My Birthday and Other Important Things

Ok, so maybe my birthday isn’t actually that important in the scheme of life, but one day of the year it’s all about me and I like to use this fact to my advantage. I’ll admit that sounds extremely selfish and it is, but please believe me when I say I am in no way a brat. I will admit I am spoiled, while others don’t have enough food and clean water, I have an abundance of those as well as material items that I don’t really need. I am lucky to have a loving family, a home to live in, and the chance to receive a first-rate education. My family is not rich and I do not get everything handed to me on a silver platter, but like I said before I am extremely blessed and I try to remember this when I have a bad day and feel the need to act like my life is horrible.

So to sum up:

Am I an angel? No, not in any way.

Do I try to remember how blessed I am? Yes.

Do I want to make a real difference in this world? Defiantly. But lets move away from such intense topics and focus on what this post is supposed to be about – my birthday and my bucket list adventures.

Like I’ve mentioned several times before, my birthday was exactly a week and one day ago. I turned the ripe old age of fourteen, which shed some light on the fact that I truly am growing up and will soon start high school. It kind of smacked me in the face, of course I realized all this before, but actually turning fourteen just made everything come into perspective. I’m no longer a kid, but I’m far from grown up. This became very clear when I tried to sign up for parasailing and guess what? I was too young and the minimum weight you had to be was twenty pounds more than I weigh. It was the perfect example of how I am no longer a kid, but am defiantly not grown up yet. Therefore #113 was asphyxiated. Never one to give up easily, I made sure to still have a fantastic birthday and complete some different items after this minor bump in the road.

#76 Make smoothies. Then sit on the porch and enjoy.

Fresh peaches, fresh strawberries, a dollop of Greek yogurt, some ice, and I had my birthday breakfast. Delish!

#8 Eat strawberry shortcake.

Hot cocoa and pumpkin pie are to fall, as strawberry shortcake is to summer. Did that make sense? Anyway what I mean is some foods can only really be enjoyed during a certain season. Hot cocoa and pumpkin pie are to be enjoyed during autumn, while strawberry shortcake, watermelon, and lemonade are enjoyed during the summer. I’m not sure how this came to be: why are some foods forced into exile the rest of the year only to be eaten during their certain season? But whatever the reason strawberry shortcake will forever be a summer staple.

So there you have it, I completed two bucket list items on my fourteenth birthday. But did you think that was really all I completed? Of course not! Just wait and I’ll fill you in on all the other things I’ve been up to while on vacation. Now please enjoy some more photos of my special day and then you can leave this blog and go on with your merry lives. 🙂

May the summer be ever in your favor,

Meagan

PS – Who’s watching the Olympics? Cuz I know I am!

#107 Freeze a water balloon. Beause why not?

 

Originally I had many exciting plans for this week, but life happened and I found myself in the emergency room for the majority of Monday and Tuesday. As my mom always says – “If you want to make God laugh, make plans.” Instead of filling my week with bucket listing, I found it filled with injections, frozen lemonade, and plenty of Disney movies. When I arrived home late Tuesday night, with strict instructions from the doctor to rest and relax the rest of the week, I was sorely disappointed my plans had been disrupted by my health and decided the only thing to do was mope and listen to the Lilo and Stitch soundtrack. A bit of Elvis to soothe my soul. Flash forward to Wednesday and a much happier and healthier me, who decided to make the most of my time on bed rest, which ended up meaning I watched more Disney movies and flipped through trashy tabloids. Alas I did manage to carry out one bucket list item: freeze a water balloon, because why not? Why shouldn’t I spend my summer completing utterly pointless tasks, such as this one? Despite the simpleness of this “experiment” the results were fascinating. I would recommend everyone try this, because it’s incredibly simple to do and incredibly fun. Go ahead have a water balloon fight while you’re at it. 🙂

May the summer be ever in your favor,

Meagan

PS – I started reading a nonfiction novel, so expect an update on that soon! Also I am going on vacation Saturday and I’m not sure what the internet situation will be, so while I plan on completing many items off the list, the posts may go up late depending on my access to a computer.

