My Bucket List Now

(I pray that God is listening and finds me worthy of granting these wishes ...)

I don’t know many people who don’t love the movie “The Bucket List”. Even my husband, who finds it depressing, loves it. How can you not?! If we can’t make fun of our mortality, how else can we muddle through to the end, right?!

These days, I think a lot about my “bucket list”. And I am thinking that with every day, it keeps changing. As I think it should. Every day is different. Like the proverbial onion, every day peels off another mystery which triggers more opportunities to explore, learn, get involved, and grow ... There are big things on here and small things and just rightly sized things. They are my things and I treasure them as my heart children.

Here is my “bucket list” today - not in a specific order. 

Tomorrow ... well, that’s another story ...

1. To see my nephews graduate and have families
2. To show my nephews the world, the way I saw it, and sought it
3. To see Australia
4. To camp in our new camper till it falls apart and all it's good for is firewood
5. To ride across  America in our camper
6. To see Alaska and shoot the glaciers there and the bald eagles
7. To move to my retirement place, wherever that is: Florida? North Carolina? Oregon? Somewhere with green lush trees,  mild temps, and clean air
8. To see Ireland
9. To write a book (at least one)
10. To scan all my negatives into digital format, to leave them to my nephews
11. To retire
12. To go to Hawaii at least one more time
13. To go on a cruise
14. To see Los Angeles and walk on Venice Beach
15. To visit Graceland (Elvis's home)
16. To be really, really good at yoga, again
17. To shoot Yosemite, the redwoods in California and the Grand Canyon
18. To eat lobster in Maine while looking at whales in the Atlantic, and hike in Vermont
19. To eat sushi in Japan
20. To order bayou shrimp again at Village Tavern in Greensboro, NC
21. To see The Vatican and Jesus's tomb in Israel
22. To paint really well
23. To celebrate at least my 25th wedding anniversary and maybe my 50th, too, with my husband right next to me
24. To take my sister on some trips, just the two of us
25. To win more trophies for making a difference
26. To go to Colorado Springs, CO and hike at least a little bit of Pike's Peak
27. To hike The Wave in Utah
28. I want to camp in the desert, sandwiched between the starry skies and the red rocks
29. To spend a week on the North Carolina beaches with my girlfriends one more time. And bring my sister along this time
30. To spend many Holidays with our families, together, somewhere
31. To take my husband to New Orleans and get lost in the French Quarter, lead only by the smell of food and the sound of zydeco music
32. To live in a cabin in the woods
33. To live small
34. To speak about cholesterol and heart disease to whomever will listen
35. And more than anything: to survive my open heart surgery with a functional life ahead to allow for all these
36. To write a lot more lists like this, after this one is accomplished.