#17 - Try yoga for a week straight

Ever since this year began, I was a couch potato. The New Year Resolution that said „Do more sport” had the same fate as most resolutions (and pretty much as #58, since I could only say I did some sport for half the days from the summer vacation) . When I made the Bucket List I tried hard to stay away from things that were too hard to accomplish – not necessarily out of laziness.

So when I put this item on the Bucket List I chose the lazy way. Yoga appeared to be easy enough not to scare me away, but sportish enough to feel good about myself at the end of the summer.

Oh, did I say it was easy?

BIG mistake.

Those damn poses seemed so easy in pictures, but when I actually tried to do them I started feeling like a pretzel. One made of bad flour, that breaks and crumbles when you try to eat it.

Ok, maybe not the best analogy.

At first I started easy. And I felt proud. Disregarding what I said(um, wrote?) earlier, some poses were actually easy enough. But that gave me courage so I just skipped the „medium” level and got to the hard ones.

I found online a picture of the Scorpion pose, and it looked so cool, and I could understand how to get there and it was all peachy. Except when I actually tried to do it. Aside from the fact that I kept feeling like I would tumble over, my back killed me. And I wasn’t even halfway through it. That was definitely a wake up call, and I will never underestimate yoga again.

However, even though until now all I did was whining, this week was great.

Yoga gave me so much enegy, and I felt calmer (maybe it was placebo though). On a side note, never try doing it before bed. I did it once and couldn’t fall asleep fore 2 more hours (like I said, it gives you lots of energy).

Moreover, by the end of the week the poses were starting to feel easier, and I actually looked forward to my daily yoga dose.

I think I am going to keep doing it – maybe not daily, but definitely a few times a week.

Give it a try! It’s worth it.

Alice

#98 - Participate in an online movement/program

This one was harder than I thought to cross off. I just couldn't find any programs that interested me enough.
Eventually, while watching a video on You Tube I got my answer.

There was a little ad at the end, asking people to join iobffp.com. I looked to their website and it really sounded nice. After all, I always thought peace should be thought of as a goal, not as a dream.

Doing something towards world peace was really awesome. So I signed up.

After 2 days I still didn't get any mails from them, so I had no activation code. I sent a mail to their help center, but got no response. I tried signing up again with another email address. No luck either. I started thinking that maybe the Universe was trying to tell me something. I eventually gave up.

After one week though, I opened my email and there it was - my registration confirmation. Maybe the Universe was wrong after all.

If you try to register too (and you should, since this a great cause), have patience. The mail will come eventually.



Peace out!
Alice

#62 - Destroy a watermelon

Stupid? Check. Useless? Check. Wasting perfectly good food? Check.

Great feeling of satisfaction when you feel it crack? Triple check.

#23 - Climb a really tall tree

When I was little I was a bit of a tomboy. I would fight, and jump fences, and climb trees, all that good stuff.

As I got older however, I started feeling awkward doing those things. Eventually I stopped doing them altogheter.

As I mentioned in an older post, this is my last summer being a child (at least from a legal POV, since I don’t feel like growing up anytime soon – or ever, for that matter), so I thought there would be no better way to celebrate it but by doing something I used to love as a child.

It was harder than I thought to find a „really tall tree”, since the ones that were tall enough would be way too hard to climb given my now rusty skills, and the one that I could deal with were too small.

I eventually compromised, and found a medium tree that gave me a bit of work to do before getting to the top.

The view from the top was great, even more so beacuse it’s been so long since I climbed a tree.

Have fun this summer!

Alice

#96 – Try the Coke and Mentos experiment

Right now you may be thinking that this experiment is already old news. Virtually everybody heard of it by now. And you are completely correct.

However, even though I watched a few YouTube videos and even seen this on the news, nothing compares to a first hand experience.

This experiment seemed fun. It seemed crazy, and stupid, and awesome, and surprisingly safe (you can rarely find something with all this qualities). Besides, it would make for a nice story to pass the time with friends.

So I got to work.

At my grandparents’ there are only a few shops, and they are the small, only-necessary-stuff kind. They only had Pepsi or Coca Cola classic, and had never even heard of Mentos.

So I had to wait until I got back home to buy everything. This whole time, my parents weren’t exactly what you would call supportive – they kept telling me it’s not worth the effort, blah blah.

But when the day came when I had everything I needed, all the family gathered round to see just what will happen. And I mean everybody. Long gone were the nagging and “This is stupid” and “You should start focusing on more important things”. At that moment, everybody was curious.

And we weren’t disappointed :).

Have a great summer!

Alice

#71 - Plant a tree

Even though I call myself a nature lover, I have never before planted a tree.

Mainly because I thought you can only „plant” a tree if you use a sapling. Seeds just didn’t cut it.

But recently I saw a photo by Greenpeace that gave me hope. Further research revealed that an apple seed has a 30% change of growing up. Good enough for me.

A few apples later I had a bunch of perfect apple seeds. I used 6 of them, so math says that I should have at least one seed grow up. Maybe two.

Now, I don’t know if I planted them correctly, but they will have enough water, air and sunlight.  Guess I’ll have to wait until next year to be able to say whether my little seeds survived.

Hugs from a treehugger >:D<

Alice