Babe's Bucket List Challenge #7 - Show Best Friend the World

 

Welcome to Babe's Bucket List Challenge, where I'm tackling twelve of the thirty things on my bucket list and writing about the experiences...won't you join me?

Remember my dad (from the Word of the Year post)?  Dad's joie de vivre was unmatched -- he loved life!  Music, surfing, engineering, strong coffee, and family were part of his core.  He loved tinkering with ideas and often worked with his grandsons on projects such as building a siege tower, designing and building a chicken coop, and designing and shooting off rockets...plus going fishing.  He lived life with an engineer's precision, a surfer's spirit, and a drummer's soul.  Even as his health declined, his spirit, sense of humor, and love for ice cream never wavered.

In his honor, this year I have created a bucket list - a compliation of dreams and aspirations - to work from.  My husband (who grew up in our town and interned with him as a teen) has also written down a bucket list, and we're going for it!  You can download your own Bucket List template at the Word of the Year post.

Y'all!  I know that these bucket list challenges are all about doing things you want to accomplish in your life, but giving to others is an important piece of life for me...and this one was about exactly that.  My bestie is...let's say a woman of a certain age...and had never seen the ocean.  She has talked about it for years, and wanted to go forever, and I was ecstatically happy to be able to fulfill this wish for her!

I will never forget her expression and reaction the first time she saw the beach.  She was overwhelmed by the extent of it....saying, "it reminds you just how big God really is."  We spent the whole first day just hanging out in the sand and surf.  Now, typically I would have encouraged her to really go in and experience the water, but the ocean was super-angry and not at all safe.  As it was, having grown up swimming in the waves since toddler-hood, I was being repeatedly knocked over and even dragged under at times.  I wanted to enjoy the beach with her....not kill her with it!

The second day, we got up very early (have I ever mentioned that I am NOT a morning person?  honestly, not a night owl either.  more of a noon-1pm kinda person 😆).  We walked the mile down to the nearest coffee shop and watched the sunrise...spending a few hours on the sand while the kiddos slept.  Then we headed to NASA for the day...

I'm not sure whether she enjoyed the ocean or NASA better....both of them were a source of wonderment and it was worth every cent of the entry fee to witness her experience it all.  If her husband is reading this...buckle up, because I think soul-sister has plans for y'all to come back after retirement next year!

There's a children's play area at NASA that we enjoyed thoroughly.  We're both small adults, not much taller than your average ten year old, so fitting into the space was easy.  She snapped a photo of me that matches one of my son taken thirteen years ago so we'd have a matching set on the wall.  And then...we discovered the slides.  The slides!  The kiddos were both amused and embarrassed at how many times we kept running around to go back down the slides together.  I'm pretty sure we were the kids that day...

As we headed back toward the house, this beautiful rainbow came out.  You have to understand that on the morning my dad passed, "Rainbow" (Kacey Musgraves) came on the radio, right out of the blue.  Like, it literally interrupted the song I was listening to and started...and the lyrics sent a message straight to my heart.  He had battled dementia for so long, and it was him telling us that the storm was finally over.  When this rainbow came out, it felt like he was saying hello and giving both of us a big hug.

Babe's Bucket List Challenge #4 - Run a Marathon

 

Welcome to Babe's Bucket List Challenge, where I'm tackling twelve of the thirty things on my bucket list and writing about the experiences...won't you join me?

Remember my dad (from the Word of the Year post)?  Dad's joie de vivre was unmatched -- he loved life!  Music, surfing, engineering, strong coffee, and family were part of his core.  He loved tinkering with ideas and often worked with his grandsons on projects such as building a siege tower, designing and building a chicken coop, and designing and shooting off rockets...plus going fishing.  He lived life with an engineer's precision, a surfer's spirit, and a drummer's soul.  Even as his health declined, his spirit, sense of humor, and love for ice cream never wavered.

In his honor, this year I have created a bucket list - a compliation of dreams and aspirations - to work from.  My husband (who grew up in our town and interned with him as a teen) has also written down a bucket list, and we're going for it!  You can download your own Bucket List template at the Word of the Year post.

