25 Before My 25th

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My 25th high school reunion is next year.
It hit me I am almost twenty-five years from the year I graduated high school as I was driving to the bank with my youngest daughter.
I was 25 when I got married for the first time.
So it has been a young, stupid, naïve Kari since I graduated from high school.

 

How in the hell did 25 years happen? It seems like just last year I was rocking a mullet with six-inch bangs, listening to some Def Leppard and all, ” I can’t wait to graduate and drive my Camaro and live with my best friend in Aspen, Colorado. Like totally.”
Yeah, none of that happened. Well, I graduated high school.

I felt like I should come up with some motivational preparation for my 25th high school reunion. I decided I would do 25 things I have never done in my life before my 25th reunion! This is monumental because there are quite a few things I’ve never done, mostly because of my fears.

I have become the proverbial back seat driver in my life; I have no problem telling other people how to be brave, get out there and do things, don’t be afraid, while sitting in the passenger seat and clinging to the door handle. Just don’t make me get out there and do it.

So I did what I do best; I made a list.

My list will not be a bucket list of sorts, just a list of things that I have always wanted to do, but for some reason or another, I never got around to doing it.

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Here is my list in no certain order (don’t mock it)

I feel so vulnerable.

Here we go.

 

1- Go whitewater rafting – there is a place near where my mom and dad live in Tennessee and only two people have lost their lives there while rafting. I like those odds.

 

2- take an airplane ride all by myself –I’ve done this before I had children but I am frightened to do this since having children. I think most parents understand the whole leaving children orphans scenario.

 

3- run a 5k- I just did this last month!

 

 

4- eat sushi – Me + raw fish = bigger fear than you could ever imagine.

 

5- following through. In everything I do. Meaning- if I say, “Hey, let’s get together sometime for a girl’s nite” to some fellow soccer moms, I am gonna really call and set something up. This also stands for projects. Painting the baseboards in your home shouldn’t take 3 months and counting. Bad Kari.

 

 

6- drink a tequila shot –I have had many a drink in my days but never this.

7- get a spa facial- Never one of these either.

8- get a bikini wax -ditto

9- become a more patient person. I am pretty bad.

10- save at least 1000 dollars in savings account no one knows about and not spend it on the kids, hubs, vacation, a new dishwasher….. etc., etc. maybe use it to get lipo before the reunion? Just kidding……. maybe just Botox.

11- relive my love for snow skiing and introduce it to my oldest daughter and NOT break a bone or dislocate a hip in the process

12- go on a mom and me overnight away trip with my tween before she starts the mom loathing phase. please say that this phase never happens. I know it will, but please lie to me and say it never will.

13- pay off 1/4 of my debt gon’ be hard when I have facials, bikini waxes, and tequila shots to buy.

14- lose that extra 10 pounds I can guarantee this will happen in the last few weeks before the reunion. Nothing motivates one to lose weight faster than seeing people who saw you when you were your skinniest in life.

15- write something meaningful on the Facebook walls of all of my 120 friends this could go really well or really poorly

16- try to meet a new friend in every arena of my life and don’t give up after the first try ex: at church, at Annie’s school, at Ellie’s school, etc

17- learn to sew my mom and Rebecca will be my teachers… they just don’t know that yet

18- eat a Chicago-style hot dog. OK, so I have eaten PLENTY ‘o hot dogs since living the past 20-odd years here. Just not the real “Chicago Style” type of hot dog. Ya know, with the pickle and sport peppers..

19- volunteer in a soup kitchen or food bank as if reading my mind, Rebecca texted me a few weeks ago about doing this same thing with our girls!

20- redo our master bath for under 150 dollars. It’s awful, and it’s happening as I write this…..slowly

21- go on an overnight getaway with the hubs. We have not spent a night alone without the kids in five years. FIVE YEARS. We don’t have grandparents nearby or any other family so those of you with those in supply do not know what I talking about here.

22- Read the Bible. Cover to cover. I have read passages and chapters, but not the whole thing. Hey- I can barely read an Us magazine cover to cover without my kids interrupting me.

23- Run three times a week. Rain, snow, cold, or shine. This will be tough. As I write this, I have not run in 2.5 weeks as the kids and I have been sick. And winter is tough……)

24- Watch less TV. The hardest one on this list. I love reality TV. I live for my DVR at night. I get giddy thinking about sitting on my couch with my DVR laid out in front of me and the options….oh the options…Gilmore Girls? Real Housewives?? Oprah’s Next Chapter??? But she is interviewing Usher!!…so this will be hard. It has been a release for me for years since the husband is at work most nights so from now on, I would like to decrease my TV viewing by an hour a night. Eek.

25- learn how to grill.
I know, I know. I know. I do not know how to grill.
There. I said it. I have cooked and baked since I was 12 and I am not afraid to make anything but grilling?
Terrifies me.
Like fetal position in the terrifies me.
So this is my year.
To learn how to grill.
Because I think we all know that nothing impresses your old classmates like grilling skills. (that is sarcasm)

So there is my list.
Don’t you feel you know me a little more than you are comfortable with?
Good, that’s what I wanted.