#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

#5 - Water fight & #6 - Baloon water fight

This is the one bucket list item that I couldn't pass. Every summer, since I was little, I had a water fight. At least one.

Sometimes it's unavoidable. When the temperatures go over 38C (100F), cold water suddenly seems so appealing it's impossible to resist.
On a day like that, I came to my cousin's house to find the little ones planning a water fight. Naturally, I joined them immediately, and we all started plotting against my cousin - who was sleeping. Let's just say she got a very cold wake up call when she got (shoved) outside. Revenge followed, and soon enough we were all laughing like crazy while throwning water balloons at each other. But water balloons can't last forever, so we switched to buckets.We were all dripping wet in less than a minute.
Hoses weren't used that much, since they are less efective, while bottles and water guns weren't even touched.
We were using the real stuff.

The attack team

Never say no to a water fight! No summer can be called a summer without it.




Have fun!

Alice :)

#50 - Paint finger and toe nails each a different color

This may seem childish. My father even questioned me for the reason I look "like a peacock".

But what says summer more than bright colors? Nothing, right?
In honor of summer brightness and happiness, I introduce you to my nail polish army:

And the final result:

After all, life is summer, right?
Alice

#18 - Pull an all-nighter & #88 - Go to a sleepover

Because my grandparents' house is currently under renovation -like I mentioned earlier in a post- when my parents came to get me and my sister yesterday, we were short on beds.

Although I fancied the idea of sleeping in a tent, in the end I chose to sleep at my cousins' place.
That would be the sleepover part.

Being the same age, as you can probably imagine, we didn't sleep much. We talked, and talked, and played cards and truth or dare, watched movies, sneaked out, then talked some more,then played some more, and in the end, when we literally dropped on the bed, it was 5:30. Maybe not an entire all-nighter, but the sun was almost rising, and that is close enough for me.

I have very few video recordings that night, and all were during the dare part of "Truth or Dare". Not something I ever want to see the light. So please excuse the lack of photos and videos in this post. :)



Have fun!
Alice

#61 - Carve name into a tree

Looks like I switched this item with #89. I eventually left my initials in a tree and wrote my name on wet concrete.

Ever since I was little I wanted to carve my name into a tree, and now it's finally done. I just hope it will still be readable in a few years.

It is harder than it seems to carve a tree, especially when all you have is a little table knife. The "A" was pretty easy, since it's made of straight lines. If my name included only straight letters, it would've been a pleasure to write it. However...

My initials are A.S. And that "S" was a real pain to make. I ended up making it like one of those old "connect the dots" drawings. And even like that, it still haven't turned out quite the way I wanted it to.

However, anyone can tell what letters are carved, and that is enough for me.



Off to check another item!

Alice :)

#89 - Leave initials (hand prints?) in wet concrete

My grandparents's house is currently getting renovated. There is a lot of work to be done, and we aren't even past the halfway point.

Of course, since it's always better to be safe than sorry, there was some concrete left. My grandparents used that to make a stepping stone, to be included in the pathway. How could I pass that opportunity?

Just in case you are wondering, Diana is my little sister. She kept looking at me while I was writing, all watery-eyed, so I couldn't say no when she asked me to write her name too. :]


Maybe I cheated a little bit, but my name is written right over there, and that is enough for me to check off this item.

Have a great summer!
Alice

#81 - Catch lightning in a photo

A while ago, there was a thunderstorm. Not at my place, but a few miles away.

And while not a single drop of rain fell, I could still see the lightning. Gorgeous, big lightnings.

Too bad by the time I got my camera and moved to a spot where I could see them better they died down.
I was still able to catch a few of them in photos, so the item is basically checked, but this is not what I had in mind when I thought of the final result. I'm gonna cross this item off, but if I'm able to take some better pictures, I will share them with you.

Until then:

#52 - Fly a kite

After 2 full windy days, it finally occured to me that the weather is just perfect for flying a kite - quite slow, right? So I took my two cousins, their uncle, my little sister and her friend, and we all went to take advantage of the weather.

Now, I have a confession to make - I have never flown a kite before. And I was more than a little excited when this list item was finally ready to be crossed - I was nearly jumping with joy the entire time.
And when I held the rope and the kite started flying (after more than a dozen failed attempts) I felt proud. I'm not even sure why, I just was. At the first few tries, I let go of the rope either too fast or too slow, causing my kite to come crashing down. In corn fields. It was a real pain to untangle it afterwards. The kite came out in one piece, but there were a lot of corn casualties.

I was really surprised when I felt how strong the wind was up there - it even threw me off balance a few times. On the other hand, I was the one with the highest kite :].

All in all, it was a great experience - I can't believe I made it to 17 and never flown a kite, it was supposed to be something ordinary, right?




One of our first tries.




Like I said, corn casualties.




