Monthly Archives: July 2008

A Bucket List is the Monday Meme


Ran across this while tag surfing WordPress from my sick bed last week. Apparently a bucket list is a list of all the things you want to do or achieve before you “kick the bucket” and was the basic story line for a Jack Nicholson movie.

A fairly straight forward plan really. One simply makes a list and presumably puts time and effort into checking each item off.

So what would my bucket list include? Well, I think like most things it would be a living list/work in progress sort of thing that would be subject to revision over time.

My Bucket List

  • publish a novel
  • live in a house I helped build
  • visit Vancouver
  • learn to speak French
  • be published in Analog and Apex
  • write an op/ed piece for Time or Newsweek
  • be able to run 5 miles daily again
  • teach at the university level
  • take a summer writing seminar at Iowa
  • be interviewed about my writing
  • make a living that will allow my husband to be a kept man

Okay for a start, I guess.

I am reading an ebook about owning and operating your own book store and it talks a lot about the importance of planning. Interestingly, I read an article on mapping career goals in a writing magazine on the drive back from the States just prior to the ebook. There is something for writing it down. Wishes. Dreams. Goals. Call them whatever you like, but there is power in naming.

Although one would not recognize me these days, I used to be the teacher who had her year plotted out and the first quarter’s lesson plans done on the first day back. My organizing methods were strictly my own, but I was organized. All this talk of bucket lists and mapping and planning in general has put me in the mood to recapture a bit of my inner school marm and harness my life a bit. Taking things day by day is not a bad way to go about life but it will not take one too far from the point he/she begins at either.

And so what is your bucket list? As always, write it in the comment or blog it and link back.

Do Brad and Angie Ever Wish They Didn’t Have Kids?


The headline story on MSNBC this morning heralded the arrival of the Brangelina twins. I won’t go into whether or not such a thing is actually worthy of interest and can be called news, but it brought to mind an article I read recently that questioned whether being a parent was as fulfilling as we are led to believe.

That’s the mantra, right?

Having children completes us as women and enhances coupledom, but statistics don’t bear that out. Marriage/relationship happiness drops quite a bit with the arrival of the first wee one and doesn’t hit satisfaction levels again until the last child leaves home which is age 32 in Canada according to the latest research.

If BabyDaughter lives with us until she is 32, I will be 70 and Rob 72 before we are experiencing that post active parenting nirvana-like bliss. Angelina will be 65 in case you were wondering but she has the means to buy her freedom sooner.

Although Rob did suggest a freedom buy-out yesterday that might be worth exploring.  ElderD is sick of her cat lady roommate and is looking to rent a new place and of course MidKid needs a place, so why don’t we buy a little house in the city and rent it to them?

Yeah, one gets to that point which brings me back to the original question of contentment. Why are we over sold this idea that procreating and parenting bring us happiness when clearly it does not?

Well, maybe it does when you are a multi-millionaire acting couple with the means to purchase all the back up you need (and with six kids under the age of seven – that’s a small army of domestics – although DNOS’s MIL did it without an entourage).

Ordinary folk though? Living far from family. Working two jobs. That’s pretty much the norm now and I guess it shouldn’t be any wonder that as we stray farther and farther from the extended family model couples are less and less enchanted with the myth and feel constrained and stressed by their children.

Thoughts?

The Week in Review


Monday and Tuesday were a wash. I spent both days barely able to stand up for any length of time. I haven’t had a sinus infection like that in well over a year and probably would’ve avoided this one had it not been for the really humid weather over our trip and the repeated exposure to an equally sick husband.

Speaking of him, he is much better. At last. I was very worried last weekend as Rob never gets really sick. I was finally able to talk him into seeing our kindly Chinese doctor on Monday who promptly put him on an antibiotic. Which he took because he felt that awful.

Rob, and Midkid, have this thing about doctors and medication that I understand but not in the face of real illness. It’s ridiculous to not at least go and be seen after one has been sick enough to take to one’s bed for a day or more. Better to know what you are attempting to fight off with vitamins and herbal tea than to cough your lungs up in ignorance.

I didn’t feel better until Thursday and even then I was still dragging. Friday was the first day I didn’t feel like crap but I am still coughing a bit.

Rob’s mom, who we have been waiting on since last Saturday, finally showed up on Thursday afternoon. Pretty much announcing herself via the phone while she searched for a place to park on the street.

The visit was to be an unspecified number of days but ended abruptly at noon on Friday for reasons that neither of us really know other than the fact that it wasn’t personal. It was just MIL being MIL.

The upside is that between her perfume and MidKid’s the house was a bit more smelly than Rob and I can take and now we are back to just eau de MidKid.

Oh and we had the house to ourselves on Friday night.

Well, except for BabyDaughter but we have her trained.

MidKid went into the city for a “date”. With someone who is employed and might pass muster with Rob – should we ever meet him.

Did I mention we had the evening alone?

We did.

It was very, very nice.

So now it’s Saturday. BabyDaughter has gotten over her aversion to the new neighborhood kids (they are boys and she was miffed about that) because they have a trampoline and much better toys (read: newer) than she does.

“BigBrother has a Lightening McQueen car!” and then the tone became an accusation “It’s bigger than the one you got me.”

Welcome to the neighborhood. So glad to have you.

As long as this results in much playing outdoors for the next 7ish weeks, I can endure the insults.

Off to the beach soon to meet the older girls. ElderDaughter wanted to spend the day with us all. MidKid stayed over at her place last night. Hopefully, ElderDaughter will be able to get her sister up before noon. We have yet to see her before that without a summons.

Happy weekend to you all.