Bucket List

It's Thanksgiving, 2012.  I'm at home, making my jello salad layer by layer, and am, by tradition, running late.  Will it have all 10 layers?  Maybe, maybe not.  I had full intentions of getting an early start last night, but Larry and Iris called me at 7:00 saying they had an extra ticket to an ice hockey game, so I went with them.  Time well-spent.

My mortality has been harder to ignore lately.  What with doctors prescribing things like compression stockings (honestly!) and tut-tutting about my blood pressure, and adding to my prescription list ad nauseum, I have realized I may not, in fact, live forever. At least not in mortality.  Don't get me wrong; I still plan on living until I'm 84 (the age at which I decided all of my grandchildren would be at least 12), and death itself is not really even on the agenda then (heard of twinkling?).  However, in the interest of full disclosure, there is this survey I took yesterday on my personal life span that is haunting me a bit.  Because of recent good habits--exercising and losing weight--and my life long abstinence of drugs and alcohol,  my biological age came back at 48, a full ten years younger than I am.  My life span number was 98!  Wahoo.  Way older than 84. Unfortunately, my age of feeling healthy and acting healthy was 58.  Dang.  Does that mean ten years from the 48 number or does that mean right now?  Well, who knows?  But it sobered me.  (It should sober my caregivers for the last 40 years of my life; btw, great program on NPR yesterday about the value of multi-generations living under one roof!)  So, in the interest of realism, I have decided to at least make a bucket list.  Things I want to do before I die:

1.  Read all of the Newbery Medal books.
2.  Finish Trick and maybe a couple of others.
3.  Visit Scotland again.  At least once.
4.  Go on a mission.
Hmmm . . . This is harder than I thought. That's all I can think off right off the top of my head. Surely there are more.
4.  Read a lot more books.  Duh.  
5.  Oh, I know--finish all the scrapbooks I've started.  Well, there's ten years.
6.  Have a flower garden from April to September that I'm proud of.
Seriously.  Have I no sense of adventure?  Most of this stuff I can do while I'm sitting up in bed at the nursing home.  Okay, I'm being realistic.  Maybe I'll think big, but I have no intention of getting to do all these things.
6.  Visit Africa and China.
7.  Publish a children's book and become sort of famous.
8.  Visit every single Temple.
9.  Wear a size 10.
10. Get married.  Haha!

Mostly all I want to do is be as happy as I am right this minute!  If I can make a difference with the students I teach, pay my bills and see or talk to one of my children or grandchildren almost every day, I'll have a very nice life.