Checking Off the Bucket List: Guns 'n' Roses Live

Hey, y'all! I know it's been a few weeks since I've popped in. When I disappear it's usually for the same reason--I'm writing my butt off. That's been the case since I've gotten back from RWA. My super secret project is underway, and I'm hoping I can share the news of it with all of you next week! :)

But today I wanted to share a little from my bucket list night last night. Yesterday was mine and hub's 15-year wedding anniversary. Here we are all those years ago with my super fabulous arm dancing.

So the day was awesome already, but what we did to celebrate was even better. We saw Guns 'n' Roses, the band that we never thought we'd get to see (with original band members) in our lifetime. In fact, the tour is called Not In This Lifetime, lol, so we weren't the only ones thinking that.

GNR is hubs' favorite band and very high on my list as well. If you know us at all, we're concert people. We have a wall of albums in our living room marking some our favorite bands we've seen in concerts. 

But this was that band. The one we always went back to with, "Man, I wish they could get it together and tour." So it was one of those life moments to be standing in a stadium with sixty thousand people and hearing Axl Rose belt you, "Do you know where the f**k you are? You're in the jungle, baby!" (Video below, but warning, it has the f-bomb.) 

Cue full body goosebumps and the adrenaline rush to end all adrenaline rushes. It's all that childhood memory stuff wrapped in with loud music and residual teenage angst/rebellion and knowing that you'll probably never see this again. I highly recommend it. :)

Also, Duff and Slash are still hot. Just sayin'.

 

And super talented. Here's the opening to Sweet Child O' Mine.

So if anyone asks why I write books about rockstars, like Wanderlust and Call on Me, it's because it's me. This is what I love. So if I can't BE a rockstar, then I damn well am going to write about them, lol.

Do you have any bucket list singers/bands you want to see? What's the best concert you've ever been to?

Visiting Alaska: The OMG Beauty of It All

Hey, y'all! It's been a while. *waves* But I've been away for good reason--a ten day vacation/cruise to Alaska! : ) This was definitely a bucket list vacation for me. I've wanted to go to that part of the country for so long. Plus, there's nothing more tempting to me in the heat of Texas summer than the cool Northwest. But I have to say that the vacation far exceeded my expectations. There's beautiful. And then there's jaw-dropping, OMG, gorgeous. There were times on this trip that I couldn't believe what I was seeing was real. It was like postcards everywhere you looked.

And we got to see awesome wildlife too! A bear, some mountain goats, salmon swimming upstream, tons of bald eagles, and even whales off the side of the cruise ship. Amazing.

So, since I'm now playing catch up with work, I thought I'd just stop in and share some photos. These were all with my iPhone and have no filter on them. I couldn't put captions underneath each because I had to load the pics in gallery format, but this is from beginning to end.

We left from Vancouver on a Disney cruise then sailed to a glacier (Endicott Arm). I'm not sure how I expected a glacier to look, but wow. Then we went on to Skagway, where we took an 8 hour excursion into the Yukon Territory and took the White Pass train through the mountains. Then we went to Juneau, where hubs made me canoe FIVE MILES to a glacier. (See the picture when you scroll of hubs looking particularly smug because the view was so beautiful once we canoed over.) Last, we went to Ketchikan where we went on a rainforest walk and saw a ton of wildlife.

Enjoy!

A panorama from the ship.

A panorama from the ship.

Have you been to Alaska? If not, what's on your bucket list?

Checking Items Off Your Bucket List: Photography

Neighborhood cat escaping his yard

A neighborhood cat escaping his yard.

Back in February, I blogged about making a reasonable mini-bucket list. We all have big, bold things we'd like to do someday, but often someday doesn't come or the task is too big/expensive/time-consuming for us to fit into our lives. So I wanted to make a list I could reasonably tackle right then.

You can read the full post here, but one of my items was to learn more about photography. Here's what I said back in February:

I have always been interested in photography. It's one of those creative pursuits I "hope to learn" one day not for career purposes but for a hobby. But especially after my blog photo lawsuit debacle, I now am REALLY interested in learning how to take my own photos. I've gotten a few fun apps on my Iphone, but obviously that's very limited.

And I know a DSLR camera would be the next step, but those are expensive and at this point, I'd have no idea how to operate it. So I feel like I'd need to take a class if I decided to invest in that pricey of a camera. So this one has some cost involved. But I'm still really interested in pursuing it.

