It was a very good year...

Every year I make new years resolutions. Like most people, I make it a couple of weeks before I get bored and I quit. This year, with the help of my friends, I plan on making it at least a month before quitting

1. I need to write in my journal more. I usually do it a lot for about a month at a time and then I quit for about a year or so. I'm not resolving to write every day. I'm merely saying that I will do it more often than I have in the past. (Along with this, I need to be better about blogging...)

2. I want to get in shape again. Everyone says that I'm just fine because I'm skinny, but I would like to be able to run again like I used to. Again, I'm not saying I'll work out every day, and I'm not trying to lose weight, I just want to be slightly better than I am now. This semester of school should help,though, as I am taking two p.e. classes.

3. I should start playing the piano again. I haven't played in forever, and I really should. I'm just not very good and I don't like people hearing me. However, I should play at least once this semester.

These seem to be very easy resolutions to keep, and with any luck I'll actually make it at least a little while before I start slacking.

No-Shave-November (#78.)

It has always been a dream of mine to go an entire month without shaving. Ever since I started shaving my legs, I have wished that I didn't have to anymore (whis is funny, because before that I really wanted to). When I lived in Kansas, I would always get jealous in November when all of the boys wouldn't shave their faces for an entire month. It seemed that it wasn't fair that I was still expected to shave my legs. Where's the justice!? So I decided that just one time I wanted to make it all the way through no shave November (just my legs, mind you). I even convinced a very good friend to participate with me. (This is on my list because I wanted to do it, but I figured I never would after I get married.)
There isn't much to say about the act of not shaving, except that I accidentally started about a week and a half early. However, when all was said and done, my legs didn't look to bad. Most girls told me that my legs looked about as hairy as thiers do after about a week of not shaving. My friend (who shall remain unnamed so that she doesn't get too embarrassed) was not quite so lucky as to have fair/thin leg hair. However, she still made it the entire month too.
December 1st was a party. We made the necessary Wal-mart run to buy waxing strips (yes, I did wax my legs for the first time in my life). We also stocked up on beverages and chocolate. I was pleasantly surprised to find that waxing doesn't really hurt at all. We of course took before and after pictures.
About halfway through our waxing, our good friend Kevin stopped by. We took the liberty of wasting one wax strip on his leg. He was a good sport about it and is currently walking around with a hairless strip on his left leg.
All in all, this was a wonderful experience, and I'm glad I did it. I actually kind of miss the warmth of having a layer of hair on my legs.

#60. Read All of the Jane Austen Novels

Unlike most epic adventures, this did not begin at Walmart. It began my freshman year of college. For spring break I travelled with my then-boyfriend to Fort Knox, Kentucky to visit his family. While there, I visited a Barnes and Noble in the suburbs of Louisville where I bought my copy of the complete works of Jane Austen. I had been meaning to read it for the past 3 years, but I never got around to it.
This past summer I finally decided to go for it. Not only was this book full of great literature, but it also was very good for working out. I usually did several reps of Jane every day. It took me most of the summer (and into the school year) but I finally finished it. While reading it, I discovered that each novel was my favorite while I was reading it, so I can't pick out which one I enjoyed the most. I think that my favorite might have been Northanger Abbey just because her style was different in that book.
Most people would probably say that it's silly to have this item on a ring list, but if I ever get married I don't know that I would ever get around to it. I also feel that I should continue improving my mind at this point in my life and reading the classics is a great way to do it.

Numero Uno: Dye My Hair Blue

For the longest time I've wanted to dye my hair blue. I actually did it over two months ago, but I was unable to put my pictures online until now.


This was after the peroxide bleached out my hair. Kind of disguting..


And the finished product.

A special thanks goes out to Tiffany for dying my hair, Melissa for keeping us company, and Noel for feeding me cherries like I'm a Greek goddess.

For those who question me..

I've had so many people question me and my ring list. It isn't uncommon for someone to make the comment that at this rate I'll never get married. Some people claim that this is my excuse to avoid marriage. However, neither of these are true. This is about me putting off an eventual marriage. It isn't even about me fulfilling dreams before that day comes. This is about me living my life. I've seen so many people who spend all of their time searching for their special someone. They forget about who they really are. I don't want this to happen to me. I feel that when the time is right I'll find someone. Shoot, I'm only 21 years old. I'm so young. And I think that I'll be more likely to find someone that I'm actually compatible with and who I'll have fun with if I'm doing things that I love. Until that time comes, I'm going to actually live. I'm going to experience things. I'm not going to just sit here and wait.