San Fran - 2010

A few things you'd need to know to fully understand why this one isn't your run-of-the-mill "Run a Marathon" task...

• I used to be a marathon runner.  Like, a good one.  Like, qualified for Boston on the first go-round. I ran all through high school and college, ran six miles the day my son was born (before I had him), and have always loved it.
• The combination of a family predisposition to a degenerative disease, plus an accident, plus about twelve surgeries to try and mitigate the issues, led to my being unable to even walk for a while.
• It's been about ten years and a long row to hoe, both mentally and physically.  I've had to learn to reframe some things....like looking at my handicapped parking pass as a 'ticket to a parking spot at Christmas!'  (Spoiler -- it actually isn't always...sometimes those spots are full, too.)

Given all of the above, I realized, going into this challenge, that if I could pull it off, it would be the last time I ran a marathon in my life.  Degenerative diseases are nothing to sneeze at, and while I feel way too young to be dealing with one, I also know that there are plenty of people who have been dealt a much worse hand in life.  However, I was realistic enough to know that pushing my body beyond what it's new self-imposed limits were was probably going to have some consequences.

I also knew that running, particularly distance running, is more of a mental game than a physical one.  True, you have to have the ability to put one foot in front of the other -- preferably without falling, as I am prone to do with ever-increasing frequency -- but you have to have the mentality and the ability to psych yourself up, and psych yourself out, when needed, to finish a marathon.

An opportunity presented itself for a family affair - my dad, sister, niece, and aunt were all going to be at the same event - meaning there was a built-in support system.  And someone to pick my butt up, safely get me some assistance, and drive me home, should the need arise.  (Hey, a girl's got to be practical!)

I had a difficult time training - meaning, I didn't.  I would try to go out for a run and continuously trip over my feet.  My brain was willing but the nerves were not.  Even still, I drove out there the day before the race and stayed with the family.  I also changed my goal from marathon to half-marathon.  #BecauseRealistic

I'm going to give my dad some personal props here.  The next morning at the starting line we sent my niece (little Miss Wins-Them-All) up ahead and he and I started out together.  He knew I had completely psyched myself out by this point and just had me jog alongside him in the crowd for the first mile or so, at which point he said he needed to stop for a second and for me to go ahead and he'd catch up quickly......mmm, ok.

In the back of my mind, I was very aware of the mind games that had just been pulled, but it didn't matter.  It was what I needed to get started, and we both knew it.  I plodded along, with my map-app monitoring my pace and distance, telling myself if I could just get to mile six that I'd be happy with managing half-the distance and would limp along to the finish line.

Somewhere along the way I accidentally turned off the map-app.  I kept jogging along thinking, "This is the longest mile ever!"  But the race director hadn't denoted every mile section along the route, and when I hit the marker for mile nine and realized that "the longest mile" was actually four miles long, I just kept going for it.  After all, I was 2/3 of the way through at this point!

That lasted less than a mile.  My brain had used every bit of mental willpower it had to keep going.  My feet had already tripped over themselves a few time (and there's nothing like repeatedly falling in front of a bunch of runners...half who look with some combination of pity and disdain as they skirt around you and the other half who sacrifice their own race to help you out...that starts to grate on you.  Especially when you still FEEL like a runner, but it's painfully aware you are not.

I spent the last part of the race alternatively jogging and limping until the final 100 meters.  After all, I am still a runner at heart.  💓  In probably the last running-sprint of my life, I gave it my all, finding random people in front of me and picking them off one by one until I crossed the line.

Was it my best time?  Not even close.  Compared to pre-accident me, it was a shameful time.  But was it the best I could give?  Absolutely.  And I finished.  In less than two and a half hours, which isn't terrible either.  And I got a shiny medal to hang on the wall.  Out of all the medals up there, it's the one I'm most proud of, and it was the hardest to achieve.

