My Life List

If you are wondering what the heck is a life list?  It appears to be an internet phenomenon which I came across the other day here and here.  I am not entirely sure where the original source is, but some might suggest the Mighty Life List.

After reading a few of the above mentioned lists, I was pleased with what I have already achieved (sometimes we are so focused on the future, that we forget to think about the past), at least, I was pleased that I have already achieved in life what others have on their own lists.  What have I done of note?

• Get a tree tattoo on my ribs(seriously!  woot woot for me.  I can’t believe this is on someone else’s list)
• Live, for a measurable amount of time, in a foreign country (done!)
• Take more fashion risks (I think I’ve taken plenty, thank-you-very-much!)
• See the Grand Canyon, Glacier National Park, Yosemite, Niagara Falls, Yellow Stone, Arches National Park, Death Valley, Grand Teton, Red Wood Forest, and Zion (Most of that done!)
• Swim at the base of a waterfall (I was 10!)
• Own and maintain an Etsy shop (yep)
• Be a speaker at a conference (Yay Otago conferences!)
• Learn to ski (CC, Downhill, water and wakeboarding!  Done done and done!)
• See a Broadway show (The Boy from Oz and Phantom of the Opera)
• Sew a dress and wear it out proudly (I’d like to do this more often)
• Do karaoke without shame/booing (I suggest alcohol for this one)
• Own an awesome coat
• Have a handmade Christmas (I think this year counts!)
• Own land (thank you Grandma & Grandpa, Mom & Dad, for my 1/64th of our family farm)
• Live in another country for a year (try 4+)

The writer of the Mighty list included things that only made her feel more peaceful, but I think I’m going to just brainstorm.  I can always edit my list later, eh?

So here goes, in no particular order (haha):

• Submit my PhD for marking before I turn 30!
• Skype family and friends more often (talk with at least one person a week!)
• Get married
• Have children before I am too old
• Create large college funds for future hypothetical children
• Have my own, profitable, successful apparel business, making products which are sustainable, ethical and improve people’s lives
• Enter the World of Wearable art show, have my piece accepted
• Live for 6 mo-1 year in a country where English is not the primary language
• Learn to speak Spanish
• Learn to dance!  (Ballet, salsa – something!)
• Learn to cook as well as my mother and grandmas
• Learn to make and can my mother’s spaghetti sauce
• Have a Samoyed dog as a pet
• Have my own sewing studio in my home
• Go skinny dipping (I lived on a lake for 18 years and never did.  fail)
• Go skydiving
• Climb Mt. Kilimanjaro, and go on an African Safari in Tanzania
• Visit Italy, Spain, England, France, Greece, Sweden, Germany, Norway
• Live in MN again
• Own a piano and play it, OR better yet, a french horn
• Have a garden – grow veggies and flowers
• Grow fruit trees
• Have a Xmas tree farm
• Have homes in multiple countries
• Be a better designer
• Make a quilt and finish the first quilt I started
• Own a fancy schmancy camera, and know how to use it well
• Live as sustainably as possible (renovate house, perhaps?)
• Volunteer
• Attend ComicCon
• Do all NZ’s great walks
• Be able to lead my own group into the BWCA
• See the Australian Outback
• Learn to drive a manual (stick shift) car
• Learn to slalom ski – like, properly!
• Donate my hair to locks of love or similar charity
• Try surfing, at least once
• Learn to crochet, and embroider
• Paint original art, hang it on my walls
• Help save the planet…  somehow
• Learn to play bridge
• Learn to smock
• Learn to wakeboard properly

…More to come later – as I think of them!

Here are a couple of relevant articles, the first on why more americans don’t travel abroad (hence the popularity of travel on life lists?) and secondly on a teen who has already accomplished heaps in terms of making the world a better place.