Item 21: Learn to Skateboard

It has, as of late, come to my attention that longboarding is the same thing as skateboarding. I also discovered that I have friends who are avid longboarders. I decided to take advantage of the fact that my friend, Brent, could teach me.
On a Friday afternoon we had nothing better to do, so he decided to begin my longboarding education. We went to an empty church parking lot and he told me to get on the board. Apparently I'm "goofy" when it comes to the foot I push with, but whatever. He showed me the basics of how to make it go and whatnot. I learned how to just get going, but I couldn't make it keep going yet. It wasn't as difficult as I thought it would be, and, without falling, I was soon making slow progress across the parking lot. We didn't have time for much that day, so we decided to go again soon.
About a week later he decided to take me to the Provo Riverwalk Trail so I could try going on a short straight area, just to see how I would do. I slowly learned to push when I was already going. The straight part was no big deal, and we soon found ourselves about 3 miles down the twisting and turning trail. He claimed that I'm a natural, but that's Brent talking, not me. This day was a killer for me because it was such a long distance that I traveled, and I was brand new, but it was a good thing, trial by fire and all.
My next trial was going down the canyon, at night. This was difficult because I couldn't see where I was putting my foot down to push. It was so fun though.
With one more trial run on the river trail, Brent decided to test fate and we decided to go down 900 E at midnight one night. For those who don't know, it's a fairly steep road and it's generally busy. I was pretty nervous, but we went. The road was much busier than it usually is at night but we finally made it down safely.
I think that this is sufficient for me to be able to mark item 21 off my list. The journey continues!

Item 57; Hike to the Top of a Mountain

Let me preface this post by stating that I am a descendant of plains people. My ancestors are known for their ability to run forever in 120 degree weather with 99% humidity on flat land. We do not climb mountains. That's just the way it is. So when my friends asked if I would wanted to climb a mountain with them, I of course jumped at the chance. Who wouldn't want to climb to the top of Mount Timpanogas, at night, in the cold while trying to avoid sliding down massive glaciers, right after a rain storm? It sounded brilliant.
When Dave approached my friend Melissa and I on a Thursday night before institute about hiking a mountain the next night we of course said yes, perhaps not yet realizing just how epic this trek would be.
We gathered at Dave's apartment at 11:30 that Friday night in the middle of a downpour. Melissa and I were wearing many layers because we knew the top of the mountain would be freezing and we each brought some granola bars and a couple bottles of water because we thought there may be a chance that we would get thirsty at some point in the hike. The group decided that we would go to the beginning of the trail and maybe it would stop raining. I honestly thought that we probably wouldn't end up hiking because where I'm from you generally avoid high ground and trees during lightning storms. We got to the beginning of the trail just as it stopped raining. We thought the trail might be kind of bad due to the incliment weather, and again I thought that we probably wouldn't go very far before turning back. We began hiking up the trail and we didn't get very far before we encountered another group of hikers telling us to turn back because the trail was really bad and there were some massive glaciers farther up the trail. The group decided to ignore this advice and try to hike it anyway. When agreeing to the hike, I was unaware that I would be hiking with professionals. The pace was rather fast up the trail, and did I mention that it was dark out, it being night and all..
We didn't hike for very long before I realized the error of my ways and began thinking that if I made it out of this alive I would never again try to climb anything larger than the worlds tallest hill (which happens to be located in Oklahoma, by the way). The pace was grueling and the breaks few and far between. I'm not sure how far we were up the mountain when we encountered our first glacier. This first test wasn't to difficult. We had to crawl, but the distance across wasn't too far and we were feeling good when we made it safely to the other side. Not too much farther along the trail we came across our second glacier. This one was slightly larger than the first, but again we made it across without any mishaps. Unfortunately we lost the trail somewhere under this second glacier. Our fearless leader, Dave wasn't worried though. We continued in what we believed to be the direction of the trail until we encountered another glacier. This one was very large. Let the record show that I said we shouldn't cross it, and maybe we'd be better off if we just turned back. However, I was outvoted, by everyone. After taking an excrutiating amount of time to cross this extremely large and slick glacier, we eventually made it to the other side only to find another glacier immediately following it. This one wasn't quite as large as the last one, but it was the slickest thing we had encountered and it was a very difficult passage. When we finally reached the other side the trail was again nowhere to be seen. The rest of the group wanted to explore and try to find it just by continuing in the same direction. Dave decided that he would go straight up the mountain and try to find it farther up. Melissa and I decided to stay where we were until the trail was found. Need I repeat that it was the middle of the night? The other members of our group got treacherously close to the edge of a cliff before heading back towards us. Dave eventually found the trail..back across the last two glaciers.
The trip back across the glaciers took as long as the first time we traversed them, and after an hour-long detour we were finally back on our way. By this time I was ready to just lay down on the side of the trail and wait for them to collect me on their way back down the mountain. However, somehow I found the power to persevere. I don't really recall much of the trip for the next little while, until the next glacier that we came to. This one was located over the top of a waterfall and we had to pass over high up, but not too high up because there was a hole in it. This was the most treacherous crossing of the hike. It was extremely slippery. I was about three quarters of the way across when I looked back just in time to see my friend Brandon slip. It was the scariest experience of my life watching him sliding down the glacier with the rest of us powerless to stop him. By some miracle he stopped just in time. As we finished the crossing I knew that I had just witnessed a miracle.
We continued up the mountain and the rest of the trip I was in a daze. I was completely exhausted and I was running on auto-pilot. We finally reached the shelter at Emerald Lake a mere six hours after starting out. From this point we watched the sunrise, but I was honestly too exhausted to really care about it. I could hardly move. This point is considered by many to be the top of the mountain, but we were about thirty minutes from the actual summit. Thirty minutes, that is, when the trail is clear. From here it was nothing but glacier the rest of the way. After some deliberation, Brandon and I decided that it would be best not to go any farther (did I mention that I could hardly stand up, let alone walk?). The rest of the group wanted to continue onward, so they did that and Brandon and I began the descent.
Our trip down didn't take too terribly long, considering that I could barely shuffle my feet to keep moving. It is actually incredibly painful to your feet to walk downhill for an extended period of time. We were fairly annoyed to find that the glacier that almost killed Brandon could have been avoided entirely and we crossed some very steep areas during the night that we couldn't see at all. We made it down in half the time that it took us to get up. It only took me about three days to get over my soreness and exhaustion.
In the end, I think that this trip was worth it. Even though it was very greuling, it made me push myself like nothing had in a very long time. After all, it's all about will power.

