I was pretty old before I realized that people made more than just pizzelles and strufoli for Christmas. Like, probably not until after college. And we definitely never made sugar cookies. But this is what Life Lists are for - all that weird stuff you never did that you really feel like you should.
Having never made a whole bunch of cookies to put on a plate and give away to friends and family, the whole concept seemed like WAY more of a big deal than it is. Remember the aunt who made the gingerbread houses from scratch, architecturally designed, and with stained glass windows made from crushed Life Savers? OK, just like the houses, that's my only model of someone who makes and gives away plates of cookies. And also just like the houses, there are TONS of cookies, all very elaborate, none of which you've heard of, and all so tasty you want to weep sugar tears.
But then I got the baking bug one day and opened the Williams Sonoma Holiday cookbook that someone had given me years ago and found a recipe for Mexican Wedding Cookies (also known as Snowballs) and - ta da - a cookie tray was born. I realized that the tray probably didn't need to be elaborate and probably didn't need 12 different varieties of cookies. So I made and froze about six different cookies, the last of which were the sugar cookies.
I didn't even own cookie cutters for the cookies, so I grabbed the candy cane and star (the only options) at the grocery store, bought a plastic squeeze bottle for the royal icing, crushed red and white sprinkles for the candy cane cookies, and lo and behold, I was no longer a sugar cookie virgin.
I had them laid out all pretty on the cooling rack, with the royal icing streaks and the edible glitter painted on, and the big cookie tray waiting for the last addition... and then forgot to take pictures. Fail. So you'll just have to trust me that I made them. Charlotte was too young to help this year, but I assume next year it can be a group activity. This year she "helped" by watching the Kitchen Aid in awe and leaping into my side every time I turned it on.
Here's what ended up on my cookie tray, but I did absolutely no research, just made whatever occured to me. So if you're a cookie person, please let me know what was on yours so I can add it next year. Extra points for non-peanut cookies since we have a peanut allergy in our family.
Cookie Tray
Orange-walnut Snowballs
Peanut Butter Kiss cookies
Peanut clusters (melted chocolate and butterscotch mixed with peanuts)
Next year I need to give way more trays away because we ended up with far too many here at the house and I sent B to work with a huge bag to put in the kitchen at his work. The people on our cookie recipient list were: neighbors, mailman, garbage men, each set of grandparents.
There have been so many Christmases past where I got to December 26th and thought that's it? it's over already? I thought this was supposed to be the greatest time of the year.Hmmm...
To avoid that vaguely empty post-holiday feeling I'm doing things a little differently this year. First of all, I started secretly listening to holiday music whenever I was in the car about two full weeks before Thanksgiving, which I used to think was sacrilege, but now I'm over it. I won't ever get a tree or put up lights (in some future world where we actually put up house lights) before Thanksgiving because that's weird, but I'm giving in on the music.
I also started being even more vigilant about all the shopping. In addition to Christmas there are MANY birthdays around the same time, and many of those gifts have to be packed up and shipped, so while I was never a last minute shopper, this year I'm extra on top of the present monster.
OK, so that's a start, but it's not enough. Yesterday I read an article by Jordan Ferney (author of one of my favorite blogs, Oh Happy Day) where she talks about her love of advent calendars and how she uses them as a catalyst to celebrate the holidays by doing one little activity every day.
Her list is more extensive than I have the energy and money for, but it's such a brilliant idea. Yet again someone (me) realizes that they have to make things happen, not wait for them to happen. Duh. This lesson will never get old. So on that note, here are some of the things off of her list that I'm going to try to bring to the Scarlet Lily household so that we can find that desired holiday balance of celebrating the season, but without doing it in a stressful manner (the distinction is one that I think most people fail to make):
Watch It's a Wonderful Life (I've actually never seen this) & make spiced cider Exchange Gifts Make Christmas cookies for friends Make hot chocolate and homemade marshmallows (Ina Garten convinced me that I should try making homemade marshmallows) Find mistletoe, hang it up, kiss under it Address and mail Christmas cards Buy new Christmas music Put up a ribbon sash for Christmas cards Donate canned goods Give neighbors a present Make a gingerbread house (this is intimidating thanks to my brilliant aunt who would hand design architectural houses, complete with stained glass windows every Christmas) Have a romantic candlelit dinner by the Christmas tree Make decorative sugar cookies (this just made it to my Life List last week - how have I never done this?!) Regularly dance with Charlotte to Christmas music (can you believe dancing with my daughter was on her list? Weird.)
