My Bucket List

Here's the first draft of my bucket list. What's in yours?

1. Learn to play the guitar

• 2. Grow a serious garden outside my home
• 3. Survive my 20s
• 4. Participate in a public protest
• 5. Own a dalmatian
• 6. Publish a book
• 7. Fall in love
• 8. Wear a wedding dress and walk down an aisle
• 9. Do a half marathon/marathon
• 10. Officiate at the wedding of friends
• 11. Sky dive
• 12. Learn to cook well
• 13. Visit every state
• 14. Compose a full song
• 15. Have children
• 16. Own a record label
• 17. Go to Paris with my bf/husband
• 18. Swim with dolphins
• 19. Hold a monkey
• 20. Go on a coast to coast US road trip
• 
  

31 Day Photo Challenge-Day 15

31 Day Blogging Challenge-Day 15: Post a picture of something you want to do before you die.

I have a lot on my official Bucket List! Several months ago, I blogged about what my friends would do if they had a month left to live, here is a list of things they told me. As for me, here's what I can think of now:

Hot Air Balloons!

Today I'm entering Mama Kat's Photo Of The Week Link Up for the first time. I know this picture doesn't have children or animals in it or for that matter, people, I hope it still counts.

From my earlier post, you'll see that I spent a few hours at the Del Mar racetrack. Suddenly, I looked up and saw all these neat hot air balloons in the sky. It was such a cool sight that I had to capture it. The pictures really don't do it justice but I think you'll get what I mean. It almost didn't even look real and kind of cartoonish like. Riding in a hot air balloon is definitely on my bucket list! Have you done it and if not, do you want to?

Running Post #3

This past weekend, I sent out an email to all my wonderful friends and family, in hopes of encouraging them to donate money to Project AIDS Los Angeles. Like I''ve already mentioned several times before, on September 5th, I'll be running a half marathon for AIDS and I have to raise $2,000 by July 2nd. It's proving to be very difficult to fundraise so I hope that by putting the link here on my blog and having these running updates will create the buzz needed to get more funds. So, please, please donate if you can! If everyone just donated $10, I would be absolutely thrilled!

So, here's this week's letter:

Dear Friends and Family,

So, in case you totally ignored my first email about my decision to run a half marathon, here's what's going on:
I've decided to take on an amazing challenge to help in the fight against HIV/AIDS. Over the next several months, I'll be training to complete the Disneyland Half Marathon, and I'll be raising money to support AIDS Project Los Angeles. I've never done anything like this before, running 13.1 miles. But the work of APLA is so compelling, I feel I need to do my part. Plus, completing a half marathon is on my bucket list! : )

AIDS continues to be a devastating health problem in the United States. At last count, 1.2 million Americans are now living with HIV, and 56,000 more become infected each year. Fortunately, here in Los Angeles, we have an incredible organization that is working hard to stop the spread of HIV. They also provide food and home health care so that people affected by HIV/AIDS can continue to live full and productive lives.

Now that I've gotten all of that info out of the way, I can let you know how my training is going.. Well, running has never been my forté at all but I am starting to really enjoy it. Wow, I never thought that I would say that! The training is going pretty well and I am proud to say that today I ran 5 miles on the training run!! Whew! Just a month ago, I wasn't even able to run 2 miles and today's 5 miles wasn't actually too bad. We now are running with other people in our pace group so it's a lot more fun. We help support each other and make sure that we are all drinking plenty of water.

So, I hope you will support my efforts by making a tax deductible donation. To find out more, please visit my AIDS Marathon Home Page by clicking on the link below. If you have donated already, then, thanks so much! This means the world to me! You are getting lots and lots of good karma coming your way!

Please don't wait to donate, my deadline to raise all the money is coming up soon on July 2nd! I greatly appreciate your support and will continue to keep you posted on my training progress. Next week, I'll be running 6 miles! Whew!

Love,
Leah

Click here to visit my personal page.
If the text above does not appear as a clickable link, you can visit the web address:
http://apla.convio.net/site/TR/Events/NationalAIDSMarathonTrainingProgram-MARATHONONLY?px=1490081&pg=personal&fr_id=1070&et=6T_sLd0xqS8EkL8Pr4DY4g..&s_tafId=7201

1 Month Left

This week's question for my blog was what five things would you do if you found out that you only had a month left to live. I got most of the traditional answers but there were a few interesting ones. Now instead of waiting to do these incredible things, why not try getting to some now?!

• Quit my job in a very dramatic and movie-like way
• Make amends
• Arrange all my final affairs, make sure I had a will set up and all debts were paid off
• Go to Confession
• Travel Tons: India, South of France, Countryside in UK, Russia, Latin America, Maldives, Go back home - Go on an unforgettable trip to somewhere exotic for a week
• Gamble all my money away in Las Vegas
• Have a threesome- My friend gave a few more details but I'll leave those out here : )
• Watch the sunrise and the sunset everyday to remember how beautiful life is
• Do good deeds, give a lot of my time and/or money to those in need
• Make lots of phone calls
• Write letters and look through all my old pictures
• Throw a big party where everyone I know could eat, drink and dance altogether
• Try to fall in love/Get married in Hawaii and have entire family and all my friends be there for it
• Go surfing, swim with sea turtles, visit the Green Sand Beach- Courtney has Hawaii on the brain! : )
• Laugh endlessly
• Do any and all drugs-Ecstasy, Cocaine, Hallucinogens
• Spend time with my family and close friends
• Go home on the next flight to live with my family
• Kiss my family, boyfriend and dog everyday and try to spend most of my time in their embrace
• Go out to eat all the time and eat something exciting for every meal no matter the cost
• Make sure my pets had a good home