Things I learned from this hike:
1. Never agree to hike at night.
2. Always go hiking with a group of beginners that won't want to go too fast.
3. Take lots of water.
4. When your gut instinct tells you to not cross the treacherous ice fields, don't do it!
5. Don't go longboarding for 2 hours the day you plan on hiking a freaking mountain.
6. Do take a long nap the day you plan on hiking a freaking mountain.

#66. Hold a Snake (and overcome my fear)

I have, for as long as I can remember, been afraid of snakes. I attribute it to finding a 6 ft long snake on my bedroom floor when I was 3 years old. Those kinds of things can scar you for life. Add in the fact that my brother used to chase me around with rattlesnake rattles (he told me that I could die just from touching it), and bam, you have me. A perfectly normal individual who runs screaming when there are snakes around. In grade school about once a year someone would bring a snake into our classroom to teach us about them and instead of touching it like most of the other students, I would hide from it. I decided that I needed to overcome this fear, and the most plausible way to do so was to hold a snake.
A couple of weeks ago, on a Sunday evening I was invited over to my friend Jay's apartment. He had his girlfriend's snake there and a bunch of people were going to hold it. This seemed like as good a time as any to confront my fear. I went over and my friend Noel was holding the snake. Don't ask me what kind it was because in my opinion they are all disgusting. I decided to just touch the snake while he was holding it. That was difficult enough. I finally told the boys to put the snake on my hand and I would hold it. They told me to allow the snake to wrap around my arm, but there was no way I was going to do that. I held on to it just long enough to get my picture taken.
This did not achieve my goal of overcoming my fear, because I am still terrified of snakes. However, I did prove to myself that even when I'm scared to death of something I can face it anyway.

90. Go to Institute

So, one of the requirements of BYU/living at my apartment is going to institute if you aren't enrolled in a religion class. I had never been to institute before and I kind of avoided it like the plague. However, I figured that it was an experience that every good little Mormon kid should have. When I found out that our stake president, President Mullen, and his wife were teaching institute I decided that the time had finally come for me to attend on last Thursday.
The journey to the church was not very long. My friend Melissa went with me. We went in my jeep with the top down. It was wonderful. We finally got into the church and we sat somewhere in the middle, because I didn't want to sit up front and my friends didn't want to sit in the back. The lesson was great. We learned about 3Nephi 23-27. We learned about the importance of keeping a record. When we don't keep a record, important things are lost. We also learned that Jesus said that his church should be called after his name. If it is called after the name of a man, it would be that man's church. In all, the lesson was terrific.
After the lesson, they provided us with a dinner of spaghetti. It wasn't very filling, so Melissa and I decided to go for a DTR (Del Taco Run). Altogether, this was a very good/uplifting evening.

