#3 Learn a Gershwin Piano Song

Here's a link to the song: Rhapsody in Blue

I can't even tell you how good it feels to say I am done working on this song.  The only person who might be even happier is Brian-- he's heard it so much that he can literally sing the whole thing to you.  I have spent months and days and hours working on this song since I bought the sheet music for it (which was more like a 7 page book) back in September.  Is it perfect?  Far from it.  But I am satisfied with how far I have come working on what turned out to be a 15 minute song in only a few months.  And it's definitely time to be done with it.

I've been itching to work on another "project" for a while.  I graduated in December 2009 with a degree in music (for those who are confused, I also majored in business, which is how I'm making money.)  I was a music major from day one of my freshman year and so for four and a half years I spent hours and hours playing piano.  And for the majority of my time there, I mostly worked on one song-- Danzas Argentina's by Ginastera-- which is about 10 minutes long and takes so much energy that I literally couldn't play it through more than once without taking a break.  When I finally had my senior recital a month or two before I graduated, it was the best feeling to play it and be recognized for it and to finally be done with it.  I even won an award (although there was only one other person I was competing with, so it wasn't too much of a feat.)  But once I was done, it was incredibly weird.  It was like I focused all this energy on finishing this one thing and suddenly I had all of this free time.  And to do what?

It was even more weird after I graduated because I didn't even have a piano.  At first I still lived in an apartment close to school, so I could visit the practice rooms from time to time, but eventually I moved and also worked about 30-40 minutes away and it became a lot more difficult-- especially during rush hour traffic right after work.  It was almost never worth it to make the drive.  My lovely friend Jeannie, who was also my roommate at the time, was thoughtful enough to buy me a piano off of craigslist.  The problem was, neither of us had enough money to hire someone to move it up to our second story apartment, so we kept it in the garage.  Because of this, I was able to play one.  But every time I did, the neighbor kids would sit outside the closed garage door and clap after every song.  It was fine, but it was kind of awkward and I didn't play as much as I used to.

Around that time I started dating Brian, who had a beautiful keyboard he used for his band.  I didn't really have many opportunities to play it for the first year or so we dated because he kept it at his band's practice space.  But for a small period of time he worked on a side project in another room in the space, and he let me play it while they practiced.  Soon after he told me his band never used the keyboard anyway (they only had a couple songs with piano parts) so he brought it to his apartment so I could play it.  I'm sure he's regretted that decision many times since then, because I play it ALL the time. :)  Then again, he plays his guitar all the time, so I feel like we're about even.

Around the time he moved it to his apartment, my grandparents invited my parents, Brian and me to come to an orchestra concert that was entirely Gershwin music.  Gershwin lived around the 1920s and played kind of a mix of jazz and classical and modern music.  He wrote musicals and symphonies, but his main instrument was piano.  It was all right down my alley-- which is probably why they invited me in the first place.  I hadn't played much jazz music in the past, but I always wanted to.  I asked Brian if he would be impressed if I could play the music they were playing in orchestra hall and he said yes.  So I decided Gershwin would be my next project.  And, soon after, I bought the sheet music for Rhapsody in Blue.

This song was SO difficult for me to work on.  I'm normally very good at sightreading, but the first time I sat down and tried to play through it, I could hardly even play through the first page (and there were 7...)  The rhythm was way more complex than I was used to, there were several difficult runs, and a lot of the chords were dissonant and sounded like mistakes-- but they weren't!  I tried to find a recording on the song, but I could only find the orchestra recording (which isn't the same), a few medleys, and some self recordings on youtube.  I tried to base what I was playing off of a combination of all of them, which was difficult because they didn't really sound like each other.  So if I didn't play parts of the song the way they should be played, that's why.

What's really insane is that it took me nine months to learn to play this song, but Gershwin wrote it in a couple WEEKS.  Paul Whiteman, a jazz band director, was trying to put together a jazz concert in New York City and asked Gershwin to write a piece for it.  Gershwin agreed to it, but forgot about it until he and his brother opened the New York Times and read an article about the upcoming concert, which of course had his name in it.  The concert was five weeks from that day.  He wrote the piano version in a few weeks, gave it to another composer who translated it into a band piece, and it was finally finished about a week before the concert.  Gershwin didn't have time to actually transcribe the piano part until after the concert, so the conductor was told things like "wait for nod."  Despite all of this, it ended up being one of the most popular songs he ever wrote.

I will never be a Gershwin, but after a lot of work I was finally able to play it!  And I eventually memorized the whole 15 minute song.  Here is what I was able to put together.  :)

(I'll give you another link to the song.  Maybe someday I'll be smart enough to figure out how to put it on my blog...) Rhapsody in Blue 

#44 Finish a Puzzle

Finishing this puzzle ended up being a much bigger task than it needed to be.

