Maggie of Mighty Girl is making a list of “100 Things to Do Before I Go” (part one, part two, part three). She has some pretty lofty stuff on there, like “know basic Mandarin,” “safari in Africa” and “stay in the ice hotel.”
When I first saw her list, I decided that I didn’t want to make one of my own. I like to be able to cross things off my lists, and I didn’t want to have a list full of things like “See the Kremlin” or “Visit Petra,” “learn to fly” or “have Jeff Tweedy over for dinner.” I also didn’t much like the thought of coming up with 100 things to do. But then I thought, “Heck. It’s my list. Think smaller!”
So instead, here’s a list of 20 things to do before Nov. 4, 2018. On which date I’ll turn 40.
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Make my own cream soda. (Done! And then I couldn’t stop doing it for awhile, because it was so delicious.) - Spend a week in Paris with Rockford.
- See Wilco at the Ryman.
- See Wilco in Chicago.
- Make a quilt.
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Spend a night on a train. (It wasn’t an overnight trip, but it was 11 hours long. And I did fall asleep for a bit.) - Spend a week in NYC with Rockford.
- Karaoke.
- Pay for a stranger’s dinner.
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Buy a house. - Be an extra in a movie. (A Wes Anderson movie, if I’m dreaming big. Which I’m not supposed to be doing.)
- Make a wedding cake.
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Work on a Habitat house. - Take the White House tour.
- Grow my own vegetables.
- Participate in TV Turnoff week without cheating.
- Lose 30 pounds.
- Write a short story. Let someone other than Rockford read it.
- Build and furnish a dollhouse.
- Go somewhere tropical and lovely. Relax.
Do you have a life list, or a 10-year list, or anything like it? What’s on it? What have you already crossed off?