I might sign up to walk that 5K next year.....after all, why should I let some stupid nerve disease dictate my future?  Can I do things exactly the way I want to?  No.  But I'm not giving up either!

Babe's Bucket List Challenge #3 - Zipline through the Rainforest

 

Welcome to Babe's Bucket List Challenge, where I'm tackling twelve of the thirty things on my bucket list and writing about the experiences...won't you join me?

Remember my dad (from the Word of the Year post)?  Dad's joie de vivre was unmatched -- he loved life!  Music, surfing, engineering, strong coffee, and family were part of his core.  He loved tinkering with ideas and often worked with his grandsons on projects such as building a siege tower, designing and building a chicken coop, and designing and shooting off rockets...plus going fishing.  He lived life with an engineer's precision, a surfer's spirit, and a drummer's soul.  Even as his health declined, his spirit, sense of humor, and love for ice cream never wavered.

In his honor, this year I have created a bucket list - a compliation of dreams and aspirations - to work from.  My husband (who grew up in our town and interned with him as a teen) has also written down a bucket list, and we're going for it!  You can download your own Bucket List template at the Word of the Year post.

Growing up, we spent a lot of time in Puerto Rico, and El Yunque was always one of my favorite places to visit.  While I couldn't do the Rainforest Zipline in El Yunque (and you totally should, given the chance) - largely due to weather and the greater economic climate - we did find a place that was second best down in Florida!  

We started the day behind this guy, who really looked like a lot of fun.  My bestie and I did this one together, along with her daughter.  None of us had ever ziplined, but we were on a roll checking things off our bucket lists, and this one was on mine.  Said daughter strapped in and jumped right off like she'd been doing it her whole life.  Bestie was...a little more hesitant, but we were so proud of her!  Finally I got to bring up the rear, laughing the whole way.  

We got to zip through multiple lines, between trees, over the canopy level of trees, and see the stunning rainforest-ish scenery below...including gators!  No worries, though.  The gators were, if not tame, then supervised, since this zipline was at a wildlife refuge.  While there, we saw a number of exotic animals, including ostriches (and if you've ever been to the Arbuckles in Oklahoma, you'll understand why we all quickly backed away from them!) and parrots.

Personally, though, my favorite animal was the one-armed monkey at the animal rehab center.  This little guy felt like my spirit animal.  Partly because he's a spider monkey (an affectionate name hubby uses for me) and partly because you could tell that he just was not going to accept that he only had one arm now, and he was persistent and resilient, continuing to work on movement and having a normal monkey life.  I really felt that to my core....  Why?  Learn more in next month's Bucket List Challenge!

Here we GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

So what are you doing for your bucket list challenges this year??

Babe's Bucket List Challenge #1 - Travel to Europe with Son

Welcome to Babe's Bucket List Challenge, where I'm tackling twelve of the thirty things on my bucket list and writing about the experiences...won't you join me?

Remember my dad (from the Word of the Year post)?  Dad's joie de vivre was unmatched -- he loved life!  Music, surfing, engineering, strong coffee, and family were part of his core.  He loved tinkering with ideas and often worked with his grandsons on projects such as building a siege tower, designing and building a chicken coop, and designing and shooting off rockets...plus going fishing.  He lived life with an engineer's precision, a surfer's spirit, and a drummer's soul.  Even as his health declined, his spirit, sense of humor, and love for ice cream never wavered.

In his honor, this year I have created a bucket list - a compliation of dreams and aspirations - to work from.  My husband (who grew up in our town and interned with him as a teen) has also written down a bucket list, and we're going for it!  You can download your own Bucket List template at the Word of the Year post.

Traveling to England

This month I'm checking off the box for "Travel to Europe with Son."  If you remember the Word of the Year post, your bucket list should include some quick things you can check off and some longer, lifelong goals.  This month I'm checking off something that had been a lifelong goal but was recently accomplished, making it a quick-check-off.  As an added bonus, after we made this trip, we relived the experiences by reading London, by Edward Rutherfurd, concurrently.

