Tattoos and Goals

Yesterday, someone at work mentioned that they'd always wanted to get a tattoo. I talked about my experience and how excited I was to finally get my long-awaited tattoo. Since that tattoo is marathon- related (and I'm a blogger, so it's kind of my thing), I thought I'd share:

 

At first, I hesitated to go through with it because our family is pretty conservative and my parents aren't very fond of tattoos. This took me a long time to get past, but it helps that we were in Seattle and told them over the phone (sorry Mom, I know you're reading). Then, I wanted an accomplishment worth commemorating. It was going to be the half marathon, but once that was done, it didn't seem like a big enough deal. After I decided to tackle the marathon, I knew that was the accomplishment I'd been waiting for. Finally, I came across this sketch and knew that was it. 

Yes, I'm hiding love handles.

About ten years ago, I made a list of things I wanted to accomplish in my life (this was before the term "bucket list" became popular"). The conversation I had at work reminded me of this. Naturally, I couldn't find the list, but I remember several of the items on it (conveniently mostly the ones I've completed). It is fun to look back at the goals you once had and think about how much you've accomplished and how many experiences you've had since then.

Get one small tattoo. When I put this on the list, I remember that in the back of my mind, I thought that I'd never actually do it. I'm so glad I did!

Travel somewhere that requires flying. At that time, I'd only ever flown to Washington D.C. on a school trip. Cody and I were fortunate enough to get a great deal on a trip to Hawaii when he came back from Basic Training and I sort of thought that would be the only time we ever flew anywhere.

Now - I've been all over the country, traveling mostly by myself for work. If you told my 20 year old self that I would be comfortable navigating large cities and airports by myself, I don't think I would've believed you.

Raise a dog from puppyhood. Of course, we have our Lola, whom we got as a puppy in 2013. Having also adopted an adult dog, I think most of our future pets will be adult rescues. Puppies are a lot of work!

Basset hounds are the cutest puppies.

  
Run in a public race. This one cracks me up. I ran in track my junior and senior year of high school and in cross country my senior year, but I've never been speedy and was self-conscious in such a public setting. At the time, running in an official race seemed like a really big deal and something like running a full marathon hadn't even occurred to me.

Go skydiving. This one, I haven't completed. While I would still like to have the experience, I don't think I could risk it now that we have S.

 Finish my four year degree. I got my Associate's degree in 2005, but I didn't want to spend the money on two more years of school when I didn't have a specific career goal in mind. Now, I'm about one year away from my Bachelor's in Accounting.

Have a mastiff and a blood basset hound. No joke, since I was ten years old, I wanted to have a mastiff named Webster and a blood hound named Lola. A few years later, I swapped out blood hound for basset when I discovered how active blood hounds are and how much activity they need to be happy. Basset hounds are much more my speed.

The couch was his favorite place.

Sure enough, our first dog was a mastiff rescue named Ace and our second dog was Lola. Ace was five when we got him, so we didn't feel right changing his name. He was everything I thought a mastiff would be and so much more. We got five wonderful years with him before he passed away. As soon as S gets a bit older, Cody wants to get another mastiff.

I was talking to Cody about the experiences we've had that we couldn't have imagined: Cody joining the National Guard, living in Seattle for eight months, becoming parents. While there have been hard times as well, we have tons of amazing memories.

I love that there were so many things I never thought would really happen that did. I guess it's time to set some new impossible goals and go after those too. 

What have you accomplished that would surprise your younger self?