It's January 1st - Time to Dust off the Life List!

"New Year's Day: Now is the accepted time to make your regular annual good resolutions.  Next week you can begin paving hell with them as usual."  Mark Twain


I searched and searched this morning for my "Bucket List" that I wrote long before the movie ever existed, and was pleased as punch to miraculously dig it out from among the 6,922 emails in my inbox.  (Email organization is one of my resolutions, don't worry.) 

Besides the usual resolutions I'm making for myself (lose weight, be more patient, help others more, yada yada yada), I wanted to revisit the list I started when I was 19.  That was back when I believed it was possible "to be the best I can be at everything".  I'm a little older and a little more realistic, but boy do I still love the idea of having a list like this.  We did an exercise similar to this at a supervisors' offsite last year, and the speaker wanted each person to come up with 100 things to write in his/her "dream notebook".  There were people at my table who struggled with creating ten dreams, let alone 100.

No matter how old you are, I hope that 2010 is a year for you to dream your dreams and live them!

So enjoy my list and feel free to steal my ideas.  Not the dumb ones though - you may laugh at those.  If there are smarty-pants comments next to the dream, then it's appropriate to laugh.  My dreams, my rules. 

What Do I Want to Accomplish in My Life?

(in no particular order of importance)

8/22/02
1. Speak Spanish fluently
2. Speak Italian
3. Get married  July 2007
4. Have children  Jack, 10/5/2011 :)
5. Set up a scholarship fund
6. Visit all 50 states - (18 left as of 1/1/12 - airport layovers don't count.)
7. Own a business
8. Go to Wimbeldon
9. Attend the Masters and US Open golf tournaments  (Open - June 2010)
10. Break 80 for 18 holes of golf
11. Own a professional football team  (I had better come up with an idea for some serious cash flow...)
12. Travel Europe   January 2004
13. Pull many people up to my socioeconomic level/give them a spiritual and financial boost
14. Set up a foundation
15. Enter a tennis tournament and win
16. Complete scrapbooks
17. Make quilts and donate them for charity auctions/other worthy causes
18. Be a wedding/party planner    (if I'm going for an informal party planner, I'd say this one is covered)
19. Earn a college degree  May 2005
20. Keep in touch with friends and family
21. Write a novel
22. Learn how to sail
23. Own a house on Martha’s Vineyard
24. Get a Harvard MBA (ah-hem, how about a UIndy MBA?  Chhhh-eck!)  Dec. 2009
25. See a Broadway play
26. Visit all the major cities in the US
27. Write a screenplay
28. Be awarded Sagamore of the Wabash
29. Read all the books that interest me  (mmmm-hmmm, right)
30. Share love of music with children
31. Build Mom and Dad a new house
32. Build a house for someone less fortunate
33. Renovate houses
34. Coach a team
35. Run in a marathon/mini marathon 2004-2009; Monumental Marathon 11/6/10 
36. Learn as much as I can
37. Build a dollhouse
38. Take Baleigh to tea at the American Girl Café in Chicago (Not tea, but we were there in Feb. 2007)
39. Be the best I can be at everything  (right, this is attainable)
40. Live a long and happy life

Added 11/17/02
41. Organize CD collection    (CDs are now irrelevant, so that takes care of this one!)
42. Graduate with Latin distinction  (Too late....waaaaaa-waaaaa.  Shouldn't have had so much fun my last semester of undergrad I guess : /)
43. Pass the CPA Exam  June 2009
44. Work for the Indianapolis Colts
45. Learn how to play the piano

Added 4/7/2003
46. Learn how to knit
47. Finish all my sewing projects
48. Start a literacy program
49. Write an article and be published
50. Go to Law school
51. Design clothes
52. Design a website

Added 2/16/2005
53. Compete in a triathlon
54. Cycle across the United States
55. Be a Big Sister
56. Go to New York    Feb. 2004 and Nov. 2005
57. Go to Boston  June 2008
58. Go to Seattle  September 2009
59. Read the entire Bible
60. Read the Koran
61. Go skydiving   (eh, not feeling this one anymore...)

Added 4/25/2005
62. Climb a mountain or a really big hill  August 2010, Flattop Mountain, 12,354 feet
63. Be a contestant on Jeopardy
64. Learn how to swing dance
65. Go to Australia
66. Go to New Zealand

Added 6/4/2005
67. Visit all 7 continents (3 down, 4 to go)
68. See the Aurora Borealis
69. Visit Stonehenge
70. Go to Italy     March 2009
71. Go white water rafting  August 2010 - Poudre River, Ft. Collins, CO - Class III and IV
72. Dive the Great Barrier Reef
73. Sip a mint julep at the Kentucky Derby
74. Travel the Nile in Egypt/Victoria Falls
75. Ride a mule down the Grand Canyon 

I am referring to #s 61, 72 and 75 as "Things I wanted to do when I had no concern for personal safety"

76. See the Taj Mahal at sunrise
77. Walk the Inca Trail at Macchu Picchu
78. Ride a steamboat down the Mississippi
79. Go to Niagara Falls
80. Eat a cheeseburger in paradise
81. See Coldplay in concert  August 2005
82. Organize all Mom’s recipes

Added 1/1/2010
83. Run a mini under 2:30    5/7/2010
84. Visit all the Presidential libraries   (LBJ, Clinton, Eisenhower, Truman down, 9 more to go)
85. Serve on a not-for-profit board
86. Drive through New England in the fall
87. Pay a visit to our fallen heroes at Normandy
88. See the real life Memphis Belle
89. Drink wine in Napa Valley  (June 2010)
90. Buy a pair of designer jeans  (April 2010: no one said your dreams couldn't be superficial and materialistic..)
91. Be the director of a NFP
92. Walk El Camino, a 500-mile walk between southern France and Spain
93. Go to Taste of Chicago
94. See Dollyworld and Graceland
95. Go on an Alaskan cruise
96. Finish decorating our house
97. Go on a mission trip
98. Visit a Heifer International site
99. Start a Random Acts of Kindness blog
100. Teach Bonnie how to come inside when we call her.  :)  (We're close enough)