Let me start from the beginning.  One year ago (when I wrote my bucket list) I had a lot of time on my hands, and a nice big apartment where Brian and I spent the majority of our time.  I wanted to figure out some constructive things to do to fill my time, particularly during the cold months when I am usually stuck inside, and doing a big puzzle seemed like a really fun project!  I figured I could work on it gradually over a long period of time until it was finished.

In October, Brian got his own place (he was living in his friend's mom's basement before this.)  And soon after, he got a big TV.  I'm sure most of my male readers would want to know exactly what kind of TV, but I couldn't even begin to tell you.  It's flat and it takes up half of his apartment.  But it was enormous and cool enough to trump my "small" TV (which Brian gave me a while ago, and is still WAY bigger than any TV my family or I have ever owned.)  Long story short, Brian wanted us to spend a lot more time at his place so he could play with his new "toy."  And Brian and I spend about 99% of our time together (that's probably a given if you know us), so we split our time between our apartments.

And then we got Rosie.  And it was all downhill from there.  I'll show you a picture of her and you'll understand why.

Since my roommate's boyfriend/fiance/husband (it's changed over the course of the time we've lived in our apartment) is very allergic to cats, she could only stay at Brian's place.  And since we both love our little kitten more than most things in life, we have spent about 99% of our waking hours at his place.  Honestly, I wasn't too happy about it.  I love my apartment-- it is one of the nicest places I have ever lived.  And his is... well... not as nice.  But between the TV and the kitten, it was the preferred place to be.

Anyway, finishing a puzzle became a much bigger problem.  There was absolutely no way I could work on it at Brian's.  Rosie would have happily tossed every individual piece around the apartment while we were at work.  And there was really no way to keep it in a closed room or cover it or put it out of reach in his little studio apartment.  Honestly, I could have progressively worked on it over the course of the year at my apartment, but I didn't like the idea of leaving it there for an extended period of time, because I was afraid a piece might accidentally be lost when Brad and Kelly were using the apartment and I wasn't there.  My best bet was trying to convince Brian to spend about a week straight at my apartment to work on it.

He was so unwilling to do this that I literally had to schedule the week more than a month in advance.  And when the week came, he grumbled about how he missed his TV and cat, and hated my stupid bucket list.  Good grief.  I should have just bought a big TV for my apartment a long time ago.

Anyway, I picked the week Brad and Kelly were going on their honeymoon, since I knew no one would be there and there would be almost no chance it would be ruined when I wasn't there.  But Kelly was planning to move out the following weekend, so I had to get it done in a week.  I figured that was plenty of time to get a puzzle done.

I should also tell you, I bought the puzzle about a year ago.  Before Brian had an apartment and a TV and a cat.  It's a beautiful picture of Times Square and I thought it would be something I could frame and hang up when I was done.  I remembered it was big, but my friends and I have worked on big puzzles before, so I thought a week would be a sufficient amount of time to finish it.  I completely forgot, however, just HOW big it was.  So when I went to my apartment Monday afternoon after work, worked out, and then sat down to work on the puzzle, I was very nervous to find out it was 2000 pieces.  The biggest puzzle I had ever worked on before this had 1000 pieces.  And I was even more nervous when I finished the outline of the puzzle and found out it was as big as my table.  No joke.

Monday I worked out.  Tuesday I went to yoga.  But after that, I literally had to cancel all plans, come immediately home from work and work on it until I couldn't keep my eyes open.  Brian didn't want to have anything to do with it, so he worked on his band music in the living room.  He DID help at the very end, however, to make sure I got it done in time.  Don't worry, he's the best boyfriend ever.  He was just bitter he couldn't spend more time with his cat. :)  Fortunately, Alyssa spent 3 out of the 5 days helping me, so I didn't have to work on it completely alone.  Without her I could not have possibly finished it in time.  Ryan also came over one day and contributed a piece to the puzzle.  I told him I would give him credit for it in my blog.

Friday night came and I knew there was no way I would finish it by myself unless I pulled an all-nighter.  It LOOKED like it was almost done, but I had saved most of the hard pieces for last.  So I ended up throwing a small puzzle party!  Amy, Justin and Alyssa came over, and we all drank wine and ate spaghetti while we tried to finish the monstrous puzzle.  Amy literally came over, looked at the size of the puzzle, and gave up before she had even started. :)  But she was there for moral support and helped us with the last few pieces.  Alyssa, Justin and I feverishly worked on it for hours, though.  And finally, at 1:30 in the morning, we finished it!  It was the best feeling, because it really is a beautiful puzzle!  And it was definitely a big accomplishment.  I can't wait to hang it on my wall!

