Fellow BSB author Rachel Spangler posted a blog called 10 for My Twenties. The basic concept is similar to that of a bucket list, except not as extreme and it doesn’t end in death. Her 10 for My Twenties listed 10 things she wanted to complete before her 30th birthday. Some of them were silly, like frying a turkey, others adventurous, like ride a zipline. My favorite was health related. Her goal is to reach her ideal BMI before her 30th birthday. I don’t know if she’s met the goal yet, but judging by recent pictures, she’s getting close.
Rachel’s idea inspired me to to put together a list of my own. I’m well past thirty (and forty), so mine is a variation on a theme. I have five months left in the year 2012, so my goal is to complete five new things, one per month, before 2013.
Here’s my list:
- Write 5 shorts in 5 months. For my purposes here, a short will be any piece of fiction between 3k-5k words that is not part of a larger work. I want to write one a month.
- Make homemade bread. I’ve never tried to do this before, but I remember my mom making amazing bread when I was little. I want my kids to have the same memories.
- Get a new tattoo. Okay, this isn’t exactly a new thing since I already have three others. But it’s the kind of thing I put off doing and I have the perfect tattoo planned out. I need a deadline to get it done before the next zombie apocalypse.
- Learn to kayak. There’s a small lake not far from here that rents kayaks. We’ve looked at them several times, but never gone. This has been on Tara’s list of things to do for longer than I can remember. I would love to create this memory with her. We’ll probably only go once, but that’s enough for me.
- Lose another 15 pounds. I’ve been working on my weight steadily for the past few years. My focus and dedication goes in waves and the past few months I have been off course, to say the least. 15 pounds in five months is not an aggressive goal, but given that some major eating holidays are in November & December, it could be a bigger challenge than I want to admit.
That’s it for me. I’ll keep y’all posted to my progress.