How about you? What's on your mental list of holiday activities and what do you do to make the holiday celebratory without being stressful?
As of 1:30p last Friday I am an official cake baker for hire. B's coworker saw the remnants of various cakes I've sent with him to work over the last year - so they don't stay here for me to eat - and liked the idea of supporting a local woman instead of a grocery store. Rock on, Kathleen, thank you!
Kathleen's son Connor was turning 6 and wanted a Pokemon cake. The instructions were: a sheet cake, big enough to feed 30 people, a Pokemon/Pikachu theme, and room for characters to place on the cake.
The sheet cake shape was actually more challenging than the unknown theme. It's harder to decorate and frost a big flat surface than the stacked cakes I usually make. But thanks to the glorious internet, I was finally able to figure out something that I liked.
The ball on top is a separate cake and is the Pokemon "poke ball." I didn't dive far enough into Pokemon lore to find out exactly what said ball does, but it seemed to be a big deal. The lightning bolts are for Connor's favorite character Pikachu. Pikachu throws lightning bolts, which, incidentally, seems like a really effective little power to have. Note to self.
The name is the actual Pokemon font, printed out, traced, and cut out from fondant. And the lightning bolts were rigged to some wire. Many thanks to the engineer husband who figured out a way to attach the bolts to the wire when the first method didn't work. Let's just say that wire and food weren't meant to stick together.
The inside of the cake was dyed fluorescent yellow to match the lightning bolts, which never photographed quite as bright as they were in real life. And the little characters - which she had at her house - were going to be placed around the poke ball.
All in all, I was pretty happy with how it turned out. The $40 I received for the cake allowed me to buy some supplies at the baking supply store. Not to mention that it was really satisfying to challenge myself with a new theme, do the hard work, and then get to ship the cake off and out of my house. Although I will say that I never stop being amazing at how much work goes into producing such a very simple looking cake.
I'm hoping that there were enough satisfied mothers at the party that I get to do a few more of these over the next year. I'll keep you posted.
I took a look at the Life List to see what the next five things I could cross off might be. Strangely enough, I came up with four and then B's coworker saw the failed Halloween cake and asked if she could hire me to make her son's Pokemon birthday cake. Yay! That's a first - having something from the list come to me instead of the other way around. Nicely done, list. Also, I feel like there's an after-school-special kind of lesson in there about the failed cake turning into a successful Life List goal, but I can't quite put my finger on it.
Anyway, here are the next five things I should be able to cross off:
Get paid to decorate a cake or plan a party - The cake has to be delivered on Friday, Nov. 12th, so I'll post sometime that following week about the details
Finish one of the books I listed (#20)
Start cooking meals outside my comfort zone (#27)
Learn how to tie a man's tie for him (#54) - I envision this as a video featuring the husband
Learn to make the perfect martini (#55) - My goal for this is to talk a local bartender into teaching me at the restaurant/bar and letting us film the whole thing.
How about you, did you make a list yet? Even a secret one that you're not going to share? Seriously, do it, it's super fun and really liberating.
So #7 on the Life List is to participate in another dance performance. I grew up as a pretty hardcore gymnast and dancer until 6th grade when burn out set in and I stopped everything. Mistake.
Stopping gymnastics and dance made me forget every creative part of my entire being which had some pretty long-standing consequences. Like how it made me think my desire to help people meant I wanted to be a doctor and so I was pre-med for three years of college, when I should have been an art major and going abroad instead. Fail.
Cest la vie - it is what it is. It's my one regret in life - forgetting all things creative - because it steered me away from what was really me. So I'm trying to learn from that lesson and not make the same mistake again.