The Art of Being Adventurous

#5 Shoot a gun.

A couple of observations I made while shooting at a clay target range:

• Most people who work at shooting ranges are sweet old men ranging in age from 60-70 years old who like guns and are slightly redneckish.
• People are not used to seeing small teen girls at shooting ranges.
• Pulling the trigger is quite the satisfying feeling.

#43 Go horseback riding.

When I was eight I was a competitive horseback rider. This meant I would compete in shows and go through the jump courses. One day during a riding lesson a bird flew to close to the horse I was riding and spooked it, causing me to be thrown off. This resulted in me breaking my wrist and collarbone. It was also the end to my horseback riding career. However I decided now was the time to put all that behind me and go on a trail ride. In a nutshell this is what happened:

Got on horse.

Started on the trail.

Had minor panic attack.

Got myself under control.

    Felt amazing when I finished riding.

#70 Ride a mechanical bull.

Five words: It’s harder than it looks.  

#85 Go rock climbing.

Once again this was one of those times when I wasn’t even planning on completing a bucket list item, but the opportunity presented itself so I took it. Anyways the rock wall was one of those portable 40-foot walls. Overall it was simple for me to scale, as I’ve climbed more intense ones before, but still I loved it and that’s all that matters. Big check next to #85!

As you can see I was plenty busy being adventurous last week. Again I apologize for the lack of photos, but I was being absentminded and forgot to bring my camera every time. I promise all the incoming posts will have plenty of pictures.

May the summer be ever in your favor,

Meagan

115. Participate in a Shakespeare production/See a Shakespeare production

Romeo and Juliet is  Shakespeare’s most well know play. This tragic tale of star-crossed lovers has lasted the toils of time and proven its worth as a beloved classic.

Sure the above statement may be  true, but honestly, at thirteen years old reading Shakespeare in English class was one of the most heinous school tasks I’ve ever encountered, though it did pale in comparison to Frankenstein…gosh I hate that book. Luckily I had an amazing teacher so the experience wasn’t completely awful. But when I somehow got roped into acting in a production of “Much Ado About Nothing” for my town’s Shakespeare festival I was absolutely horrified. I’m more of a behind the scenes girl, more comfortable in the shadows then center stage and was petrified at the thought of acting in front of an audience. However when the time came to actually perform I discovered I have a hidden talent for Shakespearian acting, thus my obsession with this long-dead playwright began.

Obviously after discovering my hidden talent I wanted to put it to good use, but sadly that just didn’t work out and I settled for seeing a performance of one of Shakespeare’s plays. The *insert name of my town* Shakespeare Company was performing Romeo and Juliet, so I dragged my wonderful dear friend Grant out of his oh-so-comfortable home and out into the hot night to watch, what I’m sure for him was three hours of absolute torture. I, however, loved it and now own Grant big-time. #115 has been completed, finished, and enjoyed.

May the summer be ever in your favor,

Meagan

Three Times the Charm

Sunday was one of those hot and humid days when just the thought of going outside is completely and utterly unbearable. Being the sensible person I am, I gladly stayed inside where the temperature stayed just shy of freezing. With an abundance of free time on my hands, I took a peek at the old summer bucket list to see what I could complete from the comfort of my air-conditioned home. #4 Write a complaint/satisfaction letter, seemed like the most reasonable choice. Oddly enough I found it quite hard to find anything worthy of writing a complaint or a satisfaction letter about. Finally I just decided to write a quick letter of satisfaction to the company Sperry Top-Sider. Sperry’s, if you don’t know, are a form of boat shoe which I have recently become obsessed with, thus making them the most reasonable choice to write about. Lo and behold though, after I had finished this task I found a mere fifteen minutes had passed, leaving me with the rest of the day to fill. Once again I glanced at the ever trusty bucket list and picked out two more items to complete- #63 Send messages via snail-mail to my friends and #109 Write a letter to a soldier. I decided to make it into a letter writing day, a bit of a blast to the past, considering letter writing has all but disappeared from this technology driven day and age. Anyway while writing said letters to my friends I realized two very important things:

1. The reason letter writing has all but disappeared is because there is no point in wasting money on postage when you can just as easily send an email.

