etc.

Spring is the smell of hyacinths in the kitchen.

100 Things to do before I go (61-80)

61. Grow a perennial garden
62. Bathe in the hot springs in Iceland
63. See the Gee’s Bend quilts
64. Hold a baby panda
65. Knit a sweater and a pair of socks for the mister
66. Build a house
67. Bungee jump
68. Get better at writing & giving/sending cards
69. Reduce our carbon footprint
70. Sit on a jury
71. Cook lasagna just like my mum’s
72. Get fit
73. Read all the books I own
74. Sing in the rain
75. Stay in a water bungalow in Bora Bora
76. Write and publish a piece of fiction
77. Learn to surf
78. Be an extra in a movie I end up loving
79. Give a keynote
80. Drop everything, get in the car, and drive somewhere far away with the mister

Full disclosure: this is getting decidedly harder, with each consecutive list. I’ve given myself certain limitations too (more on that soon), so that doesn’t help. Thanks for sharing your links in the last post — keep them coming!

Feet up, admiring a pair of socks I knitted a couple of years ago, suddenly realizing, hey — they’ve held up pretty well. Which led me straight back to this store to pick up more of the same yarn because I haven’t always been this lucky with hand-knit socks holding up well.

Are you sick of my “things” yet? I’m so tempted to annotate these as I go along, but I’ve decided to save the commentary till the end. Here they are, things 41 through 60.

100 Things to do before I go (41-60)

41. Learn to speak Japanese
42. Live in Paris for a year
43. Experience weightlessness
44. Ride a Zorb
45. Spend a night in a library
46. Go on sabbatical
47. Drink tea & read the morning paper outside on a regular basis
48. Make cheese
49. Walk the Great Wall
50. Grow a lemon tree
51. Take classes in art history & programming
52. Oktoberfest in Germany
53. Give an acceptance speech
54. Bike through the south of France
55. NaNoWriMo
56. Swim in that bioluminescent bay off Puerto Rico
57. Pottery lessons
58. Visit all 50 states
59. Sew something I can wear (proudly)
60. Eat an avocado right off the tree

Are you working on a list of your own? Post a link in the comments, K?

Easter lunch with my folks today, my mum made some awesome cupcakes.

I mentioned to a few of you over email that once I got going on this list, it was hard to stop. I joked about the “goal-setting” being done but, in truth, it is a wonderful exercise in making you stop & consider the stuff you want to accomplish outside of the get-though-it-ness of everyday. Here are my next 20.

100 Things to do before I go (21-40):

21. Swim in the Dead Sea
22. Go on a humanitarian mission
23. Visit Japan
24. See the Aurora Borealis
25. Knit fair isle
26. Go up in a hot-air balloon
27. Karaoke
28. Show something I’ve made, painted, or photographed in a gallery
29. Live on a tropical island for a year
30. Hang glide
31. Rid our lives of chemicals
32. Go to the Komodo islands to see the dragons
33. Spend a week at the Louvre
34. Contribute to PostSecret
35. Road trip across Canada
36. Cook a meal comprised entirely of food we’ve grown/raised/caught ourselves
37. Build a piece of furniture
38. Make soap
39. Save a life
40. Learn to play the violin

Hope you were all blessed with bountiful chocolate and all-around weekend awesomeness. PS: I changed the tagline on this blog. It was time.

Behold, my new kitchen timer! Which has nothing at all to do with the rest of this post.

Perhaps you’ve seen these lists of “100 things to do before I go” floating around the blogworld lately. I first spotted one on Mighty Girl and have subsequently seen it meme’d in a few other places. It looked like fun, so I thought I’d join in. Besides, everyone needs goals, right? Here are my first 20.

100 Things to do before I go (1-20):

1. Publish a book (or 2)
2. Winter camping
3. Walk to work
4. Adopt a dog
5. Finish a Ph.D.
6. Live in a dry house with no plumbing problems
7. Hike the silk road
8. Learn how to spin and weave
9. Sail
10. Visit the Northwest Territories, Yukon, and Nunavut
11. Live completely offline for at least 1 week every year
12. Bake bread
13. Have lunch with the mister on a workday
14. Climb a mountain
15. Silkscreen something
16. Run a marathon
17. Go on a vacation with my whole family
18. Make paper
19. Sea kayak in Alaska
20. Live in the country

What’s on your list?

This is St. Lucia. 25 days there would be brilliant. We were there for 1.

I wish I could say I’ve been on vacation since that last post. Alas, vacation lasted for 10 days, and the last 15 have been spent playing catch-up. But, oh, it was worth it. The mister and I were on a 9-day cruise in the south Caribbean, and let me just tell you, I did not want to come home. Usually, I’m ready for home at the end of vacation, any vacation, no matter how lovely, but this time the escape from reality was so convincing, so complete, that it was hard to come back. There was a whole lot of reading, some knitting, plentiful eating, and a goodly amount of relaxing. Also? Snorkeling, zip lining, and sailing. It was brilliant, folks.

And the last 15 days? A whole lot of reality kicking my butt and harshing my mellow. I’m trying not to think of that though, and to that end, I’m heading back to my aggregator to work through the 600+ feeds in my “art/craft/design” folder. That’s right, 600+ new posts in just one folder, so tonight, I’m indulging myself! Reality, be damned.