When I put that on the list, it seemed like such a pipe dream. Which is funny because obviously it's not. But I'm pretty sure I was pregnant when I started the list on my Blackberry that day in the grocery store parking lot while I was in the car waiting for B, and you can understand how pregnancy and dance performances are worlds apart.
So now I'm in a bigger city, not pregnant, and not a new parent, and I found myself a dance class. Jazz, to be specific. I would have taken a picture last night, but I just looked like I was going to the gym.
As it turns out, Albany is not really a hotbed of adult dancers - I was the only one in class. But we still did the class and it was pretty awesome because I bet fancy people pay big bucks to have private lessons. I mean, the part where you learn the combination and then have to do it ALONE while she watches is a little intimidating, but I got used to it.
Unfortunately the studio requires four people to be in class for it to continue, but I'm not sure how hard core of a rule that is. And they definitely already cashed my check, so we'll see what happens. As long as they don't make me perform alone (they do three performances a year), I'm happy to have the private lessons.
In the meantime, I'm very happy to be icing my knee after doing too many turned out, fourth position plies, and feeling like I got a small reminder of something that's only mine and totally amazing. Let's hope it's allowed to go on...
It's been an ongoing joke in my life recently that I've been all the way out to the Greek Islands but never to Cape Cod. This is despite growing up in upstate New York and living in Boston for two years. I never even had an innate desire to go to Cape Cod until it's presence as a vacation destination became an all out assault on my life.
At first it was people mentioning here and there about their Cape Cod vacations, then it was everyone I knew in Boston talking about the Cape or their Cape house, or the bridge. Everyone talks about The Bridge. There is more stress and planning about Getting. Over. The. Bridge. than there is about anything else. Seriously. I felt more excited to be driving over the bridge than I felt about actually being on the beach. Because now I can talk with absolute authority about the bridge. Getting there early enough, crossing it, what's on the other side, whatever. I've never felt more in the proverbial loop than I did the moment I crossed that damn bridge. (And FYI: there's two bridges)
Sometime last year both families decided that they wanted to take beach vacations. Various states and beaches were researched, but it eventually came back to Cape Cod. And despite being on the Life List I actually didn't care where any of us went. That being said, I'm so glad we did go to the Cape twice in one summer because there is so much more there than just beaches, and going twice let us experience as much as possible.
The one thing that was incredibly annoying about researching such a popular vacation spot is that there's not enough basic information for the rookies. The are thousands of websites about what to do and where to go and which restaurants have the best seafood, but I needed Cape Cod for Dummies. And not a whole book, just a pamphlet.
This is what I wanted someone to tell me before I went that I now know:
Yarmouth, Dennis, Chatham, tons of other little towns - Unless you have your heart set on staying up in Provincetown, it really doesn't matter where you stay. The Cape is small and staying in one town versus any other town isn't going to change your vacation in any appreciable manner.
If you have small children, you want to go to the bayside beaches. The bayside has less wind, lots of tidepools, and is better all around. Mayflower beach is the best (suggested by two different locals and then confirmed with first hand experience), and you need to be there by 8:30a on sunny days.
Getting a house walking distance to the beach is not nearly as important as it's made out to be. If you're going to spend a day at the beach you're going to have chairs, umbrellas, food, toys, towels, and about a hundred other things that will make it impossible to walk to the beach no matter how close you are. Renting close has it's benefits, but you'll save a ton of money if you don't.
There are tons of interesting non-beach things to do:
Buy fresh lobsters from the local fish market and cook them yourself (freeze for 15 minutes, then steam)
I'm still dying to go to Hyannis and Martha's Vineyard, but I think that trip will be an extended weekend without the child. Maybe next fall we'll take a little mini-vacation to bike around the Vineyard, drive by the Kennedy Compound, and pretend that we care very deeply about sailing. Stay tuned.
We celebrated the unofficial end of summer last weekend by going to my first drive-in movie. I've been watching the movie schedule all summer, but apparently the types of movies that come to drive-ins are not even remotely the ones that I can summon an interest in seeing. And every time I found one I could deal with, the reviews were horrendous and killed my buzz.
