Hi, my name is Jenn and I'm terrible at being consistent....

I haven't written a blog in ages but it's the new year and my main new years resolution is to be more productive.  As I was finishing wiping my kitchen counters down after cleaning it, I started thinking about my 40 before 40 list.  I've had to revise a few and I've completed a few more.  It's all very exciting, well to me at least.

Let's start with the revisions.
Number 4. One month vow of silence.  When I initially wrote the 40 before 40 list, Jack Jack wasn't in the picture.  I can honestly say that it'll be impossible for my to have a two through six (depending on when I'm able to do it) year old boy running around with a silent mom for 30 days.  This 40 before 40 item is really important to me so I don't want to scrap the whole thing.  I'm going to do a one week vow of silence instead.  I believe that's more realistic.

Number 7. Great White Shark tank dive.  I'm adding this one to the list very begrudgingly.  I was looking so forward to doing this but alas, not going to happen.  A couple of months ago I was in the mall with a girl friend and they were doing virtual reality demos, YES PLEASE!  We each tried it out.  If you guessed that the demo was a shark tank dive then you get a shiny gold star.  The demo started with me in a diving cage, super cool and my first thought was obviously "I hope I get to see a shark!" The beginning of the dive was great, I saw some sea turtles, lots of fish, then the cage goes deeper and it gets a little darker but still alright.  I saw some jelly fish some more creatures and a sunken pirate ship and then the cage goes deeper and gets even darker.  Have I mentioned that I'm scared of the dark in my past posts?  Well I am, absolutely terrified, like a small child.  Anyways, back to the virtual reality, my heart starts racing, I just know that something is going to pop out and I start looking for "it" for "it" spooks me.  Terrible idea, out of the corner of my eye, in the shadows, a shark swims by.  Now I don't know if you've tried a really good virtual reality set up before, let me tell you, it's incredible.  You can look up, down, every direction, you're completely immersed and you're wearing huge headphones so all of the sounds just add to the experience.  Now the girl helping me with all of this has a big flat screen tv that shows her what I'm looking at.  Back to me, my heart is racing even faster because I'm so floored by how realistic everything I'm seeing and hearing is and BAM a shark comes up from underneath me and turns away at the last second, I was so scared that I had my feet up (I was in a chair thank goodness or I would have fallen over for sure).  So at this point I'm trying extra hard not to see the shark coming and I have my head cocked to the left looking at the emptiness of the deep ocean and it dawns on me that she can see what I'm looking at and that I must look like an absolute fool, I almost start to laugh at myself when a fucking shark comes out of literally nowhere and hits the cage!  I start screaming "GET THIS OFF OF ME, I'M DONE I'M DONE!" I hear this poor 19 year old girl telling me that it's going to be ok and to just close my eyes but she's so muffled because of the headphones and I can still hear everything and I can't close my eyes because then I might get eaten  . ahhhh she gets it all off of me and I very quickly remember that I'm in the middle of South Centre mall.  After that little episode I realized that there's no way in hell I could do in a shark cage, I was so scared I was almost crying, my girl friend was comforting but definitely had a few laughs.  Side note, she watched the whole demo, she's so brave!

Number 11. Follow a random semi truck for 7 days.  There's so many reasons why this one unfortunately has to be removed.  I still think it would be a wild or boring or funny adventure but let's look at the facts.  I'm a mom of 3 kids, if I get a chance to be away for 7 days that's probably not the most productive use of my free time.  It's also not necessarily the safest idea that I've ever had. . . so, it's gone.

Number 25. Perform a set at Coasters.  This is probably my favourite item on my 40 before 40 list.  I have every intention of completing it, just needs a little fine tuning.  I don't foresee getting a band together for reasons that are out of my control.  I've come up with a couple of ideas that might work.  Hubby and I do a set at an open mic night or maybe guest sing with my favourite local band.  I'm not exactly sure how I'm going to do this one but I'm going to sing on a stage with a band and I'm going to have a blast and a half doing it!

Number 27. Watch an American Civil War reenactment.  There's a place in Calgary that does war reenactments!  Why on earth does the war reenactment that I watch have to be an American one?? Silly me.



That's it!  Those are my revisions!  As for the ones that I can add to the DONE list, I'm adding number 7 shark tank dive, it felt real to me and number 20 jump off a high dive.  Holy moly!  They are so much higher than I thought.  I was swimming with my mom and girls and with a little (or maybe a lot) of encouragement from my Mommy I pushed myself and did it.  It took me a while to get the nerve to do it once I was standing on the edge of giant concrete diving platform, so long that I started attracting a bit of an audience which just made it so much worse.  I planned on just stepping off but I did a little run and jump then promptly closed my eyes and screamed.  The adrenaline I felt after was great!  So much that just thinking about it gives me a rush!

I have been working very slowly on my 40 before 40 list as the last couple of years have been pretty distracting, pregnancy, three kids instead of two, all that jazz.  We've gotten into a nice routine now and life is feeling more organized than it has been in a very long time.  I'm planning on adding my last five 40 before 40 items by the end of February and completing numbers 8, 14, 15 (possibly 16), 19, 32, 33 and 35 this year.  Stay tuned!