The biggest success.



I'm sorry for the poor quality of the videos. :(

I will do it again as soon as I get the chance. If you never did it, you should really put this on your list!



Have a great summer!

Alice :)

#35 - Stargaze & Watch a meteor shower

Ah~ . The Perseids. I knew about them even before knowing their name. My cousin told me about 5 years ago that every year, around the middle of August there is a meteor shower. Sometimes we'd watch it, sometimes not. Mainly because around that time each year there's also a wave of cold air, and the temperatures drop at night to around 10C (50F). Not exactly the kind of weather I like to spend time outside in, especially when all I have are T-shirts, shorts, and a few hoodies.

Last year I also found out their name. And that made me even more excited to watch them.
So how could I say no to this item?

Truth is, I didn't literally "watch" a meteor shower, but I've seen around 20 shooting stars, so I'll just check it off. I saw them while talking to my friends outside at night, completely unintentional. Who would've known it was so easy? The other years I almost literally hunted them down.

They were so pretty~! :)

The one night I actually sat down and watched the sky, I only saw 2 shooting stars in one hour. In freezing cold. I just dropped it, and called it stargazing, since that's pretty much what I did. But I couldn't complain, since the sky in August is gorgeous. Bening in the countryside also helped, because there was less light pollution. I could never see the Milky Way back in the city.

There is something about stargazing ... should I call it magical? It makes you feel so little, but so at home. I never felt lost while looking at the sky.



Happy stargazing!

Alice :)

#65 - Buy and use a scented nail polish

Unlike the title says, I bought not one, but two scented nail polishes.
To be more specific, I got Revlon's Raspberry Rapture and Orange Fizz ones.

They were delivered just a couple days ago. Of course, I just couldn't wait and tried them right away. In the wrong way.
I thought the polish himself would smell like oranges/raspberries. So I just opened the bottle and took a deep breath. Needless to say, it smelled just like any other nail polish, so all I got were burned nostrils. And I lost my ability to smell for about 3 minutes. Tip: don't try this.

After my sense of smell finally came back (and after I noticed the little "Scented when dry" label), I got to work. The colors are lovely, although the orange one is slightly transparent.

But color is not what I bought them for, right?

The scent is absolutely great. As strange as it may sound, I just couldn't stop smelling it. Especially the raspberry one. And they were quite strong too - I could feel the scent even when I had my hands down.

I fell in love with these polishes, and I see a bunch of new ones in my drawer in the future :]. They have some really great scents too. Can't wait!

#40 - Watch "The Bucket List"

"Nicholson is so damned brilliant as is Freeman. It is a joy to watch their characters for a little over 90 minutes, and the message, well, I hope it hits you as it did me. I wanted to go hug everyone that means anything to me."

I have to say, I put this on the list without really knowing what I'm doing. The film seemed to be a classic for bucket-listers, so I just slapped a number in front of it and called it an item.

Needless to say - it was a total surprise. The film was really wonderful and it made me reconsider whether this bucket list is really reflecting what I want to do or is only a way to fill my time.




 I would totally recommend this movie - not only for those who are making a bucket list. Because this movie speaks to a deeper level, about life meaning and goals. And the time you spend watching that movie is anything but wasted - it is sure to repay.

This movie has certainly made it to my "Top Movies" list.




Enjoy your summer!
Alice :)

#20 - Order something online

For many of you, this may seem an uninnteresting item from the bucket list, and you're probably wondering why on Earth I would put something as boring as that on my bucket list. Truth is, however, I only ever ordered something for my friend's birthday last year, and that was more of an impulse buy. So this is quite a novelty for me.I have to say, I checked every form I completed about 5 times, I was just that stressed :).

For me, online buying is still a completely new world - partially because I was raised believing that "if it is online, there's something fishy about it". So even when I had the occasion to order something, I backed down and resolved to buy something less awesome from an actual store. Until now.

When I looked last night at my bucket list and realized just how many items I have to cross off, it dawned upon me that I will have to pair a good amount of them. So with this "Order something online" item I paired the "Buy a pair of heart shaped sunglasses" one.

The result? I just couldn't decide, so I ended up ordering not one, but two pairs of heart shaped sunglasses. And a heart-shaped-sunglasses necklace. I really shouldn't be left alone with a credit card.

This is the pendant. Come on, it's adorable

The first pair of sunglasses. I bought them black, because it goes with anything.












And Passionate Red. Go big or go home, right?










I will check off #31 when I get them. I ordered from ebay, and even though I'm am pretty optimistic person I realize there is a chance I will never get them. So I'll just wait.

 There is a big chance I will order some more online, since I can't find scented nail polish around here. So stay tuned!

I hope you're all enjoying your summer!

