I LOVE THE 80S!

We are living in, in a material world, and I am a material girl.  Material! (Singsongy).  I am also Jessie's girl, and am totally with the band!

So my friend Katie, who has the best taste in bands, brought us to Cardiac Cafe, I mean Caddilac Cafe, to hear this amazingly, fun band - Werewolf.  I am in love with the band, and pretty much told everyone I met that night how much I loved them.  I'm not really sure they loved me as much after I spilled Captain and Diet all over the singer's sheet music.  Whoops!  My apologies.  If you're reading this, I totally owe you a beer, but one that will remain in the bottle, and not all over your stuff.

Embarassing Proof to come later, since Blogger is not allowing me to post photos. 

I also managed to score an invite to the Spanish Town Parade with one of my new, super cool friends.  Yays!  Gotta love Mardi Grasing, and fellow fun people who love the 80s!

Cheers to making new friends, 80s style!  (Disregard the fact that I was born in the 90s.  Who's counting?)

P.S. I vote that Werewolf has an 80s night where we can dress Molly Ringwald style.  What!?! 

The Not-So-Armageddon Bucket List

Although the world is still spinning, and the Mayans were wrong, wrong, wrong, I decided it would be fun to make a list of 100 things you should do, just in case it was all a big trick and tomorrow is truly the end of the world.  So here is my "The End of the World Didn't Happen, but Could Still Happen, so Just in Cases" bucket list:

1. Create a secret language, so that only you and your best friend will know what you're talking about, just in case you need it for communicating during the actual end of the world.  Note, Pig Latin is a not-so-secret language, so don't be lazy people.
2. Skinny dip in a lake on a whim.  Hopefully, with good luck, it will be Lake Tahoe.
3. Take a swamp tour under the mossy trees in my lovely home state of Louisiana.
4. Dye your hair hot pink.  Why not?  It's super sassy!
5. Meet Honey Boo Boo and tell her that "She better redneckonize!"
6. Be an extra in a movie, and then make the director realize you are leading lady material.
7. Take more candid pictures.  Enough of the posing.  We. get. it. already!  You're pretty standing there smiling in your cookie cutter sorority pose.  Show some originality.
8. Pay it forward, and then some.
9. Drive a race car, and wear the cute racer outfit.
10. Take a chartered flight over Hawaii.
11. Skydive in Interlaken, Switzerland.
12. Hang glide over Christ the Redeemer in Rio de Janeiro.
13. Start a flashmob.
14. Buy Prada, Gucci and Louis, and look super fabulous while wearing it.  Take that Gisele!  Carrying these lovelies makes me way hotter than you.
15. Kiss a tall, dark, and handsome stranger, and then walk away.
16. Learn the choreography to the dance moves in the movie Burlesque.  That is tres hot, hot, hot!
17. Have an entirely custom made wardrobe.
18. Learn salsa, foxtrot, and tango and be oh so oooh la laaaa...
19. Buy something tres shee shee.
20. Give the person you love a scavenger hunt gift across your city.
21. Become a trapeze artiste, doing all the flippy flips like an "O" star, and be O-mazing!
22. Go to Mardi Gras, Festival International, Greek festival, etc.
23. Rent Disney World after hours!
24. Live in someone else's shoes for a day, and then help that person later.
25. Spend an evening outside under the stars.
26. Visit nature monthly, and remind yourself it's not just a concrete world.
27. Feel the rhythm! Feel the rhyme! Get on up, its bobsled time!
28. Play secret santa throughout the entire year, helping those in need.
29. Read a classic.
30. Respect your elders, and listen to their stories.  You may learn something from their pasts.
31. Pray and worship.  Realize God is real, and he is bigger than comprehension.  In Christ, all things are possible.
32. See a shooting star, and make a wish, believing it will come true.
33. Impulsively take a weekend trip out of the blue.
34. Hug those who are sad.  They may need it.
35. Go on an African safari, and see a cheetah in its natural glory, but don't try to pet it, crazy!
36. Learn a new DIY skill, and create something all by your lonesome.
37. Build a snowcat.  Snowmen are overdone, afterall.
38. Swim with the dolphins.
39. Have a monkey for a pet.
40. Learn a magic trick.
41. Meet Bradley Cooper, Gerard Butler, and Rodrigo Santoro.  Lord have mercy!
42. Fall in love.
43. Take a trip to the moon.
44. Save a life.
45. Spend a night in a medieval castle.
46. Fly a plane, Maverick.
47. Pet a penguin.
48. Travel the world.
49. Break a leg!  Direct a play.
50. Rendezvous across the U.S. East Coast during Fall.
51. Buy a blue topaz ring from Tacori, and then give it to me, of course.
52. Build a shabby chic tree house.
53. Kiss in the rain.
54. Scuba dive in Maaya Thila in the Maldives, and find Nemo.
55. Stay in the Constance Moofushi Resort, Maldives and take a Robinson Crusoe, private island day trip.
56. Surf's Up!  Learn this super cool water sport.
57. Start a fire with nothing but a flint, and be completely bad ass.
58. Deep sea fishing in St. Lucia, and catch a shark.  Be sure to release.
59. Become fascinated with history.
60. Participate in the Color Run in New Orleans.
61. Visit the Eiffel Tower, Italy, Greece and Spain.
62. Traverse to Gallagher's Pub in Antarctica, and watch the penguins from the window.  Dress warmly!
63. Build a cozy cottage home, complete with a double-sided fireplace in the master bedroom.  Be sure to plant a beautiful English garden, but you better hire a gardener to keep it up if you have a black thumb like I do.
64. Leave a note in a library book, containing a $100 bill.
65. Run through a field of wildflowers while having your picture taken.  Super cheesy, I know, but I don't care.
66. Go to the Tiger Temple in Thailand and hold a baby tiger.  Pretty please, may I have one?  My cat is super bad anyways, so I'm pretty sure he's close to the real thing. 
67. Become a tourist in my own state by spending the night at The Myrtles, followed by a New Orleans tour and Magazine Street shopping.  Finish it off with the Davenport Lounge.  Laissez le bon temps rouler!
68. Own a pair of Louboutins, and flaunt them sassy!
69. Throw a dart at a map, and travel wherever it lands.
70. Stay in an over water bungalow, complete with glass floors, at The Four Seasons Resort in Bora Bora.  It's sexy, sexy.
71. Stay the night in a castle.  This might be listed twice, but it's reinforcement.
72. Visit the Sistine Chapel.
73. Go to a drive-in movie.
74. Become a wine connoisseur.
75. Compose a song.
76. Experience weightlessness.
77. Become a travel writer.
78. Attend the Loy Krathong, the sky lantern festival in Thailand.
79. Spend the night in a bungalow in The Amazon Rainforest.
80. Live in a foreign country for a year.
81. See the Leaning Tower of Pisa, and resist taking any cheesy pictures.
82. Tour the Taj Mahal.
83. Tour the Louvre.  C'est magnifique!
84. Learn to sculpt... Ditto. (Those of you raised in the 90s know what I'm talking about... Ghost anyone?)
85. Read the complete works of Shakespeare.
86. Watch every movie that has won the Cannes Film Festival’s Palme d’Or.
87. Create a happiness project.
88. Meet Jennifer Weiner, Elizabeth Gilbert, Jen Lancaster, and Barbara Kingsolver - my favorite authors.
89. Write and publish a novel.
90. Charter a yacht.
91. Vacation at Martha's Vineyard.
92. Spend a week at a 5-star spa in either Arizona or Mexico.  Heads or tails, possibly?
93. Have high tea at The Plaza Hotel in New York.
94. Become an art collector, but an unpretentious one.
95. Become financially literate.
96. Own a villa in Tuscany, like "Under the Tuscan Sun," one of my largest influences in life.
97. Have a seafoam green shotgun house with hot pink shutters located in New Orleans, overhung with a huge, mossy Oak tree.
98. Spend a week in New York, and go to a Broadway show every night.
99. Attend an opera at the Scala of Milan.
100. Fly to Japan during the Cherry Blossom Festival.

