I highly recommend making this list as an exercise, whether you choose to make yours public or not.

1. Soak in an outdoor hot tub on a snowy night
2. Eat pizza in Naples
3. Scuba dive
4. Go on a yoga and meditation retreat
5. Write a novel
6. Run a 5K for charity
7. Reupholster at least one item of furniture
8. Go one week without saying anything negative
9. Homeschool Milo for at least one year
10. Record my parents talking about their lives
11. Visit Edinburgh and Scottish highlands
12. Take Milo to Disneyworld and Universal Studios
13. Plant bulbs
14. Have a family portrait taken
15. Take dance lessons
16. Cook injera from scratch
17. Write a children’s book
18. Make 1,000 origami cranes
19. Live debt free
20. Buy one Diane von Furstenberg wrap dress
21. Take Milo to the MOMA
22. Take hot air balloon ride
23. Spend one night in a very fancy hotel
24. Build a tree house with Matthew and Milo
25. Learn to throw pottery
26. Visit redwood forest and drive through the center of a tree
27. Get guacamole tattoo
28. Officiate a wedding ceremony
29. Make bagels from scratch
30. Attend a luau in Hawai’i
31. Cook my way through Mark Bittman’s How to Cook Everything Vegetarian, even the stuff I know like the back of my hand
32. Learn how to surf
33. Do unassisted sky dive
34. Spend a whole day at the Musée d’Orsay, Paris
35. Take trapeze lessons
36. Explore Europe by train
37. See the Aurora Lights in Alaska
38. Make tortillas from scratch
39. Pay back in-laws for help with down payment on our house
40. Celebrate a Thanksgiving at Farm Sanctuary
41. Grow my own pumpkins for Halloween jack-o-lanterns
42. Buy a DSLR and learn how to use it correctly
43. See my favorite live bands perform again: Belle and Sebastian
44. The Dismemberment Plan
45. Tilly and the Wall
46. Will Oldham
47. Create birthday and holiday traditions and memories for Milo that are about family and friends and not getting presents: decorating our tree and public tree lightings
48. Turn some of Milo’s clothes into a quilt
49. Visit Jaipur, India during the winter
50. Build a small wardrobe of well-made, classic staples instead of a large wardrobe of poorly-made clothes
51. Teach a cooking class for children
52. Take classes in landscape design
53. Own my own business
54. Convert basement water heater closet into half-bath with a contractor who will let me help with some of the labor
55. Volunteer for Habitat for Humanity
56. Write thank you cards to women who inspire me
57. Read (or make best attempt to read) all the books on the MLA 100 Best Novels list which I haven’t already read: Brave New World (I KNOW); The Sound and the Fury; Darkness at Noon; Sons and Lovers; Under the Volcano; The Way of All Flesh; 1984 (I KNOW); I, Claudius; To the Lighthouse; An American Tragedy; Invisible Man; Native Son; Henderson the Rain King; Appointment in Samarra; USA; Winesburg, Ohio; A Passage to India; The Wings of the Dove; The Ambassadors; Tender is the Night; The Studs Lonigan Trilogy; The Good Soldier; The Golden Bowl; Sister Carrie; A Handful of Dust; All the King’s Men; Howards End; Go Tell It on the Mountain; The Heart of the Matter; Deliverance; A Dance to the Music of Time; Point Counter Point; The Secret Agent; Nostromo; The Rainbow; The Naked and the Dead; Pale Fire; Light in August; The Maltese Falcon; Parade’s End; The Age of Innocence; Zuleika Dobson; The Moviegoer; Death Comes for the Archbishop; From Here to Eternity; The Wapshot Chronicles; Of Human Bondage; Main Street; The House of Mirth; The Alexandria Quartet;  A High Wind in Jamaica; A House for Mr Biswas; The Day of the Locust; Scoop; The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie; Finnegans Wake; Kim; A Room with a View; The Adventures of Augie March; Angle of Repose; A Bend in the River; The Death of the Heart; Lord Jim; Ragtime; The Old Wives’ Tale; Loving; Tobacco Road; Ironweed; The Magus; Wide Sargasso Sea; Under the Net; Sophie’s Choice; The Sheltering Sky; The Postman Always Rings Twice; The Ginger Man; The Magnificent Ambersons
58. Pay for consult with interior designer
59. Help Matthew achieve 10 items on his list which don’t overlap with mine
60. Become comfortable in my own skin
61. Pick my own fruit and then can it to make preserves
62. Find the right shade of red lipstick for me
63. Go to Japan with Melissa
64. Assemble spice box for Indian cooking
65. Convert basement to master bedroom and office/library
66. Teach Milo how to knit (or other craft of his choice)
67. Wear pajamas to a drive-in movie
68. Be the doula for a friend’s birth
69. Have a dog
70. Have a picnic in Dolores Park, San Francisco
71. Cater a wedding reception
72. Take Milo on safari in Africa
73. Plan a family reunion
74. Send handwritten Christmas cards at least once
75. Take a family road trip to the Grand Canyon
76. Pickle vegetables
77. Take sign language class with Milo
78. Visit Marfa, Texas
79. Make a sheet and blanket fort with Milo and live in it the whole weekend
80. Help Milo attend college/trade school or start his own business debt-free
81. Take Milo horseback riding
82. Plan and go on honeymoon with Matthew
83. Make gingerbread men with my mom
84. Take Milo and nieces and nephews to Schlitterbahn
85. Sit on a porch swing with Matthew on a breezy Summer night with cold drinks
86. Attend a live taping of the Daily Show or Conan’s show
87. Visit Sheila in London
88. Order a custom-designed and -made item of clothing for everyday use rather than special occasion
89. Sleep in a treehouse
90. Hike entire Wildwood Trail
91. Go tubing with my dad, Matthew, and Milo
92. Go on a cruise
93. Hold a koala
94. Get pedicure with my mom
95. Downsize some of my old t-shirts into t-shirts for Milo
96. Sponsor a large animal at Farm Sanctuary
97. Visit Mayan Ruins in Yucatan Peninsula
98. Sell house for more than what we paid for it

