into the hopes Dolly expressed in her 2009 commencement speech to the graduates of the University of Tennessee.  One thing I love from the speech is at the very beginning she says, "I usually try not to give advice. Information, yes.  Advice, no.  What has worked for me may not work for you."  I love this quote because I am exactly the same way.  I will give you all the information I can and I'm happy to share my experiences with anyone who'll listen.  But to give advice... no so much.

Here are a few of my other favorite quotes from the book and speech:

 "I would certainly rather wear out than rust out.  I hope that I drop dead right onstage one of these days, doing exactly what I want to do.  It might shake the audience up a little bit, but I hope everybody knows that's exactly what I want."

"Happiness is your commitment  appreciating all that is good in life, big and small."

"Learning is really all about experience, how you look at everything you do and draw lessons from what you have done.  If you learn from that and you don't make the same mistakes twice, then not only are you smart, you have what we call "horse sense."

"I make a point to appreciate all the little things in my life.  I go out and smell the air after a good, hard rain.  I reread passages from my favorite books.  I hold the little treasures that somebody special gave me.  These small actions help remind me that there are so many great, glorious pieces of good in the world."

"All my life I have walked a fine line.  I'm too bad to be good and too good to be bad.  I also walk a fine line between being gaudy and sexy.  My spirituality and my sensuality seem to be intertwined.  But I'm too cartoonish to ever be a threat to wives or girlfriends."  

Seriously y'all!  Pick it up.  It's a great "feel good" kind of book.

Love, Pain and the Whole Crazy Thing (Christmas Style)

I LOVE decorating my house for Christmas.  Always have.  I can remember the Christmas tree we had when I was growing up.  It was an old school one that had a big pole with color coded holes around it at different heights.  The branches were separate and had a wire the bent down at a 90 degree angle which was painted in colors to match the holes on the upright pole.  You would spend an hour sorting all the branches and trying to discern the blue paint from the green paint on the ends of the branches.  Each color was a different size of branch so you could eventually figure out which were which.  I loved sorting the branches all the way around the dining room, kitchen, living room, hallway... where ever there was some floor space.  Then, with all the love and happiness in the world, I would put the largest branches on first, working from the bottom of the tree all the way up.  

Once they were on, it was time to fluff everything up.  With my arms and fingers getting poked and scratched by the artificial pine needles, I'd sing along to a Christmas cassette or CD (usually Garth Brooks, over and over again).  I'd bend each wire branch into the perfect position.  It would take at least one full day, if not the whole weekend for me to decorate mom and dad's house.  Most things had their place.  Mom had a layout for the Christmas decor, so I went along with it.  It was more about making the house beautiful and magical looking than being creative. It was the warm, fuzzy feeling I got from the season.

About five years ago, I started inheriting more and more Christmas decor from a number of sources (grandparents, parents, etc.).  I had a very large house and was married at that time.  Most everyone was getting to a point where they didn't want to do as much decorating anymore and I was the obvious first choice to call to off load anything they didn't want.  :-)

One day, my Grandma Leavelle asked if I had a theme or a color or anything that I wanted to focus on.  I really hadn't considered that.  I was just collecting whatever I could and finding places to put it all.  I started to search my mind and my heart for what it was that I loved the most and wanted to make the theme of my decor.  I thought about snowmen, silver, blue, angels, Santa Claus, Snow, White, Disney... all kinds of things.  And finally, it hit me.  I remembered how much I loved putting up the tree.  Spending time making it perfect.  Adding lights, garland and ornaments.  And most of all, I loved laying underneath it and looking up at the lights twinkling through the branches.  At mom and dad's house, there was a heat vent in the floor along the back side of the Christmas tree.  I'd lay down under the tree and put a blanket over myself and the vent and have the most warm and cozy place in the house.

That was it!  Trees.  I loved Christmas trees.  When we bought the big house, I got a second Christmas tree to put in a place that just seemed to be the perfect place for a little tree.  The next year, I started to have dreams that many would consider to be crazy.  I dreamed of a "forest" of Christmas trees inside my house!  It would have a little white picket fence and a snow covered ground.  Each tree would have a theme.  There would be snowmen and it would be gorgeous!  

I started measuring and planning and collecting Christmas trees from family members who didn't want to put theirs up anymore.  I bought a couple more when I found them on sale too.  I drilled out some 2x4's to make a base to stand the "fence" up in.  I even grabbed two tree shaped trellises that I had grown clematis on in the summer and wrapped them in lights and green garland to create two more trees.  We moved the furniture to make room for this grand display and I started setting up.

The first year there were seven trees and two snowmen in the forest.  It was stunning.  People thought I was crazy.  I never cared.  It became my favorite place to be.  I'd sit in that room almost every minute I was home.  I'd never turn on the house lights.  The twinkle and glow from the tree lights gave off more than enough light and was the most gorgeous glow.  It filled me with joy, love and peace to be there.

The first year

The next year or two years later (I can't remember which year is which), I would move to a new (much smaller) house after my divorce.  The lack of space wasn't about to take away my forest or dampen my spirit.  I figured out that if I moved the furniture out of the living room and made the forest a little more condensed, I could still fit all the trees in.  With a little re-working, the forest was back!

The first year in the new house

I added birdies decorating the trees that year

This year, I thought it was time to take it to a whole new level.  A level that would make many really worry about my sanity and gain me the title of "Christmas Enthusiast."  At the beginning of October I began working on a secret project.  I posted several things to social media, but would never tell anyone what it was or post anything to give it away.  I worked for over a month on it in every free moment I had.  It was a project all my own.  I took no assistance or advice from anyone.  I was on a mission to conquer the world in a way.  

There were some bumps in the road along the way including electrocution, bumps on head, stubbed toes, cuts, scrapes and a black eye.  It was all part of the experience.  I loved every minute of it.  Even the painful ones.  Go ahead and call me crazy.  You won't be the first or the last.  

In the end, I got it completed and installed and it is amazing.  It's a log cabin facade with a front porch that sits in my living room, among the Christmas trees.