P.S. I know the Mayans did not actually say that it would be the end of the world, simply the end of a lunar cycle, so don't get your panties in a wad, those who take all blog postings seriously, and start sending me hate emails or crazy questions.

What's on your bucket list? 

Sassy Planning,
Rachael

It's 2013... Now what?

For every new year there is a time for reflection, and for 2013, I'm going to attempt to actually follow through with some resolutions.  However, I believe in positive reflection.  It's time to stop beating ourselves up over the past, and start living and evolving into our best selves.  So here goes to making 2013 even better than the last.

1. Budget with the realization that life is also to be lived, but doing so responsibly.
2. Continue to travel, hoping those travels lead me to Chicago and New York City.
3. Support the arts.  Attend the symphony, ballet, contemporary dance performances, museums, and more.
4. Give back, and reflect on all the reasons I need to be grateful.  I have been very blessed.  I plan to help my city by working with Hands on Baton Rouge, and possibly an animal shelter.
5. Learn to bake and invest in a good set of knives and cookware.
6. Teach myself moderation in all things.  I have recently become very addicted to shopping online for home decor and clothes.  Alas, I do look fabulous, and my place is super sassy.
7. Continue my interest in fashion, and actually post some of my new, fabulous outfits. 
8. Actually find a workout I enjoy, and become as hot on the outside as I feel on the inside.  I do suffer from high self-esteem.
9. Perfect my public speaking skills, or at least learn to prevent myself from turning beet red.
10. Learn to cook healthily, yet beautifully.
11. Commit to re-learning playing the piano, starting with "Fur Elise."
12. Learn to speak Italiano, which I committed to previously, but have not been dedicated.
13. Which leads to becoming more disciplined.
14. Relish the simple pleasures, starting with waking up earlier, and enjoying a simple cup of coffee and a chapter of a book.  There's something about starting your day off on a positive note.
15. Recycle.
16. Create a collage.  Begin conceptualizing a a premise for my novel.  Have a creative outlet.
17. Find the perfect mirror for my living room.
18. I resolve to stop stressing so much.  It solves nothing. 
19. Find the love that I deserve, and have the ability to be vulnerable enough to return it.
20. Become a better friend, because I am truly blessed to have friends that are like family.
21. Spend more time with my family, and realize how lucky I am to have such a great one.
22. Be spontaneous, and not just with impulse purchases.
23. Start or join a cooking club, book club, dinner club, and game club.
24. Become more socially involved in my city.
25. Last, but not least.  Take a chance.

Cheers to 2013, and may it be sassier than the last.

xoxoxo ~ Rachael