But this week I got an email from the drive-in saying that they were going to weekends only, so I knew we only had a few weeks left. Luckily - in addition to The Last Exorcist, Piranha, & Machete (Hollywood, what is the MATTER with you??) - they were playing the well-reviewed The Other Guys. Thank you, Will Ferrell, for saving me from having to watch toned co-eds getting eaten by toothy fish.
As it turns out, my first drive-in experience was awesome. I brought the better part of our living room, as well as about a hundred blankets, for maximum back-of-the-SUV comfort, the late summer weather was perfectly crisp with a gentle breeze and no bugs, and Mark Wahlburg was surprisingly good at cop humor.
We'll definitely do this again next summer, only maybe with slightly less of the concession stand food that required us to go home and split a bottle of Pepto Bismol.
At the beginning of the year I made a list of goals so I could have a loose structure for the year and what I wanted to accomplish. This is how that's going...
Goals: Weekly progress towards a creative business
This one has been pretty spastic. Some weeks I've really killed it and the last two months I've done almost nothing. I'm learning that it's much easier to be creative and task-oriented during the winter months when it's freezing and you have no desire to be anywhere other than your dining room table with your sewing machine. Daily tidy up
This one is gonna be a life-long struggle, but it's definitely getting better - both with me and with B. Meal planning
We're usually pretty good here because we have to be. When we get distracted and don't meal plan, we eat terribly - and therefore feel terrible - or we order out a lot and the bank account takes a unnecessary hit. The meals are pretty boring now, thanks to the baby and graduate school, but simple and planned is still healthier than Papa Johns on speed dial. 1 social outing a month
As I mentioned originally, this one is because I really do enjoy getting together with people, but I get lazy about making it happen. Also, I made it an additional part of the plan to try to avoid the easy way out and not count family get-togethers, but focus more on finding and gathering with new friends.
January - Wine & Jewelry party with old high school friend
February - Lunch with sister-in-law & the babies
March - Drinks with two old high school friends
April - Trip to CT to see family friend
May - BBQ with B's friend from work and his family
June - Visit from Feather Nester & my dad (therefore, too many visitors to plan something additional)
As for the Life List, I definitely feel like a big ol' fraud for not crossing anything off yet, but I have decided a few things that will be the first to go. By September, there should be about 4 items that take a hit. I'll keep you posted. In the mean time, I will tell you yet again that I really do love having a list and seeing it every day on my refrigerator. I promise that you'll love it, so go write one out!
Peeps! I am ALL KINDS OF FAMOUS! By any chance do you remember last Friday when I was rambling on about my thoughts on making a Life List? Well it turns out that you don't need to actually do anything off your list, you just have to wax poetic about having one.
Mighty Girl wrote a post far more insightful than mine about useful tips for writing a list, and she included a quote from me and a link to my post. Go, me!
Now... about the fact that nothing is crossed off. I really need to get on that.
I was watching the latest vignette on Momversation the other day and heard the best description of a Life List that I have yet to hear. No surprise, it was from Maggie, the original proponent of the list. Basically, she said this: Make a list of what makes you happy and spend your life ticking things off the list. How can you go wrong?
That's it. How easy is that?! I think the reason that people don't make their list is because it feels so huge. It feels like this really big deal thing that you have to do the right way and you don't want to screw it up because it's YOUR LIST. What if you can't think of enough stuff... what if all of your stuff is too little... or too big? Or what if you don't see any way to accomplish what you've written? But here's the thing - this isn't something else to add to your laborious to-do list. It's just a reminder of what makes you happy, that's it.
I realize that I have yet to actually cross anything off of my list, but to be fair, I have things in the works that you don't know about. And honestly, it doesn't matter. Just having the list, having it on my fridge where I pass it dozens of times every day, is like a big exhale. You know those times when your life gets nuts and you freak out and grab a pen and yell to your spouse in the kitchen THERE IS TOO MUCH GOING ON! I HAVE GOT TO MAKE A LIST! And then you make the list and it's not nearly as overwhelming as you thought and you feel like you can finally breathe again? It's like that.