Will I ever try to do something like this again?  Right now, my answer is absolutely not.  It was like having a part time job.  But, knowing myself, I probably will.  I love having a project, even if it means a little bit of stress.  Hopefully it will be something a little more meaningful next time... :)  But at least I have a pretty new decoration for my apartment!  And, of course, a good memory of time spent with my friends.

The following is a progression from Day 2-Day 5.

#46 Watch 6+ Documentaries 6/6

I never in my entire life wanted to be one of those people who sat on their couches all day watching TV.  And for the most part I never was.

Okay, I'll admit I do remember my parents feeling the need to have "no TV weeks" when I was a kid and being really upset when I had to miss my favorite TV shows (like Full House and Pinky & the Brain.)  But I think the combination of my parents' efforts to keep me from being a couch potato and spending a lot of time with friends who enjoyed going out and actually doing things made me eventually prefer to fill the majority of my life with things other than TV.

Brian, however, loves to watch TV and movies.  So much so that he is subscribed to basic HD cable, HBO, Showtime, On Demand and NetFlix.  I also swear I have seen more movies this year than I have ever seen in my life.  And honestly watching TV and movies isn't as bad as I always made it out to be.  Because, despite the increase in the amount of television I watch now that I'm dating Brian, I'm productive, I exercise, I read, and I have a social life.  All the things I feared I would not do if I became more of a couch potato.  Maybe it's because I still make an effort to not become "that person."  And I know I always will.  But I didn't realize I could still not be that person and also watch TV.

And not all television and movies are garbage.  In fact, film is very much an art form.  And, while we have seen some "garbage", we've also spent a lot of time watching artistic, beautiful, educational films and TV shows.  We have watched some classics (like White Christmas), musicals, Oscar Nominees (like The Artist and Midnight in Paris), and autobiographies.  We have also watched documentaries-- since we have access to them now, I really wanted to incorporate them in to our "TV time."  And I'm glad we did.  I always feel like I learn so much from them.

Last night I decided I wanted to watch the last two documentaries I needed in order to check it off my bucket list for the year.  It was a stormy night and Brian had decided not to work late, so we made low carb tortilla pizzas, drank wine and spent some time inside.  It was a perfect night for it.

This time I let HIM choose them-- I'm pretty sure I've picked all of them out up until now.  And it was a total hit and miss.  The first one was one of the best documentaries I've seen yet... and the second was one of the worst. :)

Going through the On Demand Showtime account, he found Freakonomics.  If you don't know much about Freakonomics, it's a book, a podcast and also a documentary about economics and how it applies to our every day lives.  I studied economics in school and I'm kind of a nerd about it sometimes, but the stuff in the documentary is SO interesting-- I think it would be interesting to almost anyone.  It was interesting to Brian!  Brian didn't know this, but I listen to their podcast all the time at work, so I was definitely excited to watch the documentary.

The documentary consisted of several small stories, which I think are also in the book.  The one that I recognized from the podcast was about how, statistically, the way you raise your children does not determine how they will turn out.  Taking them to different sports and educational activities does not actually affect whether they succeed or not.  What does impact them, however, is how nice you treat other people-- for example, your waitress.  The documentary went further than the podcast did on the topic, however, and discussed the impact their name has on their future.  Statistically, people with more common names tend to be more successful than people with unique names.  They told a story about a girl whose mother intended to name her "Tempestt" after her favorite actress on the Cosby Show, but was actually named "Temptress" because her mother didn't know how to spell.  When the girl grew up, she did poorly in school, became sexually promiscuous and got in to a lot of trouble with the law.  While people, including the court, suggested that it was because of her unfortunate name, economists concluded that it wasn't the name that caused her to live a life of crime, it was the socio-economic class she was born in to.  Names are very closely tied to culture, and unique names like LaRhonda and Precious are more often used in lower class cultures, while higher class cultures tend to use names like Ashley and Jennifer.  So while stastically these names may be associated with crime, it is actually the culture they grow up in that makes a difference.

There were many other similar stories in the documentary, including how crime rates may have decreased because of the legalization of abortion (which is a terrible) and how the probability of winning a match helped prove that sumo wrestling in Japan was rigged-- which began to cripple a huge part of their culture.  The whole thing was entertaining.  I definitely recommend watching it.


The second movie Brian picked was "What the Bleep Do We Know."  Brian has been fascinated with Quantum Physics since well before I met him, and I have definitely heard him go on and on and on about it before.  He believed this documentary was the one he had watched a long time ago that made him become interested in it.  After we watched it, though, he decided it was definitely not the same one he watched.

