The Bucket List-Part 2

This project was a true labor of love. After I started writing my own Bucket List I wanted everyone around me to write their own. I have gathered up all the lists that I could get my hands on and the things that I’ve found are amazing. The lists come from people from all walks of life. Ages range from 15 to 53. Male and female. All kinds of educational backgrounds. Some married, some single, some divorced.

What I found surprised me. While there were some that had unique goals on them, many shared dreams and aspirations. Many people want to go skydiving scuba dive, and swim with dolphins. All the single people (even the teenagers) want to find someone, get married, and have children. The Moms want to see their kids (or grandkids) graduate. What I love so much about this is the realization that even though everyone is different, we all basically want the same things. We want to be loved and to love someone else. We pretty much all want to have children who we can watch grow up and prosper into successful human beings. And we all want a little adventure!

It was the more personal things on these lists that made this project so fun and meaningful. While I’m not going to share identities with you, I will give you a little insight to who these people are so you can see just how alike and unique we all are. These are not the lists in their entirety, but just a sampling of each….It may be a little long but I went through and picked out some the best ones from each list. Let these people inspire you to achieve great things (and some just plain funny things) the way they have all inspired me.

15 year old female
• Get out of high school with a 4.0 GPA
• Make it through college to get my degree to be an Obstetrician
• Be in two place's at once
• Write a book and have it published
• Be an operator on the Suicide Hotline
• Be able to watch my baby brother grow up
• Get married on the beach

16 year old female
• Voice a cartoon
• Shoot Kristen Stewart in the foot
• Spend the day at St. Jude’s
• Help at a homeless shelter
• Meet Robert Pattinson

17 year old male
• Save a persons life
• Meet Brett Favre
• Go to Canton, Ohio to the Football Hall of Fame
• See Eminem Live
• Graduate
• Be brought back to life
• Have Gills Implanted (Boys….so strange!)

18 year old male
• Go to culinary school
• Become a chef
• Have my own restaurant/diner
• Have my own cooking show
• Forgive everyone who has disrespected me in my life
• Save a animals life

20 year old male college student
• Work with the homeless and disenfranchised in New Orleans/ other Katrina effected areas of the Gulf Coast
• Learn a unique foreign language ( in progress)
• Build a relationship with my dad
• Have a legally recognized marriage
• Make my family proud
• Spend a year living out of hotels across the country (a vagabond of sorts)
• Learn to feel comfortable with myself and my abilities
• Live to see the day when homosexuals have the same rights that everyone else enjoys
• Mush someone’s face…
• Live off of a self-sustainable farm for a year (with a staff of course….what do I look like, a farmer?)
• Audition for a Broadway musical

25 year old single female
• Marry someone who loves me and understands my idiosyncrasies and accepts them
• Have lots of dogs!
• Be voted Teacher of the Year
• Get a doctorate (Ed.D or Ph.D) in Administration and Supervision, and Curriculum Design
• Be principal of an elementary school.
• Go to France and drink red wine and eat brie and baguettes all day
• Go to India and visit a Buddhist temple
• Travel with my best friend Lisa (<---That’s me!) • Go to a movie premiere • Take classic voice lessons • Train for and run a 10k • Write/illustrate children's books with my sister Shelley • Swim in water so blue it takes your breath away 25 year old married female
• To kiss my husband goodnight on the night of our 50th wedding anniversary
• Help my daughter get dressed on her wedding day
• Plant a vegetable garden
• Stomp grapes
• Make Christmas cookies with the assistance of my daughter
• Be in my sister’s wedding
• Foster dogs for animal rescue program
• Stuff a Turkey and bake it for Thanksgiving
• Plant a Christmas tree
• To sit on the porch of the house I built with my husband

27 year old Mother
• Have a wedding with the dress of my dreams
• Visit castles in Europe
• Buy a house with central air
• Dance with my son at his wedding
• Attend a fancy ball
• Knit an afghan
• Watch the sunset on the beach
• Have another baby
• Visit the Holy Lands
• Be my son’s hero

53 year old grandmother of four
• Travel across the U.S.
• Go on a cruise
• See my grandchildren graduate high school
• Remodel an old house
• See Willie Nelson in concert
• Be able to make my children financially stable
• Go to the Grand Ole Opry
• Not HAVE to work until retirement age


Please if you haven’t done so, write your own Bucket List. And start crossing things off that list. It doesn’t matter if you are 17 or 70, it’s never too late to do the things you’ve always wanted to do!

And thanks to everyone who not only wrote their lists, but gave them too me so that I could write this blog. You guys truly are the best and I can’t wait to start crossing things off with you!

I guess in this case, life IS like a movie......

The Bucket List- Part One

The Bucket List is a 2007 film starring Academy Award-winners Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman. The main plot follows two terminally ill men (portrayed by Nicholson and Freeman) on their road trip with a wish list of things to do before they "kick the bucket."

The list includes things like go skydiving together, get tattoos on their hands, climb the Pyramids, drive a Shelby Mustang, eat dinner at Chevre d'Or in France, visit and praise the beauty and history of Taj Mahal, India, ride motorcycles on the Great Wall of China, and attend a lion safari in Africa.

So this got me thinking. What would be on my Bucket List? I sat down and started to write my own. I decided I would come up with twenty-five things for the twenty-five years I’ve been alive. I got so excited about this that I’ve gotten my friends and family to write one too. Stayed tune for part two of this blog to see a comparison of all of those bucket lists. In the meantime, here’s mine.

1.Visit the Taj Mahal
2.Sing on stage at the Grand Ole Opry
3.See the pyramids
4.Go to medical school and earn a M.D.
5.Road trip with Heather across the country
6.Start a dog rescue
7.Marry a man who embraces my crazy
8.Have four healthy children (3 girls and 1 boy preferably) and have them grow up close to my family and my best friend Heather’s kids.
9.Live in a home with my own home theatre
10.Skydive
11.Get to and maintain a healthy weight
12.Help build a Habitat for Humanity house
13.Host or attend a period party- a 1800’s or earlier costume party
14.Scuba dive somewhere exotic
15.Learn how to bake the perfect peach pie
16.Work at Johns Hopkins
17.Meet Bill Clinton
18.Spend a month living in a tent in the mountains
19.Own a pair of Jimmy Choo’s
20.Train for and run a marathon (okay, okay, a half-marathon)
21.Write a book
22.Rally in Washington for a cause that’s important to me
23.Punch someone in the face
24.Teach my nieces and nephews about what’s important in life
25.Be as good of a person as my family and friends think I am