NOTE:  This post has been hanging around for a while, with both of us working on it as we can. But I just realized that I only have eleven and a half months to meet the goals on the “Half-Bucket List” – so I’m posting it. We’ll be making this a page, and adding and changing this as we go – definitely a work in progress…

As I would say to my son, “Just like your mom!”

So here goes…

Another collaborative post. Anna-Liza will use this color, and Lyda will use this color, just to help you keep it straight. We’ll put this on a page on the blog, and add and subtract and check off things as we go.

I didn’t see the movie The Bucket List and I never intend to. It sounds awful, not in the least bit funny or thought-provoking, and I’ve never understood why everyone seems to think Jack Nicholson is a demi-god. I think he’s seriously overrated, and never could see what Anjelica Huston (or any other otherwise sensible woman) saw in him. He’s played the same damn character in every movie at least since Terms of Endearment and is the opposite of attractive in any sense of the term. But I digress. And I don’t have any idea if Lyda agrees with me.

I haven’t seen that movie either. I just don’t see depressing movies, and it sounds like a bummer. And I prefer this kind of bucket . As for Jack Nicholson, in some movies I’ve liked him but maybe that’s just good casting. I did like The Witches of Eastwick at the time. I agree about the “not attractive” thing. Nicholson is at the other end of the attraction scale from, say, Harrison Ford. Harrison Ford is always attractive. I will see him in anything, anytime, anywhere. Including my dreams, baby. But I digress too. Make that Alan Rickman or … hmmm … perhaps Daniel Craig for me … Fine. I’m very happy to keep Harrison all to myself. Yum.

On the other hand, I just saw a movie called 7 Things To Do Before I’m Thirty – that was a fun movie. And hey, 7 things. I can do 7 things… not before I’m thirty – ’cause that ship sailed long ago… there I go, digressing again… – but I should  be able to do 7 things before I’m 50.

To do before we die:

• Achieve enlightenment
• Make a lace shawl out of cobweb
• Finish Very Superior Husband’s Cabled Rib cardigan (okay, this maybe should be on the “before fifty” list, but I don’t want to be unrealistic here)
• Visit the Philippines for a good, long time
• Vist several Central/South American countries–the current list is Peru, Costa Rica, and Guatamala
• See all my children grow up and create their own lives
• Sing in front of an audience regularly
• Learn a musical instrument other than piano or kazoo. Guitar, banjo, drums, mandolin are all on my interest list. Re-learning piano would be okay, too
• Figure out what I want to do when I grow up
• Finish my master’s degree and maybe start on my doctorate
• Travel! I’d love to visit Maui, London, Paris, China… Egypt, Japan, Kauai … Africa, Australia, New Zealand…
• Have an art/photography exhibit
• Write a book with Anna-Liza Shall we make it the memoir/porn novel we keep talking about, or aim for something more highbrow? Hmm. What do our fabulous readers think?
• Do a weekend silent retreat (Ya’ll stop laughing, I could do it. I could not talk for a weekend, really I could. Oh hush.) I don’t know, Lyda. I’ve done one of these and it’s harder than it sounds. So to speak. Er. You know what I mean. I’d do it again, but, not to hurt your feelings or anything, maybe we shouldn’t try doing one together. Just sayin’. Maybe a “talking/crafting retreat” for us? Uh, yeah, we’d never make it through a silent afternoon together, much less a weekend. A talking/crafting retreat sounds much better for us together.
• Get my finances in order – this is actually one of my main focuses for this year Me too me too!!!
• Make peace with my body - this is my other main focus this year  Um, yeah, me too on this one. Sigh. Double sigh.
• Learn to weld  Um, not me too. But you could go here to do it!
• Go to the opera  I’d go, but it’s not an item on my list.
• Finish my book on my mother
• Spend a whole weekend with Anna-Liza, just the two of us You’ll notice she didn’t say “quiet weekend”.
• Enter a quilt in the county fair  Ditto, with “knitted item” instead of “quilt”
• Participate in National Novel Writing Month
• Knit something that is not rectangular - I mean, something that is intentionally not rectangular, not like the parallelograms I’ve knit so far… for example, knit a pair of socks

To do before we’re fifty: Hey, fifty is less than a year  for me *gasp*, so you better get moving on some of this stuff, girlfriend. Oh, the pressure! Heh. I have … three and a half years on mine. Procrastinator that I am, though, it will be interesting to see how close to the wire I take it!

• Get Rolfed
• Go to my spiritual group’s annual conference in LA
• Finish Eris (I’m down to the last cuff, the blocking, and the weaving in so there’s a decent chance this will happen) Can’t wait to see it!
• Spa Day with girlfriends
• Long weekend alone with Very Superior Husband at a nice hotel, with dancing high on the agenda, possibly on the Mexican Riviera
• Establish a daily tai chi habit
• Re-establish a daily meditation habit
• Spa day… mmm…. or at least a massage
• Celebrate my son’s high school graduation (this June – woo-hoo!)
• Finish and send off the promised items for my Pay It Forward Challenge
• Finish all the challenges in Pollyanna’s Reading in Wonderland Challenge (I’m getting there)
• Go out on a date Go out somewhere where I could potentially meet eligible menz to date (nothing like setting the bar low, right?)
• Get the garage decluttered and organized (ya’ll knew there would be a Cleaning Obsession goal, right?)
• Quilt a zombie (hey, what’s a list without a zombie?)
• Write a column for a magazine - hey, wait, I already do that! Awesome!
  

There, seven things for me to do this year. And most of them seem completely possible… right? Absolutely, completely possible. Although you actually listed eight.  Yeah, but one’s already done. Giving myself a head start, you see…