#99. Have a Birthday Party

After I decided that one item on my list would be to have a birthday party, my dad informed me that I had birthday parties when I was little. You know, the typical "Emily's first birthday" family party type things. In my opinion, this doesn't count. Therefore, we decided to have a birthday bash for my 21st birthday. Never fear, there was no alcohol involved, because we honestly don't need to be intoxicated to have a great time.
So without further ado, I will tell you all about my first ever birthday party. We had my party on June 18, the night before my birthday. We reserved the pool at my apartment complex to ensure that we would have plenty of space for people. Tiffany made cake and my sister made brownies. Lauren made beer chicken and beer chili. I, of course, was in charge of the kool aid. It's kind of my forte. I made and awesome playlist on my computer, and we were ready to party.
We started the party a little early, when my friend, Brent, brought a present over for me. Although I already happened to own the gift he gave me, it was pretty awesome. My favorite part of the gift was probably the card. The Cookie Monster is my favorite Sesame Street character and he brought me a Cookie Monster card. He fixed the fact that it was meant for a 2-year-old by drawing a 1 next to the 2. It was utterly magnificent.
So 7 o'clock came around, and at first there weren't many people there, which made me a little nervous. It was my first ever birthday party! It needed to be a success. People finally began arriving, but unfortunately most of the girls didn't wear swimming suits. At first I was a little sad, but then I decided that I didn't care. It was my party and I was going to have fun, regardless of everyone else.
We decided to play water polo, and it was basically an epic battle in the water. We didn't play by any rules, and I know that many people almost drowned, but it was amazing.

After we were all too cold to play anymore, we retired to the hot tub to eat cake and drink koolaid and just have a good ol' time. It was magnificent and we were loud way after curfew and whatnot, but all-in-all it was a mgnificent time. I think that this was the best birthday party ever.

The after-party was pretty stellar as well. My friend Aaron and a couple of his friends showed up at my apartment after the party was over. He appologized profusely for missing the party and presented me with a homemade card, complete with hand-drawn unicorns and robots. It was totally legit.
BEST PARTY EVER!!

I Struggle With Forward Motion..

So I haven't been able to complete anything on my list in over a week and I feel like I'm failing. However, many of the items on my list are processes, not events. For instance, I am working on reading the list of Barnes and Noble classics, but there are 199 of them. In my defense, I've read fourteen of them and I'm almost done with two more.
I'm also working on my goal to be able to do 50 pushups. If you know me, you know how difficult this will be. I have been working on this, though. I haven't actually been doing any pushups, but I'm an archaeologist and I screen dirt all day everyday. Trust me, it's a crazy workout.

I have never in my life had a birthday party, but next Saturday I'm turning 21. In honor of this, we will be having my first ever party on Friday. We are currently planning this shindig, and I will most definitely write all about it afterwards.
I may not have completed anything new as of late, but I'm working at it. But after all, forward motion is harder than it sounds (yes, this is a reference to Relient K for those who were unaware).

Item #45: Get in a Water Balloon Fight

This afternoon the epic quest that is my list continued. We needed an activity for FHE tonight, and because it was such a beautiful day it was decided that a water balloon fight would be satisfactory. Like all good things in life, this journey began at the local Walmart. After buying the balloons and every variety of Oreos available, we came home only to discover that the balloons could indeed not be filled from our kitchen sink. This led to a race around the complex looking for water faucets. We discovered that there was one at the end of each building, but half of them were also next to breaker boxes and electrical outlets. It was decided that this would not suffice because apparently getting an outlet wet is no bueno. Eventually we were able to find faucets that would work properly and we were able to fill the balloons.

Naturally, we could not tell the boys involved about what we were planning, so we had to come up with a cover story. We led them to believe that we were going to a local park to go "cardboarding." For those unaware of what cardboarding is, let me explain. You take a piece of cardboard and you sit on it and go down a grassy hill. Unfortunately, the cardboard was unsuccessful at going down the hill, despite numerous attempts.

This failure was ok, because being boys, they did not suspect anything anyway. While nobody was paying attention, I slipped away to get the balloons out of Tiffany's car. We maneuvered the basket of water balloons behind a large rock and I snuck up on my target, Kevin. He didn't see it coming. The attack was successful and a battle of epic proportions commenced.

The fight was a great success, especially after water pistols were introduced. One of the boys, Craig, was elusive but eventually we were able to get him as well.