I'll briefly try to describe what Brian thinks about Quantum Physics (although I don't fully understand it): it's a scientific theory about how we have some control over what will happen to us.  If you fully believe something will happen, then it can happen.  Brian ties it a lot to faith and says he thinks that's why God says "if you have enough faith, you can move mountains" and explains why people in the Bible were able to walk on water.  He said that doesn't make them less miraculous, it just shows that Jesus understood the world and how it works far better than we did.  I could buy that.  Maybe.  I can't really say I know enough about science to really fully believe it or not, so I remain neutral on the topic.

But this documentary was weird.  It was a little about science and a lot about spirituality.  They spent some time explaining how our cells can retain the emotions we feel, which can determine what our bodies subconsciously do (like causing a sad situation, since the body is used to responding to sad situations)... and then they would say something totally off topic like "so that's why there is no God and we are actually gods" and not really explain how they came to that conclusion in any way-- scientifically OR philosophically.  No explanation.  Just a bunch of random spiritual statements mixed with the scientific theory.

On top of that, they tried to make the whole thing parallel a story about a deaf girl "finding herself."  There was hardly a plot to the story and a lot of it didn't make sense.  The weirdest part, by far, was when she was photographing a wedding, got really drunk and began dancing with all these green cell monsters.  The next morning she woke up and someone had slipped pictures of her under the door that made her thighs look fat.  So then she went in to the bathroom, screamed at the mirror and shattered it.  Then squeezed her toothpaste until it exploded all over the walls.  Her weird cell things told her that she actually was beautiful, however, and then all of a sudden she began to draw hearts all over her body.  Her roommate came in and asked for toothpaste and she used her hand to take some off of the wall and put it on to her roommate's hand.  It was one of the weirdest things I have ever seen.  If you want to learn more about Quantum Physics, don't watch this documentary.

Documentaries, even bad ones, are interesting to me.  While I don't always agree with the message that is being delivered, I feel like it's always good to expose yourself to different ideas.  After watching 6 documentaries this year for my bucket list, I now know a lot more about the quantum physics "religion", the affect your name has on your children, the street art culture, the lost boys of Sudan, and the American food industry.  Some of this information greatly impacted my life and what I believe.  But more than anything, it helped me understand other people and what their lives are like.  Which is just as important.

Watching TV and films in itself is not a bad thing.  It really depends on how much you watch and what you watch.  And while I used to believe watching TV would cause me to be the kind of person I never wanted to be, this year I've found the opposite to be true.

#8 Try Caviar

I think most people in the world can be divided in to one of three categories: those who hate change, those who accept change, and those who love change.  Obviously it's not exactly black and white-- some people who love change might sometimes hate certain changes, while someone who usually hates change might happen to appreciate certain changes.  But for the most part, I think people tend to generally love it or hate it.

Personally, I love change.  I am kind of a change junky (if that's an actual thing.)  In some ways it's a good thing, in others it's not.  I'm just so much of a dreamer-- I see something I want to happen, and I make it happen.  I see my life now and how it could be better, and I make it better.  I love to try new things and I count down the days to when I can travel to a new place or try a new food or do something I almost never get a chance to do.  I don't usually just embrace change, I look forward to it.  At the same time, sometimes it's hard for me to appreciate life as it is, or to know for a fact that I will be in the same place for a while.  It might look like a good trait in comparison to the bitter betty who grumbles when businesses remodel or complains when products change or (worst of all) refuses to embrace new technology (I have spent countless hours trying to convince people to use a debit card since no one accepts checks anymore...  and arguing with people who won't check their balance on online banking because they hate computers. don't even get me started.)  But sometimes life changes and sometimes it stays the same-- some years are eventful and some are uneventful.  If you have a hard time with one extreme or the other, you will have problems.  I am working very hard at learning to enjoy life as it is-- in the present-- and to not just spend my life daydreaming about the things that will happen someday.  I'm a work in progress. :)

This year has been one of the years in my life that didn't have too many exciting changes to look forward to.  Which is why I made this bucket list in the first place.  I'm trying to take advantage of this "slow" year in my life and do things that I might otherwise not have chosen to do.  Like read.  And cook.  And watch documentaries.  But the "change junky" in me decided to put a lot of little "new" things I wanted to try on my bucket list.  And I just recently was able to accomplish one of them.

It's a little thing, but I love trying new food.  That's one of the things I love the most about traveling.  But there are definitely plenty of things I haven't tried that are available here and one of them was caviar.

It was kind of a random idea and I probably should have done a little more research before I put it on my bucket list.  Because afterwards I wondered exactly how expensive caviar was!  All I really knew about caviar was that it was a "delicacy" that rich people ate.

Wikipedia said that traditionally caviar is made from sturgeon roe, which is found in the Black Sea and Caspian Sea, and can cost up to $8,000 to $16,000/kilo.  Technically it can also refer to salmon, steelhead, trout, lumpfish, whitefish and other species of sturgeon roe, which can be cheaper.  I wanted to have as authentic an experience as was financially possible.