#1 - Create a Summer Playlist

What better way to start off your summer than crossing off one item from your bucket list?
I have to admit though, this was a rather easy one to cross. It only took about 1 hour - it may still seem a lot, but I'm no music connoisseur; I am surprised I could even compile that much.

And just because I'm such a completely hopeless person when it comes to music, my playlist strongly resembles a salad. I have all kind of music crammed in there (I insisted to remain at 79 songs, for 79 days of summer) -happy, bubblegum-like songs, brooding ones, downright inappropiate ones, even songs that have nothing to do with summer at all.
But hey, the whole point of making the playlist was to have fun while making the soundtrack of my summer. And damn right I had fun :).

Because I'm way too lazy to copy each song's name over here, I'm just going to put a print screen. If I have the time (and most likely I will, since I have close to nothing planned for the next couple of days), I will try to make an online playlist with the actual songs. Until then, here you go:

I hope you all enjoy your summer!

Alice

The Bucket List

1. Create a Summer Playlist
2. Pick an official "Summer Song of 2012"
3. Write a complaint/satisfaction letter
4. Convince someone I’m from a foreign country.
5. Water fight
6. Baloon water fight
7. Buy an outfit from a SH store
8. Be a "Yes-girl" for a day
9. Run a 5k
10. Go to three concerts (1/3)
11. Sleep on the beach
12. Get a tan tattoo
13. Get a henna tattoo
14. Make sun tea
15. Watch 10 movies I've always wanted to see (1/10)
16. Watch 10 movies at the cinema
17. Try yoga for a week straight
18. Pull an all-nighter
19. Make a photo every day, then compile them
20. Order something online
21. Try indoor climbing
22. Get a “You Mad Bro?” shirt
23. Climb a really tall tree
24. Read 4 books (2/4)
25. Attempt the cinnamon challenge
26. Prepare a full meal for my family
27. Attempt Tie Dye
28. Play hide-and-seek in IKEA.
29. Tan on a house roof and on a car roof
30. Hand out lemons while wearing a shirt that says “Life”
31. Buy a pair of heart shaped sunglasses
32. Get a few people and fool around with helium
33. Spend an hour with a "Free Hugs" sign
34. Play Twister, Challenge Twister and Dessert Twister
35. Stargaze & Watch a meteor shower
36. Throw a message-in-a-bottle into the sea
37. Attempt 20 different planking places
38. Do a Chinese fire drill at a stoplight
39. Visit a museum, an aquarium and the zoo
40. Watch "The Bucket List"
41. Eat nothing but cold cereal for a day
42. Make a friend on an random chat generator
43. Yell. As hard as I can.
44. Build a sandcastle
45. Eat at an authentic foreign restaurant
46. Try 3 things from the "Fun things to do in Wal-Mart" list
47. Jump clothed in a swimming pool and swim
48. Fill up an entire coloring book
49. Superglue a coin to the ground
50. Paint finger and toe nails each a different color
51. Paint a picture on a canvas - attempt finger painting
52. Fly a kite
53. See a fortune teller
54. Finally complete my family tree
55. Restock my old (and now empty) aquarium
56. Hold my breath for 2.5 minutes
57. Try some practical jokes
58. Do some sport - any kind of sport - every day 
59. Put in temporary highlights
60. Send a nice card to a stranger from the phone book. 
61. Carve name into a tree
62. Destroy a watermelon
63. Try Lasertag
64. Eat breakfast at a restaurant
65. Buy and use a scented nail polish
66. Write a note on a stranger’s windshield 
67. Rock a Red Lip
68. Take a picture in a photo booth with at least 3 other people
69. Spend an entire day with my little sister
70. Lear to do a back-flip and to handwalk
71. Plant a tree
72. Build a time capsule
73. Walk around for hours without a destination and see where I end up
74. Sleep until noon
75. Make soda popsicles
76. Choose a college
77. Photobomb strangers
78. Learn to dance
79. Leave 50 inspiring sticky notes in random places
80. Roast marshmallows
81. Catch a lightning in a photo
82. Make 5 cocktails/drinks and try 5 new summer food recipes
83. Catch a firefly
84. Finally gather up the courage to ride the Hammer
85. Watch the clouds for hours on end
86. Tell ghoststories at midnight (in a cemetery?)
87. Get out of town without my parents
88. Go to a sleepover
89. Leave initials (hand prints?) in wet concrete
90. Wake up every morning before 9:30
91. Complete a  500+ pcs puzzle
92. Play tag in the rain
93. Take a picture with a stranger
94. Learn to do 3 awesome hairstyles
95. Make a slip'n'slide
96. Try the Coke and Mentos experiment
97. Attempt Parkour
98. Participate in an online movement/program 
99. Go for a walk with an umbrella on a sunny day
100. Make a video/scrapbook depicting the results of Summer 2012.

That's it folks. :)