After all of the balloons were used, we decided that we weren't ready to end our little party yet. This problem was solved when we decided to go back to the complex and go swimming, fully clothed of course. Most of the boys decided to chicken out and not jump in with us. Kevin even went to far as to say he would jump in, and then backed out when all of us girls jumped. I remedied this situation by pulling him in with us. Noel also eventually decided to join us. It was great fun and I would recommend it to anyone.

Task #39: Tye dye something

On Friday night I began my quest to complete my ring list. A friend from field school, Lauren, and I decided that we needed to make team t-shirts, and naturally they needed to be tye dyed. Unfortunately, she had never tye dyed anything either, so we got my roommate and best friend, Tiffany, to accompany us. Thus began our epic adventure.
The evening began, of course, with a trip to Walmart. After buying all of the essentials (including not only white shirts and a tye dye kit, but also 2 frisbees, a pair of sunglasses, some water pistols, bandanas, and citronella candels) we were ready to get party. However, at this point we were interupted by another roommate, Krisi, who was bored. Naturally we did what any normal group of college aged girls would do. We kidnapped her, ninja style. This abduction was complete with 007 rolls into the apartment and army crawls. Once she was stowed safely in the Jeep, we were ready to retire to Lauren's house for a night of creativity.
While the rest of us prepared the t-shirts for dying, Lauren prepared the most important thing, the food. Finally, we were ready to tye dye. I, of course, decided to make a swirl on my shirt. I'd have to say that pouring the dye on might just be the most fulfilling moment of my life.
After we were each done with a shirt we had just a smidgen of dye left and two shirts. Lauren and I took it upon ourselves to decorate them. We put the shirts on top of the dye that was already on the table and just dumped the rest of the dye on top. We then decorated each other's shirts with our handprints. It was precious.

My Ring List

1. Dye my hair blue
2. Learn to surf
3. Learn to snowboard
4. Skinny dipping
5. Make out fully clothed under water
6. Leave the country
7. Scuba diving
8. Visit all 50 states
9. Learn to play the guitar
10. Swim with the sharks
11. Sail a sailboat
12. Get my motorcycle license
13. Mud wrestling
14. Spend the night in a haunted house
15. Save someone's life
16. Drive from one coast to the other
17. Go to the Super Bowl
18. Have a song writen about me
19. Fly a kite
20. Go white water rafting
21. Learn to skateboard
22. Go to Rome
23. Go on a gondola ride
24. Learn to cook one thing well
25. Go camping without a tent
26. Run a marathon
27. Write a best seller
28. Go to an aquarium
29. Learn to dance
30. Donate plasma
31. Go to the opera
32. Go to the ballet
33. Go to Disney World
34. Get a professional massage
35. Go deep sea fishing
36. Road trip with no destination in mind
37. Plant a flower and have it live
38. Be a dead body on CSI
39. Tye dye something
40. Go to a play at the Globe
41. Visit a Civil War battlefield
42. Go to the Alamo
43. Go to the Kentucky Derby
44. Index one million names
45. Get in a water balloon fight
46. Go to Romania
47. Go to the Logan temple
48. Visit Roswell
49. Ride in a hot air balloon
50. Be able to do 50 pushups
51. Choose a trip destination by throwing a dart at a map
52. Read the standard works
53. Make a quilt
54. Learn to knit
55. Trace a branch of my family to the 1500s
56. Go rock climbing
57. Hike to the top of a mountain
58. Go to the hot springs
59. Learn a form of martial arts
60. Read all of the Jane Austen novels
61. Get a henna tattoo
62. Visit the real 4 corners
63. Watch sea turtle hatch
64. Drive at the salt flats
65. Walk across a bed of hot coals
66. Hold a snake (overcome my fear)
67. Ride a camel
68. Visit a light house
69. Fillet my own fish
70. Catch a fish as big as me
71. Eat caviar
72. Eat Indian food
73. Swim off the coast of Greece
74. Learn how to shoot a bow and arrow
75. Make jelly
76. Play racketball
77. Own something made by a designer
78. Make it through no-shave-November
79. Hunt for sea shells
80. Make beer bread
81. Get a conceal and carry permit
82. Milk a cow
83. Visit every temple in the continental United States
84. Catch a duck at the duck pond
85. Watch the sun rise from the top of a mountain
86. Own a pair of Tom's shoes
87. Watch all of Audrey Hepburn's movies
88. Take a family history class
89. Go to a Sunday morning session of General Conference
90. Go to institute
91. Watch all three James Dean movies
92. Ride in a helicopter
93. Go to a symphony
94. Complete a game of monopoly
95. Go golfing
96. Go to the body farm
97. Read all of the Barnes and Noble classics
98. Shoot clay pigeons
99. Have a birthday party
100. Go to Yellowstone

Items that have been completed.