a recipe for making lemonade

I need to be blunt for a moment. Can you bare with me a sec??

This past week I thought I found something in my body that would forever alter the course of my life. Dramatic I know, but there you have it. I spent most of the morning in tears and not focusing on the worst case scenario, but focusing on if indeed the worst case WAS the scenario. Imagining all the things I would miss out on. I was sobbing because the thought of even try to begin to say goodbye my children and husband overwhelmed me with a grief and sorrow I never knew I was capable of experiencing.

Now before I continue I should say that after further examination it turned out to be nothing. Weird internal organ positioning --which caused a cameo of the hypochondriac version of myself.  I should clarify that when your grandmother died the same age you are now of breast cancer, your red flags are always at half-mast.

This crazy turn of events led to another fun character trait I occasionally let out of the box {smidge extreme}. I decided to put pen to paper and actually whip out my bucket list that has been accruing in my brain for the past few years.

Have you ever made a bucket list? I feel like I’m ahead of the curve since I’m only 26 and have a while before I’m 87, since I decided that’s when I’ll be happy to head for heaven. If you haven’t made a bucket; what are you waiting for? Start out small, what’s the one thing at the top of your list you will be doing in your life?? These things don’t have to be extreme my friends, I just know how we can become very comfortable in our everyday routines and get stuck in the mind frame of “Oh, I can do it tomorrow.” But it was the wise Benjamin Franklin who said one of my favorite quotes, “Never leave that for tomorrow what you can do today.”   

Etheline’a Bucket List: {in no particular order}

1. GREAT Dave Matthew seats
2.

{via}

3. Take the kids to see the Macy's Thanksgiving day parade

4. Read the BBC Top 100 books

5. Narrate and audio book

6. Spend 3 months straight surfing

7. Run a marathon {half, full, quarter…lol}

8. Celebrate my 65^th wedding anniversary with Royal

9. Become fluent in Italian--plus

{via}

10. Become fluent in Swedish

11.Bake my way through my favorite baking cookbook

12. Live in Philadelphia  

13. Season tickets to Phillies game and go to every home game

14. Road trip and attend a baseball game at every park in the US

15. Camping for New Years in Maine to be the first person to celebrate new years

16. See Redwood National Park

17. Go to the ice hotel in Sweden

18. See the aurora borealis
19. take route 66 and 

{via}

20. Go to an Olympics

21. Attend the Kentucky derby and wear a massive hat

22. Go to finals of the tennis grand slams

23. meet an A List celebrity {Martin Sheen, Rachel McAdam, Julia Roberts, ect}

24.Attend a taping of BBC Top Gear
25.

{via}

 26. Take a pottery class

27. Live on a sail boat for a month

28. Live in Central/South America

29. Go to a butterfly garden

30. See the Taj Mahal

31. Cover my hands with Henna

32. Walk the El Camino de Santiago with Royal

33. Motorcycle through Vietnam when the kids are older

34. Publish a book
35.  Be a mother that my children love and respect/
 

{via}

36. Go bungee jumping

37. Read the Book of Mormon in a month

38. Become a certified sharpshooter

39. See Phantom of the Opera on Broadway

40.

41.

42.

43.

44.

45.

46.

47.

48.

49.

50.