101 Things I want to do before I die

This is my bucket list. All the things I'd like to do before I die. Some are silly, some are unrealistic, but all of them are things I'd to get around to doing before I die.

1. Be a mother
2. Go to Naples Italy
   
3. Skydive
4. Take a road trip to CA
5. Stay at Disney's Wilderness Lodge
6. Learn to play the piano
7. Learn Italian
8. Bake a cake from scratch
9. Go to Vegas
10. See Beatles Love
11. Attend a taping of the Martha Steward Show.
12. Go to a Sun's game
13. Do a mission's trip.
14. Learn to fly a plane
15. Knit a scarf
16. Learn First Aid and CPR(again)
17. Take Daniel to DC
18. Take a cruise (We have our first one planned for Nov)
    
19. Take a trip on a train
20. Dress up for a costume party
21. See the cherry blossoms in Japan
22. Sleep in a hammock
23. Go camping
24. Go snorkeling
25. Sit on a jury
26. Own a Louis Vuitton
27. Kiss the Blarney Stone
28. Take ballroom dancing lessons
29. Do fire walking
30. See the Northern Lights
31. See the Fjords of Norway
32. Go to the Pike Place Market in Seattle
33. Read the Bible cover to cover
34. Learn to let go of anger
35. Unplug the TV for a month
36. Dye my hair red
37. Take a vacation without a camera
38. Buy something nauseatingly extravagant
39. Go to a film premiere
40. Travel to Ireland
41. Renew my vows with Daniel on a beach just the two of us
42. Do a Polar Plunge
43. Visit the White House
44. Visit Buckingham Palace
45. Have a reason to wear a ball gown
46. Own a really good camera
47. Ride in a Limo
48. Ride the London Eye
49. Watch the sunrise at a beach
50. Watch the sunset at a beach
51. Achieve my ideal weight
52. Play a round of Golf
53. Take a social etiquette class
54. Fly First Class
55. Learn sign language
56. Take a trip with my Mom
57. Take a carriage ride in Central Park
58. Watch all 6 Star Wars movies back-to-back
59. Try and "In & Out" burger
60. Log 100 hours on the Wii Fit
61. Use a metal detector at the beach
62. Spend the day at a spa
63. Go canoeing
64. See Phantom of the Opera on Broadway
65. Drive a wickedly cool car
66. Take my parents to dinner
67. Play Poker at The Orange Park Poker Room
68. Wear a bikini in public
69. See the Taj Mahal
70. Receive flowers for no reason
71. Toured the UN
72. Rent the Hermes Vintage Crocodile Kelly Handbag
73. Attend at least one major sporting event: the Super Bowl, the Olympics, the U.S. Open.
    
74. Go back to college and graduate
75. Meet my half-brother
76. Live in New Orleans
77. Be on Jeopardy
78. Have over 1,000 entries on my blog
79. Forgive
80. Be admired by at least someone other than Daniel
81. Paint more
82. Sell one of my paintings
83. Meet either of the two remaining Beatles
84. Stop drinking soda
85. Go on a full-blown Shopping Spree at a Mall
86. Finish my year in photo's
87. Raise my children as my mother did me.
88. Buy a "little black dress"
89. Have a beach bonfire
90. Score a YouTube hit
91. Touch a pyramid in Egypt
92. Go fishing on a boat
    
93. Go completely organic
    
94. Finish reading Devil Wears Prada
95. Be in a movie
96. Rent a house at the beach
97. Own a copy of Dance in the City and Dance in the Country by Renoir
98. Buy two more pairs of Tom's shoes
99. Learn proper posture
100. Own an expensive piece of jewelry
101. Never make a list like this again. 101 things? Man it's harder then it looks.
     
     

Who am I part 2.

As some of you no doubt know I'm adopted. I was adopted at birth (within minutes of my first breath) and was raised by my parents William and Carolyn. As you can no doubly tell it's never been a secret in our family that I was adopted. My parents after struggling to have children were finally given the chance to be parents.

My birth was something of a whispered secret on the military base where I was born. My (birth) mother wasn't married to my father at the time and from what I later learned he was abusive. They were also of difference ethnic backgrounds. My mother decided that what would be best for everyone involved was to place me for adoption. My (adopted) parents doctor knew of my parents struggle and talked to them about adopting me. After some genetic testing to find out my dominate traits* the doctors decided to give me to my parents. My parents had about a week to prepare for their new bundle of joy and my mother went crazy baby shopping.

After my birth my parents went through the legal hoops to finalize the adoption. Since I was technically an Italian being adopted by Americans my fathers transfer out of Italy was a problem. I wasn't legally their kid so my birth mother had to fill out all kinds of papers to let me be taken from the country. The Italian government also requires 3 years of home studies before the adoption could be finalized. So after 3 years I was officially their kid.