Because whether you realize it or not, you have all of these little things in the back of your head that you've always wanted to do and every few years (or months, or days, etc.) you re-realize that you've been meaning to look into taking a photography course and you think "oh yeah, I should do that..." And remembering that over and over is taking up useful space in your soul.
In addition to taking the WORK out of making your list and seeing it simply as a group of things that would make you happy, think of it this way as well: what dinner party conversation would you like to participate in?
I was at a friend's house two weeks ago and they were talking about how you ride a Segway and what it's like to take a Segway tour of Barcelona, and I thought Yes. Good idea. I'd like to speak with authority about what it's like to take a Segway tour of a city, that sounds fun. So now it's #47 on the list. Easy as that.
So stop stressing about the thought of this and just throw some happy thoughts down on a piece of paper. You'll love it, I promise.
Last week I wrote a post about adding some simpler, less monumental, things to my Life List and I received a comment from one of my friends about all of the completely kick-ass stuff she's been doing over the past year. My first thought - which I promptly told her in an email - was "Damn! Uh... YOU should have the blog, not me! Also, can you write something up about this, I feel like people would be interested."
As it turns out, I know you all quite well because I immediately received emails along the lines of "who is this Funessa person? She's done some stuff I want to do" and "that comment was spam, right? that person didn't actually do those things, right?"
Well, she did. And she didn't even need the fridge list like I need, she just did it! So here are her thoughts on kicking ass and taking names... all while shooting a gun and drinking beer out of a cup she made in pottery class.
Chances are that if you've sat down and created a Life List, or lovingly created a wish board, you have a great affection for yourself and your mind. This past year I was set free in many ways and I have been relishing it. A few items I was able to cross off my list are: throw pottery on a wheel (successfully), forge iron, weld, jump a horse both English and Western style, shoot trap and skeet, fire a handgun safely, and master Hollandaise. On my short list right now: butchering, triathlon training, and sewing.
How was I able to learn all of these things? I got back in touch with my curious little seven year old and ASKED. That is right. Most of these amazing things I've done this year were totally free or on the cheap because I asked if I could visit the farm, forge, studio, gun club and check it out. People who have a specific craft or skill are usually so happy to share what they took the time to master.
While I don't have a list, I do have general goals that I keep in the back of my head. They are constantly changing, so I just go along with the flow, list-less, as it were :) I am a pretty curious girl by nature and have been learning by the seat of my pants since I was a kiddo. If I want to learn more about something, I seek it out. A great example of this is a recent experience I had learning how to forge and weld steel.
It was something that I was always curious about and there are numerous works around my hometown and Cornell's campus that I have always admired. I found out that these creations were made by Durand Van Doren, a local artist based here in Trumansburg, NY. We knew of each other, but didn't know each other well.
I ran into him at a local bar and introduced myself. We chatted for a bit and I asked him if he ever held workshops. He thought about it a bit and told me to call the forge and leave my number. He would work something out and get back to me. He set a date and I spent an entire Saturday under his tutelage with a few other students who had also sought him out. They had called his number cold and left their information, hoping to get a return call.
We spent the morning stoking the fire, and drinking coffee, and getting to know each other before diving right in. Durand was warmed by our genuine interest in his trade and made sure we each left with something we were proud of and the knowledge to be able to continue. He even made us lunch.
I am not a very artistic person, but am pretty adept at picking up skills in a hands-on environment. I have been making pottery for a little over a year now and I am all about tactile art. My time out at the forge introduced me to another form of useful and beautiful artistic expression. I will be spending more time out there as my schedule allows.
I can only encourage you to do something similar. At least in terms of finding somebody local, not only to support but also to learn from. Most communities offer annex classes and the like at colleges, but I find the one-on-one time ends up meaning more to both the student and the teacher in the end. You don't have to be unemployed with a trust fund to accomplish many of your list items. All you need is energy for enriching your life to make up for what you might lack in dough. Enjoy!
