The Bucket List

Do you have a bucket list? Are you one of those people who says, I don’t think, I just live? Or, is it your style to live in your head make promises to yourself you will go on vacation “someday”?  I think I am somewhere in between. Living with anxiety, I can think of all kinds of adventures that are the typical bucket list items a lot of people have on their list, that I would have to be shot with a tranquilizer gun ( and a big one at that), to attempt. Things like snorkeling, when I don't like the water that much or the thought of trying to shimmy my excess poundage into one of those wet suits almost as badly, is something to fear. I'll watch the fish through glass and I'm ok with that.  Climb Machu Picchu? Nah, anything that involves climbing I left behind after about a year of life. A picture is worth 1000 steps in this case.  Skydiving…jumping out of the plane… I could do that one, but I'm really worried about breaking something on the land. I value my limbs, hip sockets, knees …and you know what a gazelle that I am!

I like to think I “live” a realistic bucket list, and kind of always did because my Dad didn't get to live long enough to experience that. So I carry on with a bucket list for my age, my ability, and what speaks to what I want to leave behind. Memories with my kids, and grandkids, time with Kerry even though we can drive each other nuts he’s my security blanket. I still have many things I want to do, such as:

A. Spend more time in the Bible, learning about what's ahead and what really matters and why we are here in the first place. 

B. Go to Disney world with all the kids and grandkids, when the little kids are a little older. 

C. Go on more cruises. I’m still game after the engine blew on the last one, knocked out all the electricity and I lay there in the dark thinking about that floating piece of wood in the titanic movie…hmm, how big was that closet door again? 

D. Work on ancestry.com and leave as much of an electronic footprint as I can for the coming generations. I wish someone would have jotted down some of what seemed silly info on my ancestors so I had a better feel of their personality. Like what did they like to do? Were they an old curmudgeon or a jolly ole soul? That kind of stuff. All jolly, like me, I’m sure ha. 

E. I really wanted to go to Norway and Italy, but now I'm scared with the unrest in the world. I’ll see if that dies down or gets worse before I decide on that one.  

F. Go to a Kentucky horse farm, and Churchill downs. 

G. Take the kids to the giant redwoods in California. Kerry and I saw them but now I want them to see them. 

H. Go to Raleigh, South Carolina and see the Andy Griffith Museum and on to Savanna Georgia to eat at Paula Deens resturant. While I'm at it maybe drop a few bucks at Myrtle Beach Casinos. 

I. Write lots more blogs, and make another book of them. That’s something I do for me. It’s like I can’t believe I wrote all of that!  

J. Finish my life story that, I’ve been working on for years for the kids. 

K. Can some jam, pickles and whatever I feel like. I feel nostalgic when I do. Taking out the jars and hearing the pop takes me back in time. 

L. Let important people know how much they have meant to me in my life, before one day they are gone. Like each of my kids with their individual strengths…let them know I know they are all individuals and nobody is ever compared to the other.  Also just being kind to everyday people.  

M. Go to the San Antonio Riverwalk. And maybe drive to Waco to Magnolia Farms. 

N. Work on better photography skills. That’s something else I just love to do. 

O.  Go back to Branson…several times maybe. I love Branson, it’s my kind of slow moving pace place. Lived there several summers and I love it in the fall. Too hot and humid in the summer, but I like all the older entertainers there, and the people are the nicest! 

P.  Rent a beach house for a week with the whole family. 

Q. Play the ukulele more. 

R. Get as healthy as possible for where I am, and take reasonably good care of myself. Im not ever never not eating something because life is to short but I could certainly do a better job.

S. Get that Cricut out and make something! 

T. Make and eat food I really enjoy both making, and eating.

U. Get my junk organized better, because I really enjoy beautiful, ordered, surroundings, even though organizing is a weakness and not a strength of mine. And I literally have to say out loud to myself when Im done with something…”put that back where it goes Pam, if you know what’s good for you”!

V. Keep horses in my heart always and be able to count on my “good horse sense”, that I personally think is my shiniest quality. 

W. fish, fiSH, AND FISH!!

X.I'll have to add as I think of more. 

That’s all I can think of without really taxing my brain. Maybe we should ask ourselves what gives life it's greatest meaning and do even more of it? Ask if there are places you want to visit and try to find the time, and money, to do it even for a weekend. Making and working on a bucket list is energizing, and could significantly improve your life. Will you finish them all? Will you fail if not? That’s not the point of it,  but life could be a whole lot more meaningful and thought out, it seems to me. It works like saving for retirement however…if you wait to make a bucket list till your too old, the time is short, so the earlier you start the better right? My motto has always been that, memories always trump material possessions!  

One Day I Think I Will....

“We will take a vacation, “one day”! When I retire I’m going to….”, I will find peace with that estranged friend or family one day! Do you have a bucket list? Are you crossing things off along the way? I never have had one, because I’m not much of a planner for life, say nothing of death. Having my Father die when I was 12, changed how I’ve lived my adult life, in so many ways, but especially my outlook about doing things “one day”!