Growing up I never thought anything of being adopted it was more a problem of my mixed background. People were confused when they saw us out and my mother remembers someone thinking she was my nanny. Over the years I wondered about my (birth) mother. If I had any siblings out there. My (adopted) mother is also adopted so she understood my need for answers. In my teen rebellion phase I uttered the one statement all adopted parents dread...you're not my real parents anyway and my mother and I have had our struggles. Friends mostly didn't care( the military breeds racism out of you) other then the random your parents don't look anything like you. Into my adult years co-workers were shocked to find out my parents were black (whole other kettle of fish). Dating in the south could be problematic, looking not black while having to explain my black adopted parents cut a few relationships short.

There are funny times like when well meaning sales people make the comment that I look just like my (adopted) mom. We say thanks and laugh about it later.

Overall I think being adopted opens your mind to the whole idea of love. That family isn't just blood. Family is whatever you make it, that friends can become like family. That you can be born into a family but can forge yours out of whatever you want.



* The genetic testing was because if I had white dominate traits I would have been given to a white family. There is this belief that minority children need to be raised by minorities. Even today it's hard for non blacks to adopt black children and vice versa.

Who am I?

This week I have been watching shows about ancestry. All of them have been by Harvard University Prof. Henry Gates Jr. The two shows that I've watched are African American Lives 2 and Faces of America. Both shows are about the ancestry of famous Americans. The first show focuses on African Americans, including Morgan Freeman, Maya Angelou, Chris Rock, Tina Turner and others. Faces of America is more multicultural cast with Stephen Colbert, Yo-Yo Ma, Dr. Oz, Meryl Streep and others. (Both shows are on PBS, highly enjoyable, a nice show to catch).

Watching these shows make me wonder about the history of my ancestors. This is where things are tricky. First I'm multi-ethnic. Second I'm adopted. Who's history do I trace? My blood or my life? I know a few things about my adopted families history. On my father's side I'm a distant niece of Frederick Douglas and both sides are the descendants of slaves. Do I claim this as my heritage?

I know a little bit about my birth mother and I have met her and my half sister. I know that their family comes from TX but that is where the trail goes cold. When we visited she didn't want to talk about my birth father other then to say he was married and abusive. So I have half a history on that side. Do I claim this as my heritage?

When you're adopted these are things to wonder to yourself. How will I explain my ancestry to others or to my children?

I'm going to be doing some more blogs on my life as a multi ethnic, adopted Navy brat, so check back with me.

Sick...Sick....Sick...

So after my illness I got excited for my 27th birthday which was on the 19th. I was trying to recreate a birthday that Daniel had done for me where we went to St. Augustine after we eat at Caddyshack at the World Golf Village. We started late and never got to go to St. Augustine. We ended up just going to the Caddyshack and seeing an IMAX. Toward the end of the day I started feeling sick.

The next morning I woke up with a fever and my joints were hurting. I think I ended up with the flu. After a week of having a fever over 101, I finally came out it with just enough strength to make meals and start doing the wash. Today I'm going to try and clean the house a little.

I know to some it feels like we're always sick but I don't think that we are. I think that we get sick worst then other people. Most of the people that we know are parents and get exposed to germs that kids bring home. Since it's just Daniel and I and we don't have kids we don't get exposed to them. I've noticed we only get sick after visiting family on the holidays. Sooooo I donno......

MIA

I know it's been a while since we wrote in the blog but we have reason's. It had been really busy and then I got a bad cold. Here's what you missed.

We celebrated Christmas like last year. We spent Christmas eve with my parents, then came home to unwrap each others gifts and then on Christmas morning we went to Daniel's parents house and then back to my parents. I love doing this because the little kids faces at Christmas is priceless as is my Moms. We over eat and then try to figure out where to put the gifts.

New Years Eve Daniel had a gig. It wasn't too bad. A company had hired us to play music for their employees. It was easy because for 2 hours(out of 4 hours total) we mostly played background music while everyone talked. They were drinking and towards the end of the night a couple of people became rude. The usual stuff of I'm friends with the owner and you need to turn this song off and play one I want. I just roll my eyes. It was really funny when some drunk lady told us to turn off the chicken dance song while their was like 7 or 8 kids dancing to it with their parents. Ahhhh the life of a DJ.(In case you were wondering what you shouldn't say to a DJ I'd recommend you look at this, it holds true to any type of event.)

Then the great cold of 2010 came through the house. Daniel brought in some kind so death sickness. It always works like this. Daniel will get a tiny bit sick, give that sickness to me and I'll spend the next week dying and begging my parents to bring me med's and juice(sometimes having only one car stinks). Then after sleeping a week of my life away I'll get better only to have Daniel get sick again.

So that is where we are today. I'm gonna try to get back into the swing of things with the blog so check back again soon.