The Wish List

I came across this book a few years ago while shopping in Barnes & Noble. It's just a really long list of possible things to do in life. I like it because it gives me ideas I might not think of on my own, like:

• Eating at restaurants I didn't know existed, but would love to try.
• Visiting cool places I've never heard of.
• Trying a new hobby or sport, just for the heck of it.

To use the book, I put an X next to everything I'd like to try and I highlight the things I've already done. Some of the things I've already done include:

• Milk a cow (at my Uncle Marcel's dairy farm in Vermont)
• Buy my own house
• Have my "letter to the editor" published
• Host a Fresh Air child (Eternity has visited us for the past 2 summers)
• Drive through a dust storm in the desert (a dust devil in Buckeye, Arizona)
• Drive 1-80 from New York to San Francisco
• Do the Sunday crossword in ink
• Ride a helicopter to work (in a medevac helicopter when I was an Army medic - scary...we flew with the doors open!)
• Paint a portrait (I was an art major...long, long ago)

And, here are some things that are still on my list to try:

• Visit the Eiffel Tower
• Write a best seller
• Pay it forward
• Take up fencing
• Have 20/20 vision
• Calculate with an abacus
• Float down the Amazon
• Walk across the Golden Gate bridge (we visited San Francisco earlier this year, but just didn't have time to fit this one in!)
• Learn to kayak
• Make my own pickles (I've made jam and chutney, but no pickles yet)

My copy is rather battered, as I've read and re-read The Wish List so many times. It always goes with me on vacation and whenever I travel - it's great airplane reading. I like to remind myself of all the wonderful adventures waiting to be experienced. It's so easy to forget these things while dealing with all the details of day-to-day life.
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