Do Your Own Thing

I’m still reading the comments from my 100 Things to do Before I Go posts. The best one so far is from Claire, who says:

“…the direct result of you writing this excellent list is me quitting my stupid, stupid admin job and heading to uni to study nursing at the ripe old age of 27. Thanks Maggie … I really needed this!!! Reading your list and seeing all the fabulous things you would get up to got my bum into gear to start living my life too.
xx”

Well done, Claire. Go! Go! Go!

Here are some ideas that intrigued me from the lists you posted on your sites. I like the way they all sound together:

Sarcomical
show photos in a gallery
participate in a humanitarian mission in another country
have a rose garden
Daaydreaming
22. Find my best friends from growing up .. Maria Salas, and Phillip Avila
29. Be debt free
41. Learn to accept that I will always need meds for my depression
This Happy Home
1. own a store with big display windows.
12. embroider a self portrait.
24. make my own wine.
Writing to Sanity
12. Do not go online for 3 consecutive days
61. See an author read from his or her work
73. Learn the correct way to hold and shoot a gun
The Littlest Tree Hugger
7. Learn Spanish, French, Arabic and conversational Japanese
12. Help put my niece thru college (if she wants to go)
25. Keep a goldfish for longer than a month
The Fray
1. See sloths in Costa Rica.
5. Live off the food in the kitchen (a la Laura) for one month
11. Spelunk.
Lucky Magpie
28. Find out the real name of my biological father
49. Do something to get into the Guinness Book of World Records
72. Have part of my income come from something internet related
Esmon.net
1. Make my own cream soda.
6. Spend a night on a train.
19. Build and furnish a dollhouse.
More Kisses Please
3. ride a giraffe
13. spend a night in the room Janis Joplin died in
16. pay someone’s rent for the month
The Nonhipster Mom
7. Make really great marinara sauce.
12. Stop being mad at my parents.
19. Make puff pastry from scratch.
Scarlet Words
23 Build a time capsule
24 Read the dictionary from beginning to end
73 Have my dog’s teeth cleaned
The Metamorph
8. Own a Victorian style home, complete with claw-foot tub, window seat, and sparkling crystal chandelier.
14. Learn to sing again.
24. Stay a night in Dracula’s Castle.
Spandrel Studios
3. Have tea at the Plaza
8. Design the perfect jacket
9. Flip an egg in a pan

Easter Basket Guide

This isn’t Hank’s first Easter, but it will be his first basket, because apparently jelly beans are exactly the size of an infant’s windpipe, and seemingly difficult to gum. Who knew? Also, people who assemble Easter baskets for one-month-olds should be taking care of all of our babies while the rest of us dance naked and howl at the moon. I haven’t had nearly enough time for that lately.

Anyway, I’m pretty excited about basket-gathering activities, so I’ve been having fun scouting. Here’s what the mighty team has come across so far on Mighty Goods and Mighty Junior:

Easter Baskets for Grown Ups
Kids Easter Basket Guide
Easter Baskets for Babies

Let us know what you think. And don’t forget the Peeps.

100 Things to Do Before I Go

Here’s the last of it, 75-100:

75. Watch Hank eat his first ice cream cone
76. Write thank you notes to my teachers
77. Own land
78. Throw a block party
79. Remove money as a concern
80. Write a million dollar check to a charity
81. Help decorate Hank’s bike for a neighborhood parade
82. Take a two-week vacation without computers
83. Attend my sister’s nursing school graduation
84. Zip line through a canopy
85. Lemonade on the front porch swing, warm summer night
86. Finish up or give up all the unfinished projects in the house
87. Play imaginary games with the kiddo
88. Buy a stock on my own
89. Make a quilt of Hank’s Christmas annual jammies
90. Supply an excellent dress-up chest
91. Have a big wedding anniversary party
92. Dinner at the French Laundry
93. Finish the baby book
94. Christen a boat
95. Read or attempt every book on the book list I started in high school
96. Remove toxins from our food and environment
97. Do something I think I can’t do (marathon, sky dive, hang glide, movie script)
98. Plant bulbs in a public space
99. Have a family portrait taken
100. See a glacier

All right, everybody. Please do this. I thought it would be fun, but it’s actually been surprising as well. Good questions to ask yourself:

-What would surprise me if I found out I hadn’t done it by the time I died?
-What are the little things I expect to just unroll in front of me?
-What are the big, amazing things that absolutely wouldn’t happen without some heads-down, teeth-clenched work?
-What things have I been concentrating on that don’t really matter?

100 Things to Do Before I Go

Fifty through seventy-five:

50. Live in another country for a year
51. Wear a large hat at the Kentucky Derby
52. Taste durian
53. Sparklers with Hank and Bryan
54. Get in the habit of grand loving gestures
55. Live in a house with a window seat
56. Parasail
57. Have a portrait done of myself in the style of a portrait of my grandmother
58. Swim with bioluminescent plankton in Puerto Rico
59. See the floating fire lanterns
60. Ring a church bell
61. Attend services at Glide Memorial
62. Take photos of the little girls twirling outside the Nutcracker
63. Organize a gathering for strangers I’d like to meet
64. Rewire a lamp
65. Use my work to improve lives
66. Form a workplace with people I love
67. Repay the woman who let me live with her in college
68. Participate in a giant food fight
69. Know San Francisco like the back of my hand
70. Pretend we’ve had a power outage once a month
71. Go a day without speaking
72. Plant a tiny orchard
73. Carve our initials inside a heart somewhere
74. Write another book
75. Do one of Miranda July’s projects

These are getting much more difficult as I go along. I also find that I’m very hesitant to list things that I think are improbable, which is part of my drive to cross stuff off. I’m struggling to roll with the unlikely anyway, because I think most of us tend to have a skewed perspective of what’s possible for us versus what’s possible for others.

As usual, add a few from your list to the comments. The comments have been an awesome springboard for me. Also, start thinking about the stuff you’ve already crossed off your life list.