Funny enough, I went to have sushi with Jeannie the other day and I ordered a spicy crab roll.  It wasn't the first time I'd had it at this restaurant, but when they brought it to me I noticed little clear orange balls used as a garnish.  And I wondered what it was exactly.  Between my smart phone and the waitress, I figured out it was caviar after all.  Which meant I had tried it before.  It was a little disappointing, but kind of funny at the same time.  Mentally, I checked it off my list then, but I decided I wanted to go out and actually find and buy something that was more authentic (since I wasn't sure exactly what kind of caviar I was eating.)

So I went to the grocery store and bought a little jar of black caviar.  It wasn't that expensive (although that little jar definitely cost more than a large jar of peanut butter) but it seemed a little more authentic to me.  And.... it was delicious!  A little fishy and very salty.  It was similar to the caviar on my sushi, but a little chewier.

This was kind of a silly thing to put on my bucket list, but it was a fun little thing to do.  I know more about caviar than I ever needed to know, but now I can say I tried it.  And that's definitely one of the best parts of being a change junky.  I love trying new things and I feel like I live a fuller life because of it.

#12 Buy Goldfish

I love animals.  I like to think that I am not a crazy pet lady, but if I'm completely honest with myself, I'm probably borderline.  At least I have a boyfriend, otherwise I would probably end up being one of those lonely old ladies that only finds solace in her pets.  Luckily I still have a life to balance the crazy.  At least for now. :)

I had a number of pets throughout my childhood.  My first that I can remember was a bunny named Mopsy who my parents bought when I was about 6.  My parents later gave her to a farm because she bit me and my brother.  I found so much peace with that story-- envisioning her happily hopping around fields with other animals-- and even remember meeting a friend at camp who believed her family had taken home my old bunny.  It wasn't until I was in high school that I realized that bringing your pet to the "farm" was a cliche lie parents told their children when they got rid of pets.  Honestly, I don't really want to ever find out what really happened.  Ignorance is bliss.  I'm still going to believe she died a happy old bunny on a nice farm.

My parents had two dogs while I lived with them.  The first was Grover, who was very energetic and not very loveable, and who I later found dead on the side of the road when I was about 10 years old.  I was permanently scarred from that experience.  The second was Dally, who is currently 15, and was one of the most wonderful dogs in the world.  Of all my childhood pets, she was the one I loved the most.


I also had a handful of random animals that I collected with my brother from our neighborhood.  Among these were toads, salamanders, caterpillars, and tree frogs.  I used to take jars or empty wipe boxes (from my baby siblings), put in a few leaves and food I thought they would eat and see if I could keep them alive.  After a while I viewed myself as somewhat of an expert because of the skills I developed through trial and error experiments.  For instance, I learned to poke the air holes out instead of in after a toad jumped and was skewed by a piece of broken plastic.  I learned to never leave wipe boxes out in the sun or the animals will literally fry from the heat.  I learned exactly which leaves the caterpillars liked to eat, and that when they made cocoons, they would shrivel to death if you didn't lightly spray them with water.  Any fatalities were buried next to our house in our "pet graveyard."  I think my proudest moment was when I finally raised a batch of caterpillars that spun cocoons and hatched into moths.  I let them go in my backyard and always wondered if they were among the moths that swarmed around the light by our back door.

The summer before I left for college, I bought a goldfish to take with me.  Originally I named her Mercy, but for the majority of her life her name was actually Fishy.  Fishy lived about three years and she was with me through a lot of the trauma I endured my first few years of college, including my grandfather dying, transferring schools, losing a few close high school friends, dealing with a handful of terrible roommates and difficult professors, and spending countless miserable all-nighters studying for exams.  I loved her way more than I should have.  I mean, she was a goldfish.  But she was always there-- she was one of the few consistent things in my life during college.  And she recognized me and interracted with me-- when I woke up in the morning or entered the room, she would swim excitedly toward the front of the bowl.  Maybe it was because she knew that I was her source of food, but I liked to think it was because she liked me.  She was always so happy and energetic, and she always made me feel better when I watched her swim around her fish bowl.  In a slightly superstitious way, I believed that she was a symbol in my life.  That she was there to get me through college and when she died I wouldn't need her anymore and my life would be a lot better.  I'm definitely making college sound a lot worse than it was.  But those of you who went to college probably understand the feeling-- college is really a transition between your childhood and adulthood.  When you graduate, you kind of hope that your life will turn out the way you always dreamed.  In a sense, she was a symbol of hope for me.