"I have already accomplished a large number of things on my bucket list. That is the reason I travel so much and do so many adventurous things (skydiving, scuba diving, white water rafting, etc). At the end of the day my conscious is the only person I have to answer to and if I have not lived my life in accordance with my principles then I can not say I am living a good life. I feel that is something I need to strive for daily. If I were to drastically change one thing I would remove myself from the remote location I am in and spend as much time with those I love as possible." -Courtney

This is why we are friends. She goes out and does the things that most of us talk about doing. I wish I was as courageous and as brave as her. Courtney has an incredible passion for life and I am proud to call her a friend. She maybe this super fun party chick but she is also one of my smartest friends. Not many people can balance the two and she manages to do them both.

At the end of the day, I think we all just want to be able to say that we lived a good life and we made the most of our time here. I want to be able to say that I loved endlessly and I enjoyed everyone in my life. I want to die old and gray and be absolutely content with my life.

A Lingerie Party?!

Ok here goes...I really wasn’t sure how to begin explaining our Saturday night's activity, but the beginning is the best place I guess....

First, you gotta know the back story- After picking up Atalaya up from the airport on Thursday night and going back to my place to change clothes, we head out to a bar called The Saint. We have a couple of drinks there and then we move on to the next place called “Happy Endings”, which I've talked about before on here. While waiting at the valet, a guy runs out of the bar and approaches Atalaya to introduce himself. For the sake of this story we shall call him Charlie. Charlie is an actor, but aren’t they all in LA, but he really is an actor and Atalaya has actually seen some of his work so whatever. He gives her his card and tells her to call him this weekend so he can convince her to move to LA. Yeah, that's exactly what she needs-a random guy telling her what's so great about living here.

So Saturday comes around and we are sightseeing on Hollywood Blvd. Atalaya gets a text from Charlie inviting us to a lingerie party that night. At first, we think of course not but as the day goes on, we start considering it as a possible option for later on in the night. It's the last night we can party and Atalaya wants to live it up! So we head over to Victoria Secret to pick up a couple of things just in case.

Ok, 7:30pm rolls around and we are getting ready to hit up our first stop and Atalaya's phone rings and it's Charlie asking if we have masks (why in the hell would we have masks?). We tell him no and he says he will find us some. He told us we needed to be ready to go by 9:30 because the limos will be leaving by 10pm. Side note: We are just thinking we are going to the Playboy mansion or something like it just…just to celeb watch.

So, we get to the rendezvous point and Charlie is an hour late! He shows up with these awful tissue paper cut-out masks. They were just horrible. Then he goes into the CVS and buys these headbands and cuts eye holes in them…which looked worse than the arts and crafts tissue paper Zorro masks. Any who, the limo appears and we get in. It is myself, Atalaya, Charlie and Steve (Charlie’s friend). We decide to take our chances without the masks. We pull up to this fantastic mansion in the Hollywood Hills. It was absolutely gorgeous! The security guard asks us for the password: We all look at each other like “password?” Anyway, the security guard goes ahead and tells us…it's ”fellatio”.... wow......

We proceed up the driveway and as we enter the house we were glad to see that some people were not wearing masks and everyone had on lingerie so we calmed down. We make our way to the outside pool area and the house over looks LA, I mean the view was amazing. I can’t put into words how nice the house was. We make our way over to the table for a couple of drinks and we begin to mingle. Then I hear “Ron Jeremy just arrived”. I wasn't familiar with who that was so Atalaya quickly informed me and we knew we were in trouble then.... I mean, what kind of a party does a porn star attend?!
We then look over to our right and see a lady dancing in the corner…with no underwear on. OMG. Atalaya's very first LA trip and we are at a SWINGERS party in the Hollywood hills, WTF???!!!!!

So, needless to say, I am instantly scared! What do we do? Are we going to be expected to do anything? Am I safe here? What the hell is going on?! Atalaya and I immediately find Charlie and ask him what in the hell was he thinking bringing us to a swingers party. He told us he had no idea but we knew that he was lying... How could you not know what you were going to if you knew the host?

Unfortunately, we couldn’t exactly leave because the limo ran in shifts, one every hour. The entire time we were at this party, we spent it ducking and dodging all sorts of advances. Other than the bathroom, there was no place we could hide. So we decided we were “with” each other. We weren’t physically with each other but for the purposes of that night, Atalaya was my girlfriend. Which turns out at a swingers party means NOTHING!

We saw so many more things that are just not appropriate for my blog but I think that you get the picture. What a night, right?! I'm still kind of in shock that it all happened in the first place. When I first woke up on Sunday morning, I really thought it was all just a dream. I couldn't seem to get clean enough either on Sunday. Despite feeling completely out of place, awkward, uncomfortable and just plain weirded out by that scene, I totally can respect what these 'swingers' are doing. They are all about free love and enjoying each other bodies very openly. I'm just not interested in that lifestyle myself. This was an experience and I guess it's more thing I can cross off my bucket list.... ; )

Thanks to Atalaya for helping me compose this post! Whew!