* Vanessa decided that she should share her triumphs with the world and has recently started a blog called Musings of a Wannabe Dairy Princess. You can follow her continued progress there.
Isn't it funny that the keys to making your life better don't involve seeking out a great truth? That they basically just involve implementing things you already know? I have a friend who started counseling recently - not for any great tragedy, just to get a few things sorted out - and she was so relieved when her counselor told her that she already had all of the tools she needed, she just needed help putting them to use.
That's how I've been feeling lately as I've watched the easy success of my Dream Board. I haven't crossed anything off my Life List yet, but a few things are in the works. And the very simple goals that I wrote out, printed up, and can casually see every day as I walk into the kitchen have really become part of my unconscious simply because they're written down and in a place where I can see them.
It's so simple it's stupid! How many times have teachers, books, seminars, television shows, friends, etc. said that? "Make some simple goals and write them down." It's almost embarrassing that it's taken this long for me to do it. And even when I was doing it, it seemed a little redundant. Like, it's 4 goals, I can obviously remember them, it seems kind of dumb to print them out.
But I did, and it's been awesome. I feel like I have so much more direction now, Like, instead of wandering around the forest, I've stepped onto the path for a while. It's lovely.
As for specifics, my goal of having one social meet-up a month is going well. January and February each held something and the March meet-up is in the works. As for the goal of working out regularly, it's reeeeeeaaallly slow, but it's technically happening. It's been going like this:
Me: You know how I've been doing ab exercises at home to help my back? Well now you can start to see muscle, but it's under the fat. See?
B: Oh yeah, how's that going? Have you lost any of the weight you wanted to lose?
Me: Ummmm, no. I'm pretty sure those 30 min every ten days on the elliptical isn't really making it happen. It's a work in progress.
How's your list/goals coming along? If you need more inspiration that my small steps of progress, you should know that as of yesterday Maggie Mason (original proponent of the Life List) just got more of her list sponsored by another company. How are you ever going to get Google to send you to Istanbul if you don't put something on paper?
By request, here is the side of our fridge, otherwise known as the epicenter of the Scarlet Lily household. I have no idea how people function without a calendar on their fridge, we live and die by ours. We have the requisite Google & Blackberry calendars as well, but they're better for reminders, not planning. Every Christmas my mom gives B the latest NY Giants calendar and every new year I transfer all of the birthdays, anniversaries, and other important dates to the new one. This year the Giants glamor shots are getting covered up by the board, but it's for a good cause. Plus, they didn't even make the playoffs this year, so why should they get rewarded for such a crappy season?
Anyway, on to the board. I don't even know where I originally heard about the idea, but it's nothing revolutionary. I'm not sure if it's human nature or just my nature, but I truly don't get things done unless I write them down. That even goes for day to day things. But regardless of the written word, I do know that it's human nature to be inert, to plug happily along in the life you've created for yourself and get distracted by the day-to-day nature of things and let your bigger dreams slip by. It's just the unfortunate nature of life - it's busy, there are things to do, and creating a better or different life requires moving the boulder up the hill. The board helps to keep you focused.
And despite what it may seem to some, it's really not some crazy Type A obsessive goal list. It's more of a gentle and very inspiring reminder of the wonderful things you want to do, save for, accomplish, etc. It helps make the mundane parts of life better because you are constantly reminded that there are other, non-mundane, parts of life as well.
I bought this memo board and put three pictures at the top, one for B, one for me, and one for the family. The picture that B picked is a hole on the Pebble Beach golf course because he said it reminds him of the type of lifestyle he's working towards. The picture in the middle is of toys on a Cape Cod beach because we are taking two family trips to Cape Cod next year (one with B's family, and one with my family to celebrate Charlotte's 1st birthday and my mom's 60th birthday - same day, in case you forgot!).
The beach picture reminds us of an immediate goal that we're working towards. Money is very tight with only one income and instead of saying "we can't afford it" to various things and setting up a negative feeling in the household, I prefer to say "we're choosing to go to Cape Cod instead" and the picture is a great reminder that we're not poor, we're making choices.