My parents were going to build a new house “one day”. That day never came. That was always so sad to me, that they worked from sun up to sun down, and never had that new house. Sadder still, is that our Mother never enjoyed the beautiful place she did get, when she decided to move to town from the farm. Kathy and I helped Mom pick out the perfect place for her. The utopia was a condo up on a high hill in Minot, with a great view overlooking the valley and all the city lights below.  It had a gas, flip the switch fireplace, a far cry from stoking up the coal like she'd done years before.  Her full size bed that crowded her farmhouse bedroom, was dwarfed in her the nice big bedroom in town. The best part in my mind was the master bath with a garden Jacuzzi tub. Just flip the switch and "Calgon take me away", after all those years of hard work! And finally, her own washer and dryer… no more running to a laundromat twenty five miles away! This place even had a heated, underground, garage to park in, where she could unload her groceries into a shopping cart and take the elevator up to her door. No more plugging her car in and running, literally, to the garage to start her car to warm up and freezing while doing it! The snow was always removed no more big snow drifts blowen behind her garage door. She had people her own age to play cards with and visit back and forth with , right across the hallway. We even talked her into a new table, couch, and two recliners (never had a recliner before).

Mom never enjoyed any of it! She could not see herself in that setting. All she did was worry about the money she spent on what she saw as her own comforts. Marcy chimed in from AZ, with Kathy and I, and gave her the “its an investment Mom, and you can always get the money back” pep talk, being sure she knew that we all thought this was a great idea. She still worried her little head off. I think she was more lonely there, than she ever was at the farm. In hindsight, it was also the beginning of her decent into her illness so I think her reasoning was being affected. She waited too long to enjoy the good things she so much deserved. Maybe they were more important to us than to her, and she would have been happier with the money.

I decided not to wait for things that were really important after my Dad died so young, and then my brother at 38. I haven’t really decided if that vow was a curse or a blessing, but I\m sticking with a blessing, although its made for living on the edge a few times. Kerry’s a lot like my Mom, and prefers cash over fun times. I never really got that. If you save some of your income for tomorrow, why not spend the rest on today was my theory.

Experiences are what I wanted for my family, more than material things, although you need them too, I know. Over the years we have done many fun things with our kids. My outlook was a used car would get me from point a to b just as well as a new one, no one was going to remember what we drove once we got into the current decade with our car. We could trade that new car payment for going places and doing things. I’d have loved to have both of course,  but everything in life is a trade off and some things just aren’t for trade in my mind.

When the kids were growing up we always took a vacation once a year, and for a lot of people these days that’s nothing, but it was all we could afford. We went to Disneyland, Disneyworld, Wisconsin Dells, Black Hills, Toronto, Phoenix ,Casper, Winnipeg, California, Minneapolis to the Mall of America and Valleyfair, Branson, San Diego, Hollywood, Seaworld, Yellowstone Nat'l Park, Glacier Nat'l Park and everywhere in between! Kerry and I even went on a few trips alone. We went to Whitefish, Mt on the train for our tenth anniversary, and to Nashville and the Smokey Mountains for our 25^th anniversary, and even to Jamaica for his 50^th birthday! Kerry didn’t have a choice that time because it was a surprise, but it turned out to be a lot of fun! We rented a cab for a day and had him drive us up in the small villages and we saw how the everyday people lived.

My favorite family vacation pic I have it framed

Seaworld

       I am a gypsy at heart, but Kerry’s not. He just goes where we point him, when it comes to travel ha. He likes the experience after the fact, but gets worried about going and being out of his routine. Last year, I planned an Alaskan cruise for him and Brendon. I knew it would make Kerry nervous but Brendon’s half gypsy, and been brought up gypsy, so I knew he’d be good at details. Kerry was so excited and nervous about going, he didn’t sleep at all the night before, and had himself so riled up about going, he was sick the day of! Brendon did the last minute, clean up stuff you do before leaving on a vacation, and had Kerry go try and rest some before they left.

     When Kerry got home from the cruise, he’d loved it as much as Brendon did. Kerry actually bought a jacket, that cost close to 200.00! They had taken an excursion on a boat from the Deadliest Catch TV show, and were shown how crabbing is done ( I thought Kerry knew all there was to know there but…ha). Kerry does not part with money for touristy souvineer stuff like that often, so I knew he thought it was pretty amazing.

       I read once, “if you ask people on their deathbed no one will ever say, “I wish I had taken LESS vacations and spent LESS time with my kids”. Nor will you hear, “ I wish I had more money in the bank”. For me, money is nothing more than the paper in exchange for the things that are important to you. Things like food, shelter, transportation and fun with your family. I don’t squander money on stupid things, nor do I think you have to have every experience that comes along either, so nothing means anything.

      Some of what keeps me on the treadmill right now, is that I want to go to Europe. I know after listening to Sydney having spent three weeks in Italy last summer, that I will need to be in good walking shape. Last week I propped up my Frommer’s Europe travel book where I can see it from the treadmill, because I AM going! Kerry says, he’s NOT leaving the country, so I guess I’m going on one of those tour plans with one of the kids, because I’m not shacking up with a stranger in a room, for however long it takes to see some sites!

I don’t have a bucket list per se, I actually find them a little morose. However, I do live life aware that it’s not going to go on forever, and neither is one’s mobility. Moving into the senior citizen realm, I have thought about how am I going to end the story of my life. I plan for my story to have a long drawn out, feel good ending, but I never put off till tomorrow what I can do today…. unless its work!
　
Ps. Two more pounds last week, that’s twelve but I had two margaritas over the weekend and some nachos with the girls so…twice at that...I am little mad at myself. So now I need to go do some real work ha.