Senior Year Bucket List!!!

I can’t believe it, but I’m starting my senior year of college! Where, oh where has the time gone? It seems like I was just a bright-eyed freshman who was excited to begin the journey of life after high school! I have been blessed with a relatively wonderful college experience, minus the fact that I am always taking impossible challenging math classes! I know that this year will be full of all kinds of great things, and I cannot wait for it to begin!!!

I (obviously) love lists, so I've decided to make a list of fun things that I want to do with my friends during my senior year! I really hope that I can make them happen, and it’ll be fun to see what other fun things I can add to it in May!

Visit the Shrine of the Infant Jesus of Prague on Pilgrimage Sunday: Fun fact, I have a devotion to the Infant Jesus of Prague! It started back in November of last year, when one of my friends introduced me to it. Basically, my devotion consists of praying a novena prayer for the Infant’s intercession and ever since I have begun praying it consistently, lots of wonderful things have happened, and my prayers have all been answered in the best way possible! Every month, the shrine hosts a special Mass during the time of the month when the novena prayers are prayed. Of course, the shrine is located in Prague, OK, which is also where my Aunt Genevieve and Uncle Joe live, so it would be a two-fold trip! I could go on and on about this devotion, but I’ll just leave the link to the shrine website, where you can read all about the beginning of this devotion back in Prague, Czechoslovakia! (Shrine of the Infant Jesus of Prague Website)

Tie-Dye T-Shirts: Why yes, I want to tie-dye t-shirts! Surprisingly, I have NEVER tie-dyed and I have had an insatiable urge to do so since the middle of the spring semester! Maybe it seems bizarre for a twenty-one-year-old to tie-dye, but I don’t care! :) I’m excited, and I think that I've found a few friends who will want to join me in the fun! Also, they have tie-dyed before, so I won’t be going into it totally blind! On a related note, I've learned how to bleach-dye shirts, and have already made two…I might be kind of obsessed :) But, I’m still excited to learn this method of dying shirts…I can’t wait!

Go Skeet Shooting: This could be the most random thing on my list, because I've never really had any sudden urge to go skeet shooting, but I think that it could be fun, especially if I get a group of people to join me! I’m not entirely sure where I will go to do this, but I’m hoping that it’ll fall into place! An acceptable alternative to this plan is to visit a shooting range in case it’s too difficult/pricey to make this dream happen right now! Either way, I’m sure that it’ll be great, or at least, I hope it is!

Host Wine & Cheese Night: So, I have done this one already, but I really want to do it again! It was a blast last time, and I’m sure that it’ll be just as great the next time! Before I do that, I need to find some fancy-ish new recipes to try that I can easily make for, say, fifteen to twenty people! Also, I’d like to take a few of my wine-tasting classes so that I can maybe have an idea of good wine pairings for the menu! Maybe this time if I have people come over, it won’t be snowy/icy like it was last time, so that we can have double the seating space and use both inside AND outside! (I’m going to have to try to figure this out for some time relatively soon so it isn't terribly cold out!) I’d love any fun recipe suggestions, also!

Visit St. Gregory’s Abbey: I have no real reason that I want to visit the abbey in Shawnee, besides the fact that I've never been, and it sounds like it’d be a fun day trip! Maybe I could squeeze that into my trip to Prague? We’ll see!

Participate in a Campus 5K/Actually Work Out: I realize how lame this might sound, but I HAVE to start actually working out! I’m not going to be twenty-one with a decent metabolism forever and if I stop now, I’ll never want to start again! They always have tons of cool 5K events on campus, including a Midnight Glow Run that I’d really like to participate in, so we’ll see! Rebecca has told me that she would love to have someone to go to the Colvin with, so I’m really hoping that we can make time to make this happen! Now is the time!!!

Learn How to Make Gluhwein: My good friend Andrea (from church, of course) is from Italy, and he always is making all kinds of fun, authentic Italian/European treats for us. In the past, he has made some AMAZING pasta dishes, among other things, but one of my favorites was gluhwein! Gluhwein, in case you didn't know, is a warm beverage that is made from red wine and you cook it with cinnamon sticks, cloves, and oranges, and you finish it off by burning the alcohol off! Technically, you don’t have to burn the alcohol off, but since there were a couple of us who were underage, he did that so that everyone could enjoy it. He has promised me that he’ll teach me to make it, so here’s hoping that we can make that happen!

Here’s to a great year, and lots of fun times! I’d love to hear any other fun ideas you can throw my way! I’m up to the challenge!!!