After seeing Erin Loechner's Life List on Design for Mankind last year, I decided to officially do mine. As in, scheme up new ideas and collect the tidbits in random journals over the years into one spot. It really got me thinking of all the things I'd love to do throughout my life. Even if I don't do all of them, just putting those thoughts and fun hopes out into the universe is something in itself. (This excludes owning a headdress though one day! I'm totally going to make that and Viking helmut ownership happen.) It's like playing the lottery, most of the fun is talking about what you'll do with the earnings with your coworkers.
Life can be short. You never know what will happen, good or bad. Your loved ones may be gone tomorrow. My philosophy (at this moment in my life) is to be genuine, have fun, make sure that I'm a good to my loved ones and strangers, and to take chances! (I'm talking to you, my new favorite hot pink MAC lipstick).
Without further ado, here is my own 100 things, now 102 Things because I kept dreaming.
- Drive cross-country with Mike round trip.
Skydive.Skydive a second time if Mom and Mike let me!- Have children.
- Become fluent enough in Spanish enough to understand and hold a conversation with someone.
- Do an immersion program in a Spanish-speaking country.
- Attend a surf camp in Costa Rica.
- Make a soufflé.
- Buy a house. Refurbish a house. Own a washer and dryer!
- Illustrate a cookbook.
- Sell illustration prints and originals in an online shop.
- Rock climb outdoors.
Shoot a shotgun.Shoot a Glock. Shoot an arrow.- Read Don Quixote, one of my brother’s favorite books.
- Paint a self-portrait.
- Catch a fish and eat it.
- Go on a hot air balloon ride with a loved one.
- Walk across the Ben Franklin Bridge and the Brooklyn Bridge while I live on the East Coast.
- Live abroad for a season, a summer or a year.
- Bake an exquisite French baguette!
- Leave an unexpected $100 tip for a well deserving waiter or waitress one day.
- Be one of those people who reads the newspaper daily.
- Mentor a young person. Be a mentee!
- Participate in some type of race, triathlon, soapbox derby, or Tough Mudder once.
- Make meditation a part of my life.
- Eat breakfast at my house before work, and stop rushing every day.
- Ice skating in Central Park.
- Learn to finally ollie on a skateboard.
- Teach my future kid to walk on stilts and go on a pogo stick.
- Rent a convertible and drive up the PCH from LA to Seattle.
- Have a garden and grow vegetables.
- Live near my parents again for some time. Live near Mike’s family.
Fulfill my promise to my cousin Cara to take her on a trip when she turned 21.Key West, 2009.- Be in a skit, preferably for a ridiculous fake commercial for an “As Seen On TV” type of product.
- Have a monthly advice column à la Dear Prudence.
- Visit Yosemite National Park and the Redwood Forest.
- Visit the Badlands / Black Hills in South Dakota.
- Visit Niagara Falls.
- Go into a zero gravity chamber.
- Visit Singapore and my family in the Philippines again.
- Visit Watkins Glen State Park, NY.
- Ride horses in Wyoming.
- Kayak at sunrise.
- Camp out in Pennyslvania’s own dark sky park Cherry Springs State Park.
- Go white water rafting and tubing.
- Build a giant, larger than life, two room indoor fort with some of my favorite kids.
- Scuba dive in the Great Barrier Reef.
Re-upholster a sofa by hand, and then have to leave it in Indiana since it wouldn’t fit in the moving truck.Build a day bed from scratch with Mike. Build a headboard. Take an upholstery class.- Write a book
(besides the “chapter book” in your pink Lisa Frank notebook you write in fifth grade). Children’s book or otherwise. - Attend a lantern festival and release one.
- Take a tap dancing and / or a ballet class.
- Own an in ground trampoline one day to relive my youth.
- Visit the Gadds in Sweden for at least 3 weeks, and Copenhagen to see the Hansens.
- Go whale watching.
- Find a reason to own a Native American headdress.
- Be in a parade and wear an amazingly tacky outfit.
- Continue my love of hats and start an official collection.
Try out for a TV show.Try out again and compete in The Amazing Race with Helena and try not to cry too much or get dysentery on national television.- Travel to Hawaii with my mom and see where she, Aunt Marty and Larry went to college.
- Road trip with my mom in California.
Road trip with mom from Vegas to Indiana.2002 complete with speeding ticket! - Win $1000 and walk away on Roulette with my brother-in-law Todd and Amaretto Sours.
- Be a fun and crazy aunt for my nephews and nieces.
- Go on trips with my best friends.
- Have a Huber side family reunion vacation in a huge rental house where nobody will get arrested.
- Ride the Trans-Siberian Rail Journey: Beijing to Moscow (thanks, Bonnie!)
- Bungee jumping.
- Helicopter ride.
- Visit Old Holland Paint Factory.
- See the Northern Lights or the Southern Lights.
- Visit the Grand Canyon.
- Start Ice Cream Friday for 2012, create punch cards and make a Flickr group for posting pictures.
- Meet some of my blog friends in person, Susan and Shona especially!
- Read the biographies of Julia Childs, Benjamin Franklin, Ghandi and John Adams.
- Create fabric patterns and sell them. Silkscreen and print on fabric!
Start a scholarship.Mom and Dad started a memorial fund for Andrew in 2005 through Broward Education Foundation. Donate money to Andrew’s Scholarship fund regularly when I am able to.- Finish knitting my Demi Sweater!
- Host a Thanksgiving and learn to make Aunt Marty’s famous rolls.
- Interview my parents. Get their life stories. Type it out and bind it.
- Track down the family trees on my American and Filipino sides. Work with my cousins and relatives on this.
- Make sure my mom and dad know exactly how much I love them. Without one ounce of doubt.
- Pull my future kids out of school one day for a personal holiday. Establish a personal holiday for myself – an annual day where I can do whatever I damn well please! Encourage Mike to have his own too.
- Convince Daniel and Sandra to send Norah to live with us one summer in America! Send mine to live with them in Sweden.
- Host an exchange student.
- Foster a child.
- Have five dogs in my lifetime.
- Wake up in the middle of the night to watch a lunar eclipse like my mom did when we were kids.
- Watch a meteor shower and have a night picnic.
- Ride on the top of an elevator à la John McLain in Die Hard.
- Rapell off the side of a building or something else really high.
- Volunteer for an organization and make a tangible difference in the daily lives of others. (Heifer, Kiva, mentoring, etc).
- Embroider a portrait of Ron Effing Swanson.
- Buy myself a pretty topaz ring, my November birthstone.
- Create a signature cocktail.
- Have a wood-shop and make sure I can use every tool we own.
- Take Mike back to Italy for a summer in his beloved Florence.
- Invest in a restaurant or business that I believe in. Work the front counter.
- Purchase a real wood croquet set and use it often in my backyard. Re-initiate the college rules of drink in one hand and personal calls of triumph when one scores.
- Finally use the beautiful panel Mike made for me to paint a still life.
- Take some culinary classes or pastry / bread baking classes.
- Take a dip in natural springs.
- Work as a residential interior designer one day.
- Try to do something every week (let’s be realistic here) that scares me, that makes me a better person, and that is just plain ridiculous or fun.
- Have a pomegranate and fig tree one day. And grapefruit tree. You know, since all of those places surely grow in the same climate…
P.S. I'm reminding three people who commented before to get their own lists together now! Jenny, Julie and Jamie!