bucket list progress

awhile ago i posted some bucket list items here and here.

well....a few of those things have been checked off my list.  hard to believe, but it's true.


1.  get married in the Salt Lake City temple

August 25, 2006.  i married my best friend.

2.  become a mother

my sweet princess...the second time i became a mother.  

18 weeks in utero...2009.
i have the two most amazing children i could ask for.

3.  confront and forgive my abuser

4.  dye my hair black

october 2010.  i kind of miss it.  it made me feel exotic.  

5.  play Frank Lloyd Wright's piano 

may 2004.  i played "polonaise in G minor" by chopin.

6.  own red high heels

bought my first pair this month...february 2013.  i LOVE them.

7.  have my own gallery show.  even if it means building my own gallery in my backyard out of refrigerator boxes and inviting the neighbors.

8.  visit europe...paris, london, venice, florence, prague, rome.  at least.

9.  see a rothko, pollock, and klimt in person.

the first time i saw a rothko painting, on my birthday...december 30, 2012.  

i cried, it was so beautiful and i couldn't believe i was finally seeing one.

the first pollock i saw...happened to be the same day i saw an original rothko!  

it was amazing.

10.  feel beautiful.

11.  be able to sit for five minutes and feel nothing but peace...no worry, anxiety, depression.  just peace.

12.  watch my children grow up to be happy people.

13.  finish an associate's degree.  finish a bachelor's degree, maybe a graduate degree.  in art.  

graduated with an associate's of science with honors, may 2012 

14.  feel like a real artist...not an amateur pretending to be a real artist.

15.  have a room in my house that i can hang art prints all over, so when i'm depressed, i can walk into that room and be surrounded by joy.

16.  find out the secret to being happy.

17.  go to the smithsonian, moma, louvre, musee d'orsay and any other art museum i can get myself to.

18.  see a broadway play on broadway.

19.  fly.....

20.  watch a sunset that takes my breath away from beginning to end.

21.  write a book.

22.  learn to play clair de lune.  if not perfectly, then at least accurately.

23.  take more piano lessons.  get better at playing.  find time to practice.

24.  learn to make those around me happy.  with no reservations.

25.  speak another language passably.

26.  purchase an original work of art that i love.  buy a couch to match the art.  inform couch salesman that it is ridiculous to buy art to match a couch.  it should be done the other way around.

27.  paint something i am truly happy with, that i can look at without second guessing or critiquing.

this one is pretty close....january 2013.

28.  own a four-poster canopy bed.

29.  dress up in a regency ball gown.

30.  be a good person, wife, mother, daughter and friend.

31.  sleep under the stars on a clear night; learn to identify a few constellations.

32.  finish my kids' scrapbooks

33.  play roller derby

34.  mail something in to post secret

35.  put blue highlights in my hair

36.  own as many animals as i can--including a giant fishtank

37.  have another baby.  before i'm 30.

38.  inspire someone to do something great.

39.  figure out what i really believe about life and religion, without worrying about what anyone else thinks.  (this one is a work in progress.)

40.  hire a maid to clean my house top to bottom while i sit on the couch and read a magazine and drink an ice cold coke.  pretend i'm a millionaire.

41.  find new friends and be comfortable in our new home--we are moving cross-country in two months.  acclimate to a totally different region and culture of the US, and support my hubby in graduate school the way he needs and deserves. (this one is also a work in progress.)

the beginning of a bucket list

brainstorming...

my bucket list.  the beginnings of it, anyway.

1.  have my own gallery show.  even if it means building my own gallery in my backyard out of refrigerator boxes and inviting the neighbors.

2.  visit europe...paris, london, venice, florence, prague, rome.  at least.

3.  see a rothko, pollock, and klimt in person.

4.  feel beautiful.

5.  be able to sit for five minutes and feel nothing but peace...no worry, anxiety, depression.  just peace.

6.  watch my children grow up to be happy people.