After looking at several potential destinations, he settled on England for his 'trip of a lifetime.'  With two weeks to explore as much of England as possible, we set off on an overnight flight, hitting the ground running the next day.  For the first few days, we parked at an AirB&B in London, near St. Pancras Station so that it would be easy to navigate the city.

We did plenty of touristy things...visiting several museums such as the V&A and the British Museum, walking across Abbey Road, and attending high tea.  We also spent a few days just wandering around on foot, exploring the older parts of the city and digging into history.  Part of our experience was simply cultural, enjoying the food and the people, but learning a few things we didn't know...like you can't buy Tylenol over the counter and there are no urgent cares open on a bank holiday weekend (which, I still don't understand what a bank holiday is)...

From London, we headed to York and Leeds, where we learned about Viking history and made multiple visits to the Royal Armouries.  As a blacksmith and swordsmith, this was something my son was very interested in...he studied each artefact in depth.

From Leeds, we hopped a train north to Haltwhistle, where we enjoyed a bit of downtime, hiked Hadrian's Wall, and explored architectural ruins.  One of my favorite parts of this trip was keeping a daily journal entry with him so that we had a record of all the small things we experienced along the way.

After Haltwhistle, we headed to the town of Alwick, home of the Harry Potter castle, Poison Garden, and a really amazing bookstore!  While we did some tourist things here (see the list above), our time in the northern part of the country was more about interacting with people and experiencing the area.

Rounding out the trip with a visit to the North Sea before heading home, we reflected on all we had done and seen in such a short time.  It's a trip neither of us will ever forget and I hope that we are able to explore the world even more in the future.  We did it all with two small carry-on backpacks and smaller, daily-use backpack.  We also got to enjoy some of the best (and cheapest) chocolate we've ever tasted!  (Side note - if you're traveling to England, we'd love you to bring us back some.....just sayin')

Unit Study - Exploring England with Teens

Explore the art, history, geography, food, and culture of England in this cross-curricular unit study….perfect for families getting ready to travel abroad or folks who want to travel via unit studies!  Each stop along the roadschooling trip covers a different facet of history and culture with unit information, resources, worksheets, activities, and more...  

YES!  I want 122 pages of FUN STUDIES!

Table of Contents:

• o Introduction & Geography of England
• o Portsmouth
  • o The Mary Rose & naval archaeology
• o London
  • o The British Museum & archaeology
  • o The Wallace Collection & medieval history
  • o The Tower of London / London Bridge & the Tudors
  • o Buckingham Palace & royalty
  • o Victoria and Albert Museum & medieval art
  • o Thames / Globe Theater & Shakespeare
  • o Sherlock Holmes Museum & British Literature
  • o Abbey Road & British Invasion
• o Leeds
  • o Royal Armouries & middle ages
• o York
  • o Jorvik & Vikings
  • o York Castle & archaeology
• o Haltwhistle
  • o Hadrian’s Wall & ancient Celts
  • o Vindolanda & archaeology
• o Alnwick
  • o Alnwick Castle & architecture
  • o Poison Garden & herbs
  • o Barter Books & WW2 history
• o Alnmouth
  • o North Sea & train history
• o Newcastle o Segedunum & ancient Romans
• o Tips & Tricks for Travelling in England

Word of the Year 2026 - Carpe Diem! + TWO FREEBIES

Each year, we choose a Word of the Year...something to focus on energies on for the upcoming year.  It's akin to the New Year Resolution, but less of an actual task than a change in mindset.  