* I wrote this list down in my paper notebook first and then transferred it, and I guess that I mis-numbered. I will add 2 more items after I see Matthew’s list.

Credit for the motivation to start this list goes to Maggie Mason, whose own Mighty Life List is truly inspirational. I probably won’t be getting any corporate sponsorship for any of the items on my list, but I would love companionship, so if any of these are items on your list, contact me about crossing them off together!

Only a few of these are carryovers from the last list, but since I only gave myself four months to complete 32 items, my hope is that having nearly ten months will allow me to accomplish all of these.

1. Complete steps to become Licensed Family Child Care Home
2. Volunteer for the 2011 Bridgetown Comedy Festival
3. Organize home videos
4. Sew tablecloth “fort” for kids
5. Visit Mt. St. Helen’s with Matthew and Milo
6. Make regular Skype date with parents
7. Make sidewalk chalk drawings with Milo at a public park
8. Take a class
9. Teach Milo a craft
10. Lose 25 pounds
11. Donate clothes I haven’t worn in a year
12. Get makeup done at Blush Beauty Bar
13. Fill glasses prescription
14. Sew an item of clothing from a pattern
15. Find boots that fit
16. Find perfect Spring/Summer wedge sandals
17. Do snow activities at Mt. Hood with Milo
18. Plan cabin trip for Memorial Day weekend
19. Finish xeriscaping front lawn
20. Build vegetable beds
21. Plant a tree in the backyard
22. Build sandbox for Milo
23. Get estimates on contract work
24. Find perfect paint color for bedroom
25. Clean and organize basement
26. Paint and assemble headboard
27. Paint the kitchen nook
28. Sew Christmas tree skirt
29. Go to Breitenbush (or other hot springs) for overnight stay
30. Bake the perfect loaf of homemade cinnamon raisin bread
31. Print out pregnancy/baby website posts and put them in a binder

There are two items missing: they are surprises and I don’t want to ruin the surprise for the intended, but I’ll post about them after they’ve been crossed off.

Can you think of anything I should add? Do you want to help me cross any of these off? Let me know!

I turn 32 on July 17, so here is a list of things I’d like to accomplish before then. I went into this deciding that fewer than half of these could involve spending any money whatsoever, and keeping to that was surprisingly difficult!