AND

2. I don’t know my friends addresses.

This left me in an awkward situation. How was I suppose to mail these letters when I didn’t have their addresses? In the end I had to text them and ask them where they lived, thus ruining the surprise. The whole point was for them to be shocked when they received my unexpected letter in their mailbox. And this is yet another reason letter writing has become extinct. Nevertheless I forged ahead to complete the last letter writing assignment- #109 Write a letter to a soldier. After a bit of internet searching I discovered this website: http://www.amillionthanks.org/, where you can easily send a message of thanks to someone who has or who is currently defending our nation. Because of my family connection to the military, this particular bucket list item means a lot to me and I’m overjoyed that my letter will hopefully bring a smile to someone brave enough to fight for our country.

Well to sum up my Sunday – it was letters galore! Lots of writing, lots of thinking, lots of addressing, and lots of mailing. Sorry this post came so late, but trust me I’ve been crazy busy. Just wait, there’s some super exciting posts to come! 🙂

May the summer be ever in your favor,

Meagan

#110 Colour an entire colouring book

Yesterday I tried my hand at the childhood art of colouring pages. Much to my dismay, after colouring three pages in my Hello Kitty colouring book I discovered that I loathe crayons, find colouring books immensely irritating, and was having absolutely no fun whatsoever. Being that this is summer and I am suppose to be having as much fun as possible, I promptly decided not to complete this list item. If I’m not going to enjoy it, why do it? Overall this was a downright pitiful failure, and it just proves how small my attention span is and how I have absolutely no willpower. All I can say is R.I.P. #110.

May the summer be ever in your favor,

Meagan

#118 Practice archery.

To make up for the lack of photos in my last post, I decided to fill this post with pictures…well that and I think I look pretty cool in these photos and wanted to share. But that is besides the point. The point is that I completed yet another bucket list item; practice archery! And yes, that bow does indeed belong to me. 🙂

May the summer be ever in your favor,

Meagan

#84 Go on a “date” with best friend

Once again I enlisted the help of my friend Micky to complete this bucket list item. I am also happy to say this list item is one of the few that I thought up completely by myself. It’s completely ingenious. Anyway, since we are both single (a fact that I am actually proud of because, unlike some of my peers, I plan to hold on to my youth) I figured we would have to use this to our advantage and go on a stereotypical “date” together. And by stereotypical I mean dinner and a movie.

We decided to see Pixar’s newest animation masterpiece, Brave. Due to a vicious storm that had hit two days before and left half our city without power or water the mall/movie theater was completely packed. It was utter chaos, with lines to the street and movies being sold out like crazy. Just our luck Brave was one of the sold out movies. However, Micky being the bad influence she is, convinced me to buy tickets to The Avengers and then sneak into Brave. Trust me, it was pretty hardcore. I’m now a juvenile delinquent and have probably ruined my chances of getting into a good college, even though we didn’t get caught. I mean technically we did nothing wrong…we still paid for the movie. And as I was buying my ticket for The Avengers it happened to sell out, leaving Micky with a ticket and me without. When I explained the situation to the teller she gave me a ticket to some Tyler Perry movie and told me to just go to The Avengers anyway. So either way I would have ended up in a different movie then my ticket specified. I was basically given permission to sneak into a movie. Besides you only live once, mind as well break the rules every now and then. Living the YOLO way. 🙂

Regardless of it being the cause of me turning into a delinquent, Brave was actually really precious, as all Pixar movies are. It was captivating despite being a cartoon, the character’s accents were charming, and well it was just cute. Go see it. Seriously. Do it. Do you have tickets yet? 😛

After the movie we forged into the packed mall and ate at Panera. It ended up being a pretty first-rate date. 😉 Sorry about the lack of pictures, but somehow I didn’t think bringing a camera into the movie theater would go over to well.

May the summer be ever in your favor,

Meagan