So, I was a bit intimidated by the learning curve and the upfront cost. However, in March, I took a trip to NYC to visit the Penguin offices and meet the publishing team involved with my books. On that trip, I had the chance to do lots of sightseeing and took lots of pictures--but all I had was my Iphone to do it. So when I came back home, I decided that the next royalty check I got, I would treat myself to a fancy camera and find a camera class.

In April, I bought the Canon Rebel T4i and a 50mm lens after chatting with Twitter friends/photographers on what I should get (extra thanks to Jenn LeBlanc for sending me long, detailed emails answering my newbie questions.) Then I researched and found an Intro to Digital Photography class at a local university for a really reasonable price. It was seven classes, two hours once a week. 

I just finished the last class this week, and I'm so happy I decided to take the plunge. It was a risk to do during deadline time. And I almost talked myself out of it with "you need to be using all your non-mommy time on writing" but sometimes you need to refresh your brain with non-writing creative pursuits. 

Of course, this was only an intro class and now I want to learn more, so I'm going to probably sign up for another class in the fall. But at least now I can use my camera on manual mode and feel confident about taking photos.

So if you have one of those lingering bucket list items that is doable, I encourage you to take the time to try to fit it in. It's a nice feeling to do something purely for your own enjoyment or enrichment. Not because it's practical. Not because it's necessary. Not because you need to make money from it. But just because you want to.

And though I'm still learning, I'll share some of my pics I've taken over the last few weeks. If you want to see more, check out my Flickr.  (And btw, I list almost all of my photos as creative commons on Flickr so feel free to share using the creative commons guidelines.) : )

 Ironwork

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So what's on your reasonable bucket list? What would you like to tackle next? Or, what are you currently checking off your list? 

 

Must Do Monday - The Reasonable Portion of a Bucket List

Typically here, Monday is Must-Read Monday. However, between finishing up my deadline (yay!) and the fact that I'm in the middle of judging books for the RITAs (and can't reveal which I'm judging), I haven't read any new books I can share with you.

So, today I thought I'd change it up a bit and have Must-Do Monday. No, this is not a list of hot mancandy. ;) But rather a list of the things I hope to do or learn at some point. This is not an exhaustive list--we'd be here all day--but some realistic ones I want to tackle.

 

Photo by Steven Depolo (Flickr cc)

1. Become a tea person

So I was talking about this on Twitter last night, but recently I decided to get off of sweeteners. Since I hate coffee, don't drink soft drinks, and love caffeine, I end up drinking 3-5 glasses of iced tea a day. That's a lot of Sweet N Low. I didn't want to replace it with sugar because that's a lot of calories to add in, so it's pushed me to start looking beyond my basic Lipton black tea and experimenting with different flavors. My current fave combo for iced tea is regular black tea bags, a green tea bag, and Tazo's Wild Orange tea. It gives a great flavor.

However, I know there is a whole world out there of hot tea I haven't explored. Plus, I know there are countless varieties and loose leaf options. So this weekend I bought a kettle, a loose-leaf steeper, and a tin of loose lead Earl Grey (figured I'd start simple.) I also picked up a Red Velvet variety of bag tea. So we shall see. But it would be nice to truly learn about the ritual of tea and experience the different flavors.

 

Photo by Slawek Puklo (Flickr cc)2. Learn more about photography

I have always been interested in photography. It's one of those creative pursuits I "hope to learn" one day not for career purposes but for a hobby. But especially after my blog photo lawsuit debacle, I now am REALLY interested in learning how to take my own photos. I've gotten a few fun apps on my Iphone, but obviously that's very limited.

And I know a DSLR camera would be the next step, but those are expensive and at this point, I'd have no idea how to operate it. So I feel like I'd need to take a class if I decided to invest in that pricey of a camera. So this one has some cost involved. But I'm still really interested in pursuing it.

 

 

Photo by Tony George (Flickr cc)3. Get more advanced in yoga.

I love yoga. It's the only exercise I don't dread. However, I'm still at the beginner stage with most of it. I strive to be able to do the more complicated stuff. And this one is totally on me. The more I do it, the better I'll get. I recently signed up for a membership to My Yoga Online and that's been great. I dropped my gym membership where I used to do yoga because I wasn't able to get over there enough. Now I can get the yoga in my living room (I mirror it to my TV via Apple TV so that I can get it on a bigger screen.) And unlike buying DVDs, this gives me new routines every day so I don't get bored.

 

 

 

So those are my three, mostly achievable Must Do's. What are some of yours?