The picture that I chose is a zoomed in picture of the maternity gown that my mom and I made last year, with the word "create" written next to it. It's a reminder to keep creativity in my life, both personally and professionally.
As for the lists, I have a short list of General Goals: Weekly progress towards a creative business, Daily tidy up, Meal planning, 1 social outing a month (that one is because I like getting together with people but get lazy about making it happen)
I also have a short list of 2010 Goals: Workout regularly, Make significant progress on creative business, Continue improving cleaning and organizing habits, Continue good savings habits: "More experiences, Less Stuff"
Nothing super lofty and nothing that I'll berate myself for if they don't work out as planned, just general reminders how to keep myself happy and on track. B's lists are still being created, so they're not up on the board yet.
As for the Life List that I mentioned yesterday, it's an idea that Maggie Mason of Mighty Girl has been promoting over the last year. It started as a private project of hers to get herself to dream bigger. And boy did it work! She got Intel to sponsor ten items on her list this past year and has done things as small as taking tap dance lessons to things as large as going to the Greek Islands. Visit her list to see all of her posts about her adventures.
I started my list on a total whim in the Memo Pad of my Blackberry while I was waiting in the car for B to do an errand one day and just added to it whenever I thought of something. The list is supposed to be 100 items long, but I only have a partial list so far. And it really isn't something I put a lot of thought into, I think it works better if you just riff. Right now the list has mostly big ticket items on it, so I need to add some smaller ones as well.
Life List
… in no particular order, and not yet finished…
1. Visit the Blue Lagoon in Iceland
2. Own a beautiful stucco house with wrought iron decorations
3. Wear a tutu dress to a fabulous event
4. Have another 2 week vacation as good and luxurious as our honeymoon
5. Play with a baby tiger
6. Have my life legacy be helping millions of people
7. Participate in another dance performance
8. Have a strong and healthy body - as strong as an athlete
9. Go back to Santorini
10. Revisit the Van Gogh museum
11. Raise 3 happy and relaxed children and help them find their purpose
12. Watch B start a successful business
13. Own a lake camp where everyone will visit
14. Become conversational in another language
15. Make 3 donations over $10k to separate organizations
16. Celebrate Charlotte's 1st day of Kindergarten
17. Start Tiny Berry Designs
18. Visit Belize or Costa Rica
19. Partner with Giovanina for a creative venture
20. Read the creative books consistently recommended that I've been meaning to: Everyday Miracles, War of Art, Think and Grow Rich, Purple Cow, Personal Finance book (rich couple), etc
21. Take a pottery class
22. Be seen as a style icon
23. Stumble onto mini-fame because of a talent
24. Learn about investing enough to make basic decisions on my own
25. Own a bike again - to be used!
26. Eliminate boredom from my life (reference to quote Barbara Winter posted on FB)
27. Start cooking meals outside of my comfort zone - Asian, French, vegan, etc.
28. Have high tea
29. Eat at one of the "Top 50 restaurants in the world"
30. Take a family road trip where we spend 2 months going cross-country
31. Take a family road trip where we spend 2 months going cross-Europe
32. Get paid to decorate a cake or plan a party
33. Visit Denmark
34. Be (positively) surprised by something that completely changes our life
35. Attend Alt Summit / Sundance
36. Ropes Course
37. Habitat for Humanity
38. Winter Adventure Trip - dog sledding, luge, winter horseback riding 39. Go to a drive-in movie 40. Try caviar 41. Host a wine and cheese party 42. Learn to indoor rock climb 43. Build something 44. Be on the board of a non-profit 45. Learn tennis 46.Participate in a public storytelling campaign (This American Life, etc.) 47. Take a Segway tour (Current possibilities: Poughkeepsie, NY, Nashville, TN, Portland, OR) 48. Stand up for myself or my child in a situation where I wouldn't have before. 49. 1st run of a great Broadway musical - top tier actors
* Original list was about 34 items long, but I have been updating as I add to it
If you make your own Life List or Dream Board, please let me know, I'd love to link to it! Or even if you just "think out loud" in the comments section about items that would be on your list, I'd love to read that too!