7.  finish a bachelor's degree at least, maybe a graduate degree.  in art.

8.  feel like a real artist...not an amateur pretending to be a real artist.

9.  have a room in my house that i can hang art prints all over, so when i'm depressed, i can walk into that room and be surrounded by joy.

10.  find out the secret to being happy.

11.  go to the smithsonian, moma, louvre, musee d'orsay and any other art museum i can get myself to.

12.  see a broadway play on broadway.

13.  fly.....

14.  watch a sunset that takes my breath away from beginning to end.

15.  write a book.

16.  learn to play clair de lune.  if not perfectly, then at least accurately.

17.  take more piano lessons.  get better at playing.  find time to practice.

18.  learn to make those around me happy.  with no reservations.

19.  speak another language passably.

20.  purchase an original work of art that i love.  buy a couch to match the art.  inform couch salesman that it is ridiculous to buy art to match a couch.  it should be done the other way around.

21.  paint something i am truly happy with, that i can look at without second guessing or critiquing.

22.  own a four-poster canopy bed.

23.  dress up in a regency ball gown.

24.  be a good person, wife, mother, daughter and friend.

25.  sleep under the stars on a clear night; learn to identify a few constellations.

Things on my bucket list I've already accomplished:
1.  got married in the Salt Lake City temple
2.  became a mother
3.  confronted and forgave my abuser
4.  dyed my hair black
5.  played Frank Lloyd Wright's piano (although i didn't realize it was a bucket list thing until i'd done it...i played Chopin's "Polonaise in G Minor" in Taliesin West when i was 18.)

blonde to black

i dyed my hair black.

why, do you ask?

because i wanted to.

i have been a blonde my entire life. as i get older, my hair gets darker. i was in complete and total denial of the fact that i was no longer "blonde" but a "dirty dishwater blonde with streaks of light brown" (or some variation of that) for a long time. until a year or so ago i found long strands of dark brown hair on something (couch, probably) and was really upset because i didn't know who they belonged to....until i realized they belonged to me. talk about my self-perception shattering, i'd always been proud to be blonde.

so over the past few years i've thought a lot about going brunette. i've always decided not to out of nervousness (what if i hate it?) and out of my still-persistent state of denial (i AM a blonde, dang it!) and laziness (upkeep on roots? yuck.)

secretly, however, for a very long time, i have always fantasized about dying my hair black and getting it cut really short (i've had long hair most of my life, with a few exceptions) and going all punk-rock. unfortunately i'm not cool enough to pull off the punk-rock look.

so a few days ago, impulsively (or not, since i've been considering it for years) i spent a whopping $3 on a box of hair dye called "dark brown." one dye job later, my husband could barely tell a difference (i had to point it out to him) and no one else i met noticed, because the color wasn't that different (again, this state of denial. i thought i went from blonde to brown....but really from light brown to medium brown.) so then i decided it wasn't dark enough. another trip the the grocery store, another $3 on a box of hair dye i thought was titled "brown black" until i got it home and realized it was "soft black." so i said to myself, well, here's one of those things you can cross off your bucket list: dye your hair black.

so i did, and it was awful. my hair is ridiculously thick (i mean RIDICULOUSLY thick) and one box of dye was nowhere near enough. after rinsing and blow drying it was discovered that i had huge chunks of brown in my hair still. not so sexy. so another trip to the grocery store for a more expensive kind of hair dye, roping my hubby into helping me (since try as i may, i can't see the back of my head), and voila, i have black-ish hair. (all over this time, not just in chunks.) it still looks dark brown sometimes (like in this picture) but that's okay with me.

it's a little weird. and hubby says he likes it better lighter. so i don't know if it will last. but i did get to knock something off of my bucket list (which isn't really an actual list at this point), and i did something new and different for me, and overcame my denial about still being blonde.

next up, a haircut. it has been over a year since my last haircut and boy do my ends show it.