Unlike resolutions, a word of the year is a constant, yet gentle, reminder to focus on creating positive change in your world.  It's a personal and inspiring process.  Some of the benefits to choosing a word of the year include:

• Simplicity - unlike a resolution, a single world is easy to remember and focuses on a clear theme
• Intentionality - the single word is a daily reminder for your actions to be intentional toward a goal
• Flexibility - life changes day by day, and a hard and fast resolution isn't always easy to follow, but a themed focus is flexible enough to change along with your days
• Positivity - choosing an inspirational word helps you remember to focus on a positive mindset as you act to achieve the goal
• Self-Reflection - choosing a word is an opportunity to be introspective with your aspirations
• Narrative - over time, the choices of WOTYs add up to a narrative of goals, change, and a lifetime of personal aspirations

Our previous words of the year include:

• 2025 - Explore
• 2024 - Renaissance
• 2023 - Self-Sufficiency
• 2022 - Self-Care
• 2021 - Grace
• 2020 - Slow

You can visit each of these posts to pick up resources and ideas for incorporating those principles and goals into your home.

2026 Word of the Year - Carpe Diem!

Last year was a weird year.  I did plenty of exploring, just like my word of the year, but not in the ways that were intended or expected.  Life, amirite?  So many things happened so quickly, leaving me reeling and just trying to tread water and keep from drowning.  We've all been there...

At the cusp of the new year, I lost one of my dearest friends and life mentors.  Granted, she was nearly 100 years old, but her influence on so many lives was incalculable.  In April, with sweeping cuts to federal programs, I learned I would lose my job managing several educational grants (but still had to finish closing them out...yay!).  Just a few weeks later, my stepdad (who had been part of our lives since we were children) passed away.  Shortly after that, in something akin to a 'changing of the guard,' I became custodian of my mom, moving her, handling the estate, and all the things.  Who has time to actually think, or feel, when you're busy with a million tasks?

Somewhere in the midst of all that, most likely thanks to stress, my nearly-fifty-year-old body decided to actively enter perimenopause and bring back my good old friend, ulcers.  For you young ones out there, bless you.  For those of you in the same 'my body is rebelling' boat, we should band together with some sort of 3am club.  Overall, zero stars...do not recommend the hormonal roller coaster!  (PS - if you're here, check out this book that has been really helpful)

As I burned up the road between here and my parents' old home, and flew all over the country for both work-related and family-related tasks, I felt peace looking out the windows at the world around me.  Many of us are dealing with difficult times right now, and it can feel easier to put your head down and power through it...but that just causes us to miss out on some of our precious years.  So with dad's passing (yes, I call him dad even though he was technically a stepdad), my word of the year is Carpe Diem!  We are going to grab life by the balls this year...

 

Dad's joie de vivre was unmatched -- he loved life!  Music, surfing, engineering, strong coffee, and family were part of his core.  He loved tinkering with ideas and often worked with his grandsons on projects such as building a siege tower, designing and building a chicken coop, and designing and shooting off rockets...plus going fishing.  He lived life with an engineer's precision, a surfer's spirit, and a drummer's soul.  Even as his health declined, his spirit, sense of humor, and love for ice cream never wavered.

In his honor, this year I have created a bucket list - a compliation of dreams and aspirations - to work from.  My husband (who grew up in our town and interned with him as a teen) has also written down a bucket list, and we're going for it!  

So welcome to a year of Babe's Bucket List Challenge, where I'll be tackling twelve of the thirty things on said list and writing about the experiences...

Want to create your own bucket list?

Why should you do this?

• Direction & Focus - helps to define the course of your lfie by clarifying what's important to achieve, taking into account your personal values and desires
• Motivation & Accomplishment - regularly reviewing the list, include making alterations, helps you to refine that focus, and crossing items off the list gives you a sense of accomplishment
• Overcoming Limitations - helps you to push beyond your comfort zone, dream bigger, and explore possibilities...then go for them!

Tips to get started

• Start your list by brain dumping.  Anything goes, including experiences, travel, career goals, desired skills, and values-based facets of your life.
• Include items you could mark off on any random weekend, but also also items that will take you years to accomplish.  Mix it up so that you stay enthused but also have lifetime goals.
• Don't just focus on the Instagram pic -- focus on the experience.  If you're going someplace, dig into the culture.  If you're skydiving, focus on the sensations.  (But don't forget to take one picture!)
• Write in pencil, not pend, so that as you grow and change your goals can, too.
• Have an accountability buddy to help you stay focused, like we are doing.

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