Be Amazing

Happy 2014 friends and family and loves! Hopefully you celebrated the end of 2013 and the beginning of 2014 in style. I know I sure did. After an early dinner at Zombie Burger with Buffalo Bacon, Loaded Fries, half a Raygun burger, and double flights of craft beers we headed to a little southside dive for a couple beers and to watch some bowl games. After leaving the bar (at 9:30) we stopped by HyVee to grab some champagne to celebrate the new year and watch the pre-ball dropping festivities. I’m not even mad about how the night ended up. I got a midnight kiss and went to bed. Lame? Probably a little. Awesome? Absolutely. I slept in and was lazy all day and it was awesome. I woke up to snow on the ground which was beautiful – and such a pain to drive through since NO ONE KNOWS HOW TO DRIVE IN THE SNOW. I mean it’s one thing if you have a license plate from Texas or Arizona and you’ve literally NEVER seen snow, but come on. If you’re from Iowa and you’ve lived here forever, you should remember how to drive in the snow. End rant.

So I went through my officially, official list that I made last year and realized I didn’t quite finish MOST of the things on it. Some of them I didn’t get a chance to do because they just didn’t come up – like Norwegian holiday baking traditions and buying a car (hopefully Little Red will make it through the winter!) I may not have done everything – or most things – on my list, but I still felt like I had a GREAT year. So let’s check out the (lack of) damage to this list:

1.       Get my spin certification (finally) – maybe in 2014… I did get back into going to classes though!

2.       Carve a pumpkin – I tried to buy one ON Halloween… turns out they were sold out. Fail.

3.       Build a snowman – with all this new snow I can do it soon!

4.       Go ice skating – I need to either go to a Bucs game and skate after that, OR head downtown to Brenton!

5.       Read 40 books in a year (start there and read more if I can) – I read roughly 20. Book club helped J

6.       Do a wine tasting – or five – I went to Wine Fest… does that count?

7.       Start a new tradition

8.       Learn to play tennis – all right tennis friends… make this happen come summertime!

9.       Learn to golf – samesies to my golf buddies, and my dad.

10.    Skydive – I’ll be ziplining next week in Hawaii… that’s pretty damn close to awesomeness.

11.    Send out birthday and Christmas cards – I sent out some… but not enough.

12.    Send out handwritten “thank you” cards – again – next year. I can do it.

13.    Become a yoga enthusiast

14.    Shop local

15.    Take a cooking class – I watched a lot of Chopped… does that count? J

16.    Learn to bake. Period. Cookies, cakes, pies, etc.

17.    Cook a Thanksgiving meal – turkey and all – I baked a casserole for Friendsgiving… maybe next year I can host!

18.    Attend a book banning rally/meeting and voice my opinion – I read a lot of book banning articles… no rallies

19.    Do the splits – after a couple more months of yoga I’ll get there

20.    Find my favorites – food, song, artist, restaurant – I definitely found a lot of awesome things… no favorites yet

21.    Attend an art exhibit

22.    Go camping and hiking – definitely hiking in Hawaii!

23.    Learn how to sew – I’ve got plans for sewing… maybe I need to get the sewing machine in my possession first

24.    Get a tattoo – I’ve got an idea… or a couple of them…

25.    Road trip to see friends

26.    Write fan mail

27.    Learn how to grill more than hotdogs – I can’t have a grill at my apartment… but I ate steak… samesies?

28.    Reconnect with old friends

29.    See Chelsea Handler – I watched many an episode and follow her on social media sites. Nothing in person.

30.    Assist in the adoption process at the ARL – nope. I’ll be starting back at that soon!

31.    Complete DIY projects

32.    Daily random acts of kindness

33.    Smile, laugh and learn something new everyday

34.    Become a cook

35.    Go to the State Fair – how did I NOT go to the fair?!?! Big fail. I’ll have family in town for the 2014 fair. No excuses.

36.    Participate in Norwegian baking traditions during the holidays – these didn’t happen this year as far as I knew

37.    Volunteer

38.    Make my bed every day – I started out so strong. But a messy bed is so comfy

39.    Do 12 races – yeah I did one. But it was the Dam to Dam sooooo that counts like 5 races right?

40.    Buy a car – stay alive Little Red!

41.    Enjoy a spa day – I got a massage after the D2D… but no full on spa day.

42.    Get organized (in all aspects of life) – meh. Organization is so overrated. Woops.

43.    Buy myself something sparkly – I bought glitter things… does that count?

44.    Read and watch the classics (list to come)

45.    Host a dinner party or two – do book clubs and OITNB/Daria date night meals count? If so – I owned this.

46.    Attend showers, weddings, parties for my friends

47.    Keep a plant alive – I didn’t purchase one… but I did get flowers that I kept alive as long as I could!

48.    Be spontaneous

49.    Go to shows and sporting events – locally famous or a little more famous

50.    Go to the Fleur Cinema by myself – with wine, cheesecake, and an Indie film – I’ll make it happen this year. Great movies coming out!

So as you can see, I didn’t quite finish all 50 – but I had a lot of fun. I ate lots of really good food, saw some hilarious movies, read some great books, spent time with amazing friends, and I was happy. 2013 started off a little so-so, and ended in a pretty kick ass way. I’m so excited for 2014 to be here and to dominate every year prior.

Next week I’ll be in Hawaii – and I’m SO excited to see the beautiful views, eat the amazing food, and check Maui off my bucket list. If I love it as much as I’m sure I will, I’ll have to put it back on my bucket list to go back. While I’m gone, I’ll be coming up with my NEW list for 2014.  And I’m super excited. Leading up to my trip to paradise, I came across this on Pinterest. I don’t think it could be any more perfect for a) a vacation, and b) a brand new year.

Life is pretty amazing. Take a minute each day and remind yourself how amazing life really can be. Have an amazing start to 2014 and the rest of the year. Make some lists yourself. See how well you can stack up against yourself. Make some goals, and reach them. If you don’t – it’s not the end of the world. But if you worked hard and enjoyed yourself, isn’t that still pretty amazing?

My number one goal for 2014: be amazing. At whatever I do. Don’t just go through life, pay attention to the little things. Do amazing things, meet amazing people, eat amazing food, just BE amazing.

Be amazing.

S