Fishy died at the very end of my junior year.  It had been one of the craziest years of my life-- I was working a part time job, and taking about 18 credits (the maximum amount of credits allowed) not including music lessons, two music ensembles, and hours of practicing for my senior recital.  I was also taking Financial Accounting and Music History-- two of the hardest classes I ever took in college.  During finals week, I noticed I needed to clean her bowl, but I barely had time to sleep, let alone do anything else.  I promised her I would clean it when I was done with finals.  She was three years old and had survived multiple car rides, an accident involving her glass bowl shattering on the pavement (with her in it), and the hundreds of times I had not had time to clean her bowl when it needed to be cleaned.  I figured she would be okay until summer break.  But this time she got sick.  And even after I cleaned her bowl and brought her home for the summer, she continued to get even more sick and died two weeks later.  I cried for about two days.  It was silly-- she was only a goldfish-- but she meant a lot to me.  I blamed myself for not cleaning her cage sooner.  And I was also sad that she had died before my life had changed for the better.

I definitely became less superstitious after that.  Life doesn't always work out the way we hope.  It's just how it is.  But when I look back on my life, her death actually did occur just at the point my life started to take direction.  Maybe not as immediately as I was hoping, but that next year.  That was the year I really started to love Bethel and met a few friends that year that still mean a lot to me now.  I started working at Wells Fargo, which eventually became the beginning of my career, and is also where I met my boyfriend who I have been dating for almost two years now.

Maybe I love animals a little more than most, but they are definitely a big blessing to everyone.  This is why people people bring animals to hospitals for therapy, why our local pet store was always overflowing with college students anxious to play with the puppies, why nearly every person I pass when I walk my dog smiles.  There is a certain joy and peace that animals bring to people that cannot be found in many other things.  Maybe it's the fact that no matter what we do or who we are, our pets still love us unconditionally.


Right now I have a dog, Sadie, and a cat, Rosie, who are the two best pets in the world... and of course I'm not biased. :)  But I always knew I would like to get a goldfish again someday.  Which is why I put it on my bucket list.



Yesterday, I bought two goldfish- Lila and Lawrence (their picture is at the top of the post.)  I decided to upgrade the living conditions of my goldfish (Fishy used to live in an old plastic biscotti container), so I bought an aquarium with a filter.  And it was soooo expensive, but I am a kinder pet owner because of it.  So far, I think they are adjusting well!  I understand that most goldfish do not live quite as long as Fishy did-- they die pretty easily.  But who knows?  Maybe they will be around when I transition to my next "phase" in life.  Regardless, it will be fun to have fish again. :)

Developing a Healthy Lifestyle (#4 Be vegetarian for two weeks, #46 watch documentaries, #21 be "caffeine free" for a month, #48 learn to cook, etc.)

If I only took one thing out of this bucket list, it would definitely be how I approach food. The funny thing is, I can't even tell you exactly how I approach food now. There have been so many different ideas I have contemplated, things I have tried, and changes I have made that are so vastly different from each other. I guess if I could summarize in one word the effect this bucket list has had on me, it would be this: it taught me to pay attention and care. Food is one part of your life that you can never ignore or not deal with- you can't live without it! You need it on a daily basis. Changing the way you eat is literally changing your whole life. So, in the end, if that is the only lasting effect my bucket list had on me, my bucket list was more than successful.

I've never had any incentive until recently to pay attention to what kind of food I'm eating. When I was growing up, I was lucky enough to not have any food allergies (unlike my mom's entire family) and didn't have to deal with weight problems. I say "lucky" because that's what people would tell me, but I realized, even then, that in some ways it was not really lucky. Because I had zero incentive to care about what I was eating-- I could eat whatever I wanted and have no immediate consequences. I knew that it would be a lot harder to change my eating habits when I was older and was forced to care-- even if I never physically gained weight, there are still plenty of health problems associated with an unhealthy diet that I could easily encounter in my life. But the "future" incentive wasn't strong enough to make me care enough to change my habits, so I never did.

The last few years it was especially difficult to care. Because the truth is, eating healthier is more time consuming and expensive. When you are a busy college student/college graduate living on a limited budget, it's so much easier to grab a cheeseburger or microwave easy-mac. Vegetables and meats are expensive and I had a limited knowledge of how to make different foods. So I just ate what was cheap and convenient.


But during the last year or so, I realized I had a problem. First of all, I began to gain weight-- not very much, but enough to make me realize I was no longer invincible. I also had a severe caffeine dependency. I constantly felt lethargic sitting in a cubicle all day and never exercising at all. And, overall, I just felt like a lazy sloth. When I started dating Brian and imagined what the future might bring-- family, etc.-- I didn't want to pass on my unhealthy habits to them. So I decided I needed to change a lot of things, which is why I put so many diet and exercise related things on my bucket list. And then I forced myself to make those changes.

