Bucket List

January is typically a slow month for us. Not much going on. Which is not a good thing. It gives me way too much time to think about things and it makes the month seem to last too long. What's worse is there are 31 days in January, and there is no escaping it. When I retire, I'm never spending a January in Minnesota or any other northern state again. January is cold, dreary, and blah.

My mother recently told me some news about the health of my 98 1/2 year old great aunt in California. She has a heart condition and needs a heart valve replacement. Well, obviously, she is not going to undergo the surgery because of her age, so instead her doctors told her to slow way down. My aunt still lives in her own home and actively gardens and gets out and about. So telling her to slow down is like telling the circus tiger not to try eat Sigfried & Roy. So the news has been hard on my aunt.

Since I've had nothing else to do in January besides think, I've been thinking a lot about my great aunt. I really hope she continues to do the things she loves to do. I hope she feels like she has accomplished everything she has ever wanted. And if there is something spontaneous that she hasn't done, I hope she goes out and does it. At 98 1/2 she is certainly entitled to do what ever she feels inclined to do.

Now, active women with longevity, seems to be a good thing in my family. Even some of the men have lived actively past the age of 90. Well, I am hoping that these longevity genes have been passed onto me. If that is the case, then I have another 10 years before I am mid-life, which is good, because I have a hard time believing that 40 is midlife.

All of this brings me to this point... What are the things I want to do in life? When I am 80 or 90 or even 100, I want to say happily, that I did the things I wanted to do and I grabbed life by the horns and gave it a good ride. I'll be going out on my own terms thank you very much with no regrets. So, I started my own Bucket List.

Things I'd like to do:
Learn to ski.
Swim with the dolphins
Scuba dive
Go on an African safari
Hang glide (I might save this one for last)
Learn to play the violin that sits getting dusty in my closet
See Mount Everett, I don't want to climb it, I just want to see it, maybe take a helicopter to base camp and hang out.

Places I'd like to see:
Alaska (I told the hubby he's taking me here for our 20th anniversary)
Havasu Falls of the Grand Canyon
Coast of Maine
Nova Scotia
Sweden
Southern Spain
Cape Town, South Africa
Angel Falls of Venezuela


I realize I have at least 30 or more years to do all things, so I'm hopeful of crossing these things off my list eventually.

I'm glad January is almost over and I'll have less time to think about such things.