Wednesday, September 5, 2012

There's a Hole in My Bucket . . .

When I joined Pinterest a few months ago, I started a "Bucket List" board to record the things I want to do "someday".  Here's what I have so far:
  1. Meet Tim Gunn
  2. Build a house on the farm in Kansas where my dad grew up
  3. See the Rose Parade in person 
  4. Travel to Italy
  5. Travel to England, Scotland, Ireland
  6. Take a summer vacation at Tyler Place Family Resort in Vermont with all my children/grandchildren
  7. Spend a summer on the coast of Maine
  8. Take a tour of lighthouses on the Atlantic Coast
  9. Attend the Cherry Blossom Festival in Washington, D.C.
  10. Tour the White House at Christmas
  11. Watch 4th of July fireworks from the mall in Washington, D.C.
  12. Sleep in a glass igloo in Finland to watch the Northern Lights
  13. See a whale in the wild
  14. Vacation on Macinack Island
  15. Have a car customized by Count's Kustoms
Probably very similar to many people's lists.  But, this morning, something sparked the thought that there's a problem with this list - a "hole in my bucket", so to speak.  These are mostly big-ticket, wildest-dreams ideas.  Unless I win the lottery or inherit millions from a rich, reclusive relative I'm not aware of, most of these things aren't going to happen.  At best, a small portion of them will - given I live long enough, the stock market doesn't take another huge hit, and our children eventually graduate from college and become self-sufficient. 

So, I have been rethinking my bucket list and decided I also need to have a smaller-scale, more attainable list of things I want to accomplish, or at least try.  I'm calling it my Mason Jar LIst:
  1. Camp overnight at Indian Cave State Park
  2. Hike all eleven trails at Indian Cave State Park (2 done)
  3. Buy/rent a camper and take a wandering vacation - no plans or itineraries
  4. Make an Americana quilt for my bed
  5. Read all the books in my house
  6. Make a quilt for each of my children/grandchildren
  7. Buy a baby doll, make a wardrobe for it, and give it to a total stranger.
  8. Host a family reunion for my cousins on my Dad's side (coming in April)
  9. Start a Little Free Library
  10. Hike to Hanging Falls Lake in Colorado (not hike all the way to Colorado, just from the road to the lake)
  11. Start a book club
  12. Write a book
  13. Serve a meal at a homeless shelter or soup kitchen
  14. Lose 11 8 pounds
  15. Have a best friend again
  16. Make and keep a gratitude journal for a year
  17. Decorate my kitchen in Vintage 50's decor
  18. Have a different themed Christmas tree in each room of the house
  19. Win a blue ribbon at the county fair (sort of, but there were only 2 entries in the category, so I'm not counting it)
  20. Meet a fellow book blogger I only know on-line
  21. Have an article published in a magazine
I'm sure this will be a fast-growing list, and hopefully I'll be just as quick with marking things off.  I'll update it as I go along.  What's on your list?

6 comments:

  1. Love this post!!! I think you can accomplish several things on both of your lists! Love the mason jar list!!! I think there is something important about having those dreams and schemes down in writing! You MUST take a quilt to the local fair - you would win Purple!!! I hope you have a best friend also. The baby doll idea made me smile. When I was into making everyone I know fleece tied blankets I came up with this idea "A Baby and a Blanket" kind of rolled around my mind like Three Men and a Baby, Two and a half Men, etc. The idea was to buy a baby doll and make a blanket to go with her and give to some little girl in town. Never did go anywhere with it. Let's get together on our gratitude journal for 2013 and decide what to use. Maybe we should each come up with our own style! Gotta get busy working on my Bucket List and my Mason Jar List :)

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  2. I like your idea and the new list sounds pretty rewarding. I want a best friend again too. However, I do like many of the things on your first list. I want to live on a farm and I want to see the fireworks in DC. I honeymooned on Mackinac Island, but that was 40 years ago! I haven't waited to watch the Rose Bowl parade but I have been the next day to see the floats.

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  3. I love the idea of a mason jar list!! You're right … barring some big payday, most of us won't get to the do the big items. I love that you want to meet Tim Gunn though!

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  4. Well, you could knock a few items off that first list if you moved to Washington D.C. for a year. But I love the 2nd list; it allows you to have goals but things that are much more achievable.

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  5. Fun! I did a list of 40 when I turned 40 last year and I tried to mix in a few that were easy :) I've done your DC ones (lived there for 3 years) and I've done Italy, but it's still on my bucket list to take Gage someday!
    Tim Gunn is a good one! Still need to finish last night episode.

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