My Bumper Bucket List Just Got Longer!

A number of years ago a very dear friend of mine broke the news that she was moving to the other side of South Africa, to the concrete Jungle of Johannesburg, 1393km’s away. It was a bitter pill to swallow and just added to the number of awesome, amazing friends I now have scattered all over the world.

Yesterday, much to my delight, she arrived back in Cape Town for another holiday. There is just something special about friends who can be apart for so long and yet when they come together it’s like no time has passed at all. I’m blessed to have a number of friends like this. Needless to say, last night was spent laughing, oooh’ing and aaah’ing and chatting till the cows come home while drinking red wine of course!

It was while I was cooking dinner that my lovely friend disappeared into one of the bedrooms and came back holding a beautiful gift book bound with a blue ribbon. Holding a knife in one hand and a vegetable in the other I squealed while waving the knife and vegetable around, not quite knowing what to do with the items in my hand as she held it out to me saying “I have a small gift for you.”

There in her hand was a book called “Your Bucket List” and in the pages beneath the cover it details 150 Must-Do Experiences in Southern Africa. Cooking forgotten temporarily, the two of us poured over the book getting excited about all the new Bucket List items that are going to get added to my list.

My beautifully bound gift with a whole lot more adventures to add to my every-growing Bucket List!

Before we knew it, our pinky fingers were entwined and we were pinky swearing on the bucket list item that we are going to do together. Because of future plans in both our lives that we are currently working on, we pinky ‘swore’ on a 5-year plan to tick off this bucket list item together and it was unanimously agreed, and I wouldn’t expect anything less, we are going ALL out on this one!

Honestly, there is nothing I love more than crazy friends who are right up there with you for an adventure of a lifetime!

I love that fact that in this book of 150 Must-Do Experiences I have already experienced a number of experiences listed but I am so excited to get busy with the one’s I have yet to complete. Some of the one’s I have already done are:

#12 Climb Lions Head by Moonlight

#26 Visit penguins at Boulders Beach

#44 Explore the Tsitsikamma Section of the Garden Route National Park

#55 Drive the Sani Pass

#66 See a rhino in the wild

#74 Get rocked at Sun City

#88 Have a drink at the highest pub in southern Africa (In Lesotho)

#93 Get to the bottom of the Fish River Canyon in Namibia (I did one better than that actually, I hike the whole freaking canyon!)

#147 Climb Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania

And who’s to say I can’t do them all over again! Plus there are so many crazy-exciting ones still to do and the great thing is in a little box at the bottom of each page it details an alternative if you are not able to do the main one listed. I can’t wait to get started on these new additions.

If you want your life to be a magnificent story, then begin by realizing that you are the author and everyday you have the opportunity to write a new page.” ~ Mark Houlahan

A beautiful inscription written to me inside the front cover of the book will forever remind me of that moment Marlize handed me the book in my kitchen as I cooked dinner for us. Even more beautiful, scattered throughout the pages of the book are miniature gold-coloured stars ~ forever little reminders as they fall out and catch the light that life is worth squeezing out every drop of juice and living it to the fullest.

One thing is for certain, catching up with dear, old friends always seems to remind me that while so much changes in certain areas of your life, some things always stay the same.

The beautiful inscription my friend wrote to me inside the front cover.

Thank you for my beautiful, beautiful gift my friend.

At the rate I am going, I am going to live FOREVER!

Here’s to adventure and my bucket list getting ever longer. :)

~ All Photos By Me ~

Life in Mid-Air

“I have come to accept the feeling of not knowing where I am going. And I have trained myself to love it. Because it is only when we are suspended in mid-air with no landing in sight, that we force our wings to unravel and alas begin our flight. And as we fly, we still may not know where we are going to. But the miracle is in the unfolding of the wings. You may not know where you’re going, but you know that so long as you spread your wings, the winds will carry you.” ~ C. JoyBell C

Things don’t always go according to plan. Sometimes we appear to get lost along the way. Not quite sure exactly where we are going. In moments like these you have got to enjoy the flight and ask yourself would you like an adventure now or would you like to have your tea first? I know what I would choose!

Sometimes we need to stop and sit still.

In those moments we need to listen.

Because that is when the breezes from a whole other world

Begin to whisper.

And then

We realise

That when we surrender

Something amazing begins to happen.

We melt into a deeper dimension

Another world,

A realm of power that is already within us.

Everything softens as we soften.

Everything changes as we change.

And just as we choose to love the world around us.

The world loves us back.

Ultimately, life is a balance of what we can control and what we cannot. Learn to live between effort and surrender and allow your life to test you through the great adventure of your life for it will show you what you are truly capable of.

 ~ I hope if you need to read, this you find this post. May the lessons of life slide through you and may you not worry about what you don’t understand. Trust the velcro of your soul to attach what you need to know from any one moment to the next. Sometimes it’s ok to not know what’s next and to choose to be ok in the in-between. Happy ChooseDay everyone! ~

Pic from Favim