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A couple of weeks ago on a Monday morning my husband and I awoke, showered and got dressed so we could attend the funeral of our friend's mother. She was only 63. After the funeral, we got into our vehicle and drove home. Both of our hearts were heavy. We both understood all too well the family's feeling of loss. This year I have seen the death of my father-in-law, and it seems that every time I turn around I hear of the death of another friend's parent. This makes me incredibly sad for my friends and grateful that I still have both of my parents. The deaths that have been in my circle of friends feels like a whisper from the universe – “pay attention”. As Oprah Winfrey says, when you don’t listen to the whispers, they turn into shouts, and then one day you find the universe kicking you upside of the head. Something drastic happens and you have no choice but to pay attention. Finally this death prompted me to start paying attention. Something changed. Maybe I was inspired by this woman's determination to change her life in spite of her age and circumstances. Or maybe I'd just reached my limit - I don't know. But when we drove home that day I had decided that I wasn't going to let my life just keep on floating past me. The end comes too swiftly, and we never really know when it will be our turn. It's way too easy to get caught up in our own busy-ness. At least it is for me. But when the crunch comes, we make time to be with our friends and family in their time of need. Why do we wait until the end to do this? So I made a vow to myself that I would make a change. I don’t want to wait for “someday”. Although I think that I will likely have many more years with all of my loved ones, I don’t know that for sure. And what if I’m wrong? Are there things I want to do or to say? Yes! As we drove home I said to my husband, "I want to go on that river canoe trip with my dad that we've always talked about. I want to do it this summer." His response was simple. "Do it." After I came home and went about my day, these thoughts continued to rumbling around in my head. What experiences am I putting off? What memories do I wish to create? And why am I waiting? So I sat down and started a “bucket list” – ie. things I want to do before I kick the bucket. Then I remembered the list my friend Jeanine wrote up. It was 101 things to do in 1001 days, because "someday" is too nebulous. Here it is.
Learn how to spin wool
Buy a house
Take a canoe trip down the North Saskatchewan River with my dad
Travel to New York City with my mom and Kaelyn
See a musical on Broadway
See an opera at the Met
Have high tea at Rutherford House
Do an overnight trail ride
Have high tea at the Empress in Victoria
Have high tea at the Hotel MacDonald
Paint a watercolour picture
Do an over night kayak trip on the West Coast
Can my own raspberries and peaches
Grow a vegetable garden
Learn to belly-dance
Plan a wardrobe with an image consultant
Take a writing class
Write a book
Take my daughter to Disneyland
Find a creative collaborator and launch a new artistic creation
Start a mastermind group
Learn how to cook Indian Food (East Indian not Native Indian!)
Finish reading 10 books I’ve started but never finished
Learn how to change the oil in my vehicle
Go cross-country skiing at Elk Island Park
Swim in a lake
Do yoga four times in a month
Learn to play a song on the guitar
Take my parents out for dinner
Have a girls night out at the Creperie
Explore all of the off-leash dog parks in Edmonton
Take K swimming with the dolphins
Double my current average monthly earnings
Triple my current average monthly earnings
Drive through the Okanagan when the cherry blossoms are out
Take my dog to agility training.
Buy some beautiful new bath towels
Have a makeover with my daughter
Learn 10 new vegetarian recipes
Visit Calgary.
Have a pedicure
Spend an entire day reading.
Complete an entire course of The Artist’s Way
Attend a play
Become involved in a political cause
Perform a recital in Edmonton
Host a cooking bee with friends
Go strawberry picking
Pick wild blueberries or saskatoons
Visit a lake in Alberta I’ve never been to and have a picnic there
Go for a sauna at my cousin’s
Stay overnight at my aunt’s
Visit the Devonian Botanical Gardens
Get a fancy camera and learn how to take pictures that are true to what I see
Dye my hair platinum blonde
Lose twenty pounds
Make a new friend
Get pet insurance
Have disposable income
Split my disposable income into funds for Financial Freedom, Education, Fun, Charity and Major Purchases/Travelling
Have 10 date nights with my husband
Learn how to do basic wiring
Learn how to drywall
Learn how to install flooring
Start a fund to save for my parent’s 50th Wedding Anniversary
Get a headstone for my father-in-law’s grave
Train Riley so well that she’ll stay outside of a store while I run in for a few minutes (to get coffee!)
Do an overnight hike with K and G
Go to a naturopath to get in tip top health
Wear a bikini proudly
Have a glamour photo shoot done of myself
Try 5 new red wines
Buy a pair of dead sexy, totally frivolous shoes
Transfer all of our pictures onto CDs
Make a CD of Cara and Justin’s wedding photos and give it to them
Learn a Mozart concert aria
Organize all of my files
Sort through and store all of my daughter’s toys
Have a professional family portrait taken
Buy new bras
Start the habit of taking a multivitamin everyday (cross this off after a consistent 6 weeks)
Paint pottery with my daughter
Make a scrapbook of Cath’s birthday and send to her
Read about the situation in the middle east and develop my own opinions on what is happening there
Follow politics everyday for a month
Frame my degrees and hang them up
Teach my daughter to jump double-dutch
Read 5 books about a culture I don’t know about
Be able to identify all the countries on a map of Africa
Be able to identify all the countries on a map of South America
Buy a new swimsuit
Sew myself something
Make my dad a carrot cake
Add 5 new fish recipes to my repertoire
Find a place to buy good smoked whitefish
Learn how to do Powerpoint
Finish my bucket list
Get business cards made
Make a business plan
Designate guardians for my daughter
Own 5 cat and dog-safe houseplants
Comb all of the knots out of my kitty’s coat and get it looking lustrous
Top secret!
Have two sets of sheets, pillowcases and duvet covers
As you can see, once I got going I thought of all kinds of things to do! I have a few extras that I've decided to leave on the list in case some of the others are either unmanageable or cease to interest me.
It's a cliche because it's true - life is short. I don't know about you, but here's how I plan to jam pack it as full of good stuff as I can!