The first change was learning to cook, which really lay the groundwork for everything else. Cooking in itself is not healthy and does not necessarily equate to a healthy lifestyle. But when you learn to cook, you are giving yourself the ability to have control over what you eat. When you eat fast food or pre-made food, you don't always know everything that is in it. You can't always eliminate or substitute ingredients. You are at the mercy of the chef. I realized that the more things I learned to make myself, the less of a temptation it was to go out and eat. Learning to cook was a huge landslide for me, because once I realized I actually COULD cook and could cook most things pretty well, it became addicting and eventually a part of my lifestyle. At this point, I barely ever go out and eat. Which is a huge accomplishment!

The next huge, huge change I made was giving up caffeine. This was huge because I was almost 100% sure I couldn't do it. I had been addicted to caffeine for almost 10 years, and was drinking about 6-10 cups a day-- if I drank any less than that I would get a caffeine headache. I literally had to try to give it up TWICE before I got through the initial withdrawals. Accomplishing this was the most empowering thing I have ever done. And it helped me realize that I was capable of doing so much more than this-- I figured if I could give up this, I could give up pretty much anything.

This naturally led to me trying to be healthy in all avenues of life. I started to work out (which was also something on my bucket list)-- first at the workout center at my apartment, and then at LA Fitness with Amy. During this time I downloaded My Fitness Pal on my iphone so I could see exactly how many calories I was burning. Which led me to start watching how many calories I was eating. And then I began monitoring what vitamins and nutrients I was consuming-- which led to me eating more fruits/vegetables and taking more vitamins. This all began about 3 or 4 months ago and I have been addicted since. I also lost 7 pounds!


The next "change" I made was after watching the documentary "Food Inc." If you've seen it already, you probably already know what I'm going to say. :) This was the documentary that made my sister become a vegetarian for a while. I don't know what exactly led me to watch it-- I literally wrote down a list of the most popular documentaries and we randomly decided to watch that one. But it dramatically changed how I view the food industry.

Here is a brief summary: the entire food industry is actually almost completely owned by just a few large companies that use several different brand names to sell their products. Because they have so much control over the industry, they have the power to make decisions that are not beneficial to the consumer, to the animals, or to the farmers. The industry is most concerned about making their food cost effective-- not healthy-- and the way they produce food in order to make it cheap is directly linked to e-coli, obesity, and diabetes. The drive to cut costs also led the companies to create terrible living conditions for the animals. Many chickens, for instance, are fed growth hormones to make them as fat as possible as quickly as possible. Some of them spend their whole lives unable to walk. Cattle farms are incredibly overcrowded, with cattle living neck to neck with each other until they are slaughtered. Farmers have very little control over their farms, and if they don't abide to every small requirement the companies lay out for them, their contracts are not renewed. Many of the farmers are required to buy specific equipment and are not paid enough to compensate for the debt this causes them to have. They also told stories of farmers who chose not to work for these companies and are now being sued because the companies' patented seed naturally spread into their field from nearby fields.

Brian and I had a long talk about this documentary afterwards, because it's really hard to hear information like that and not care enough to do anything about it. I've always been skeptical about organic food-- it doesn't necessarily seem like people who eat it live longer than the rest of us. And it's expensive. I also have never had much of a desire to be a vegetarian. If you know me, you know I love animals. But it just seems like we are designed to need a lot of the nutrients in meat-- vegetarians need to go a round-about way to get the same nutrients. Animals eat animals, people eat animals. It just seems like the way things are meant to be.

But what really bothered both me and Brian was the cruelty. Throughout history, most people raised animals in a healthy setting or allowed animals to live in their natural environments before they had a quick death. They usually didn't suffer on a daily basis. They lived and were later killed. Today, farm animals are suffering. And not only this, but PEOPLE are suffering. And, of course, it doesn't help that the food isn't very healthy, so many consumers are also suffering. It just seems altogether horrible.

So Brian and I are making baby steps to incorporate more organic food into our diets. It's hard because it's expensive. But it just seems like the healthiest, most ethical thing to do. So we're doing what we can.


Finally, I began to dabble with a couple of different diets. First, I was a vegetarian for a couple of weeks. While I never actually intended to be a vegetarian altogether, I kind of hoped that I might pick up some healthy habits from this diet. Being a vegetarian definitely doesn't mean that you are living a healthy lifestyle, but it can encourage you to. I think the reason for this is that people actually start paying attention to what kinds of food they are eating. And, as I said before, that's the first step. So I ate more vegetables and I tried a couple different "vegetarian" foods like tofu and boca burgers-- which were actually really delicious! And I definitely proved to myself I could do it (aside from accidentally eating a slice of pizza with pepperoni UNDER the crust towards the middle of my diet-- so deceptive!)