I’ll repost the list every month between now and then with items removed once I accomplish them.

Original list:

1. Get married
2. Plan wedding parties
3. Finish wedding website
4. Visit parents
5. Build vegetable boxes
6. Re-pot and fertilize indoor plants
7. Plant herbs
8. Plant flowers
9. Get patio set so that we can eat dinner outside on nice nights
10. Build sandbox for Milo and pals
11. Go down a dress size
12. Do yoga at least three times a week
13. Sign up for charity work
14. Donate dead car to charity
15. Make five year career goals with micro-goals to work on now
16. Don’t say anything negative about anyone for at least one full week: friend, family, acquaintance, celebrity, no one. Then try to increase that to a month.
17. Go to the hot baths with the ladies
18. Take Milo to the coast for the day
19. Have a family picnic at the Arboretum before magnolia season is over
20. Go on hikes at least twice a month before it gets too hot
21. Bake for friends
22. Host a dinner party
23. Try a vegetable, plant, or spice I’ve never tried before
24. Perfect a Thai drunken noodle recipe
25. Cook Matthew a meal of all his favorite foods
26. Paint the kitchen nook
27. Touch up the border of our bedroom
28. Paint and assemble our headboard
29. Sew bedroom curtains
30. Figure out clothing storage solution that will work
31. Put up up blackout blinds in Milo’s bedroom for naps
32. Edit and upload a few of our videos that are sitting on the hard drive

So far, I’ve accomplished:

1. Get married

exchanging vows

Yup!

2. Plan wedding parties
3. Finish wedding website
6. Re-pot and fertilize indoor plants
7. Plant herbs

Let me know if you’ve made similar lists!

I am not really one for resolutions, but I do enjoy goals, so here are a few goals which I have for the coming year or so:

Get more fit. I don’t really mean “lose weight” here, although that would be nice, I mean increase my overall fitness. This is a goal I’ve been working on for over a year now, and have made tiny little micro-steps. Right now, I walk 3 miles on the treadmill 4-5 times a week. Ideally I would like to get to the point where I can walk/jog a 5K without burning out. I have toyed with the idea of signing up for one in late Spring/early Summer just to give myself a goal. Are there any Portlanders who might want to jog a 5K with me in a few months?

Harry Potter y la piedra filosofal

Learn Spanish. I just want to understand what’s being said to me, and maybe squeak out a few sentences in reply. I don’t want to become fluent. Lately I’ve been thinking that I should read childrens’ books in Spanish, specifically the Harry Potter series, and plod through them slowly. I ran this by my fluent-in-multiple-languages, Romance-Languages-degree bestest pal and she said that she thought it might work! It’s worth a shot at least. I don’t live in Texas anymore, where being conversational in Spanish would have actually been handy, but I’ve wanted to learn Spanish for a long time, and can’t afford the cost or time of a class or tutor.

our backyard

Work on the garden & landscaping of the house. The current landscaping of our house is: there is none. None at all. Our house has nothing in the way of curb appeal, and the backyard is sizable but completely vacant. At least we have a clean slate rather than having to undo another person’s gardening decisions.

the morning after Matthew proposed

Finally figure out the wedding stuff. Matthew and I have now been engaged for two years, and we’re no closer to having a wedding planned than we were when we got engaged. The thing is, we are in a really tight spot. We want to pay for the wedding ourselves, but we are broke. We want the wedding to be intimate, but we want our family and friends to all be there, and our combined immediate families alone total over 30 people. We want the wedding to be in Portland, because this is our home, but 85% of our guests would be coming in from out-of-state, so we have to give them plenty of time to order tickets and make arrangements. And finally, we face the ultimate tough point: we want a wedding that reflects who we really are and who we are is…not very wedding-y. Even the weddings on the indie/offbeat bride websites make me cringe—but only when I picture myself in them! I appreciate that they’re the perfect weddings for the people involved, but so far I haven’t seen one and thought, “Oh, that would be totally right for us.” For all of these reasons and more, we have put off and put off making any real decisions. Now we very much need to get married for the tax and insurance benefits, and we have no idea how to resolve any of these issues.

So those are my goals, or at least the ones I feel comfortable writing about on the internet. Tell me what you’re working on!