Skydiving

Someone on looking at my life recently might say that I'm an adrenaline junkie. I don't think I am. But, I do know that I've done a lot of things that could aptly be labeled crazy in the past year or so.

One of those things was skydiving. IT WAS AWESOME!

This one is thanks to both my brother and my roommate. My brother challenged me to do something I had never thought of. About the same time, my roommate sent an email to a group of people saying we should go skydiving. I decided to do it :)

We scheduled our appointment, rented a car and headed to Pennsylvania. We signed our lives away. And then we sat and waited. And waited. And left for breakfast. And came back and waited some more. And played Phase 10. And finally the cloud cover lifted just enough that they could take the plane up.

In the plane on the way up it really hit me what I was doing and my heart started pounding. What was I thinking? Was it too late to back out? Why does my tandem jumper keep asking me if I have something I want to say to my family before this starts? Why do I just keep nervously giggling?

And then it was my turn to jump. All I could think about was that I only got one foot on the edge of the door like I was told so everything was going to go wrong! (silly, since my tandem jumper had neither foot on the door and he didn't seem concerned…)

Good news – it went smoothly. I'm not sure I did anything they told me to do. But I am sure that I LOVED the experience. I just laughed and laughed. I enjoyed the view of the pretty landscape (and was weirdly fascinated by the local school – buses, football field, everything).

A few days later, I came across this quote:

"Adventure, yeah. I guess that's what you call it when everybody comes back alive."
-- Mercedes Lackey, Spirits White as Lightning

An adventure, to be sure.

And if the skydiving wasn't enough, we finished out the day by heading to Amish country. I'm not sure if it was a reflection of just having survived jumping out of a plane or not, but the kettle corn, the homemade pretzel, and the homemade ice cream were unbelievably delicious!

Would I do it again? Absolutely!

Knitting a Dress - Post #1

One of the goals I set was to knit a dress. I have a feeling this one is going to take awhile :)

But, I picked a dress pattern! Check it out:

Mostly I feel excited, but I also feel extremely overwhelmed. When I mentioned this to one of my friends she asked, "Isn't the point of your list to stretch yourself and grow?" I'm not sure that was the point of my list when I first made it, but it seems like a good purpose for the list, so I'm going to run with that.

This goal will certainly stretch me and increase my knitting skill level if I succeed with it.

The next hurdle is selecting yarn. That might not sound like such a big deal, but the yarn they used in the pattern picture is $32 a skein    and I can't imagine making a dress that would cost nearly $300. So, no comes my need to learn more about textures and weights of yarn AND pick out a color I want – bring it on!

The List

About a year ago I decided to create a 30 Before 30 list thanks to some inspiration from a friend, and my brother for pushing me to do something I'd never done before (that led to skydiving...)

I'm not done with the list, but I think that filling out the list is part of the fun. If you have great suggestions, send them my way!

A note: one of my goals with this was to steer away from things that are not possible to do on my own (excluding, of course, the kissing in the rain one...) Not that I'll do most of these alone, but that I have the ability to make them happen with or without others.

1. Have a Meaningful Experience in all 50 States (Retro-Active Experiences count!)
2. Knit a dress
3. Go Skydiving
4. Go on a Hot Air Balloon Ride
5. Attend a Temple Dedication
6. Go to the Olympics (as a spectator)
7. Go to London
8. Read 100 Books (starting 4/8/2012)
9. Check out a book from every (Public) Library in Manhattan
10. Memorize the Living Christ
11. Memorize the Family Proclamation
12. Go to Ireland
13. Take a dance class
14. Take a cooking class
15. Take flute lessons
16. Visit Paris
17. Go on a cruise
18. Own the Harry Potter Series - UK version
19. Kick over the heavy bag at kickboxing with both legs (in the same class)
20. Go inside the Statue of Liberty
21. Go to Six Flags
22. Eat at 5 of the top 50 restaurants in New York
23. Go to Harry Potter World (and back to Disney World? :)
24. Swim in the Great Lakes (at least one)
25. Run a Marathon (I reserve the right to choose two halves if my knees require)
26. Read The Book of Mormon and highlight all references to Christ
27. Go white water rafting (Subbing in Surfing...)
28. See the Great Wall of China, in China
29. Run, Walk, Bike Manhattan Bridges
30. Swing in Central Park in all four seasons
31. Launch an Etsy account (cards and/or knitting)
32. Kiss in the pouring rain (still want this to happen...but want my real list to be things I can control)