Right now I am trying a low-carb diet with Brian. He's been on it for about a month and lost about 20 pounds! The idea is that when you reduce the amount of carbs and sugars you are consuming (which is what our body uses for energy) it begins to use fat as energy instead. So you are supposed to consume very few carbs and a lot of healthy fats. Your body will use those fats and then some of your own stored fat. So far I hate it because pretty much EVERYTHING has carbs-- fruits, potatoes, starchy vegetables, breads, sweets. I can pretty much only eat dairy products, meat and a few kinds of vegetables. But if it really is healthy and effective, it's at least worth trying!

Honestly, I hope this blog encourages more people to try to make at least some of these changes in their own lives. Never in my life (seriously, not at any time) did I care at all about what I was eating. It seemed impossible to make changes like this to my daily life with no history of good eating habits-- especially because I LOVE food. But it's honestly not as hard as you think it will be. The hardest part is actually getting yourself to start making changes. So start! The results of being healthy are infinitely rewarding.

#40 Make Handmade Valentines, #15 Volunteer

#40- Make Handmade Valentines

I was on vacation from February 6 until February 17, so the only Valentine I really thought to complete ahead of time was Brian's. I did make a handful of Valentines for friends when I got back (pictured below) which weren't really anything too significant, but were the first Valentines I've ever MADE. I also STILL haven't gotten around to giving them to their recipients... I'm not sure if it's too late for that. But I did make them! I have proof.


I did put a lot of effort into Brian's, though. Because I'm very addicted to Pinterest, I have the opportunity to come across some really good ideas, and this was one of them. Brian and I also play a lot of cards, so I thought it would be kind of significant to our relationship.

The idea is to take a deck of cards, and on each card write something you love about the person. So I bought a deck of cards, spent a while coming up with a list, printed it out, cut them so they would fit, and taped each one to a card. It took me a few weeks to put it together (mostly because my free time away from Brian is somewhat limited), but I think it turned out pretty well! And he liked it.


I also bought him a waffle iron, which was definitely a weird Valentines Day gift, but he really likes waffles! He bought me a really pretty necklace-- not quite as weird. We ended up spending the day at the Miami Zoo, Miami Beach and bringing take-out Thai food back to our hotel. So in all, it was a pretty good Valentines Day.

#15- Volunteer

I used to do a fair amount of volunteer work when I was in high school. Most of the events were through my youth group, which had several different options available throughout the calendar year. I also had the opportunity to do things through school. But since I was pretty actively involved in youth group and was friends with people who liked to do these things, I was able to do quite a bit of volunteer work.

In college I was able to do a few things (such as lead a small group, which participated in a Christmas charity) but since I was so busy with work and classes, I wasn't able to do quite as much. But since I have graduated, I have been involved in absolutely nothing. I feel like I am so poor and have so little time, but in reality there is always SOMETHING you can give, no matter what your life happens to be like. So this was something I really wanted to do, and something I'd like to continue to incorporate into my life.

I was kind of hoping something would just "come up" but as the months went by, nothing really did. My friends Jen and Andrew organized a trip to Feed My Starving Children, but I wasn't able to go. And, of course, there are always plenty of ways to volunteer at church. The problem is, I'm not as actively involved in church as I used to be. I go, but not to every single thing they offer like I used to. So it is no longer something I just do because it's incorporated into the lifestyle I'm already living-- right now it's something I have to go out of my way to be a part of.

I ended up finding an event that Wells Fargo sponsored called "Drive to Serve," in which Luther Auto in Plymouth organized a time and place for several businesses to come together to pack food for "Kids Against Hunger." And it seemed kind of uncomfortable because no one I knew was going, but since Brian and I both work at Wells Fargo, we were both able to go.


It was a really good experience. I wouldn't say it was "fun" to stand in a warehouse and seal bags of food, but it was so encouraging to see how much we accomplished in a short amount of time and how far it would go (each bag was about 3 meals.) They also gave us stories of people who had received the food, and told us a great deal of it is going to Haiti right now.

Honestly, I think we as Americans forget how blessed we are. Yes, our economy is not the greatest and many of us don't have the jobs we would prefer. But we are still one of the richest countries in the entire world. I came across this picture and it really puts things into perspective:


I think people forget this when they see so many people in America that are better off (I know I do), and don't actually see on a daily basis what the rest of the world is like. But we really SHOULD be giving so much more than we are, because we have so much and so many have so little.

I really want this to be a part of my lifestyle again. I know this was a one time event, but it inspired me to continue looking for ways that I can give and serve. It's not as easy now, but there are still plenty of opportunities. And I feel like the more you go "out of your way" the less it becomes "out of your way."