The Bucket List

OK, here goes it...Things I want to accomplish hopefully by 30, maybe not.
The list is also written in pencil if you can imagine it, therefore, things can change.
Why, I wonder, do I feel the need to place a disclaimer on my wish list?

- Become a 46R
http://www.adirondack.net/TOUR/HIKE/highpeaks.cfm

- read all of Alice Walker's work
- get a teaching job (come on NY state)
- run a 5k (and hopefully more)
- create my own tea recipe and press it myself
- become more spiritual
- learn more about religions around the world to teach to my children
- practice yoga regularly
- learn to sew, make a pillow
- become more self-reliant
- publish a children's book or book of poetry


OK, I will cross them off as I go. I will start small and start reading Walker's work. I will contact a friend of mine who works for a publishing company.

Let's start at the very beginning...

...a very good place to start. Well maybe I'll start where I am now, which very well could be looked at as a beginning. It's new, that's for sure, but beginning I'm not so sure about. I was a teacher. I am a teacher. I was laid off-does that still make me a teacher? Just not presently. I love teaching. I taught English at the middle school and high school level for 5 years. I love teaching English. I love teaching literature. I love planning and writing lesson plans. I loved looking at my calendar and having a sense of where my class would be in two weeks. That sense is gone.

After the birth of my daughter in August I went out and bought two calendars. I bought one for the kitchen to go on the wall and one that I could carry with me. I apparently thought that being an unemployed stay-at-home mom would render a lot of appointments which would require a planner. I came home and filled in every one's birthday, and known doctor appointments for the family. I penciled in my husband's football schedule (he coaches high school) including games and practices and scouts. He teaches English also and I started penciling in school activities that he was a part of. He is the junior class advisor and had a few obligations as a result. after, I took a long look at our family calendar. I realized that the only thing penciled in for me was a dentist appointment six months from now and a gynecologist appointment.

I guess I am realizing the need for something valuable in my life. I have a loving and incredibly supportive husband who is my best friend in the whole world. I have two beautiful children that are overall healthy and happy. I have amazing women friends that are beautiful and strong and inspiring. I have a warm home, a bachelor's degree and Master's degree in Education. I am happy. I love that I have the opportunity to be with my children right now. I know that no one in this world is better for my children than my husband or I. But I want more. I'm not sure what, but something. I have created a bucket list of things that I want to accomplish before my 30th birthday. Perhaps in completing some of the tasks (hopefully all) I will feel a greater sense of self.

Hopefully writing will help me find what I'm looking for. I have no known audience. I am not writing this for anyone but myself. I have always had tremendous faith in my ability to trust myself. I am tunneling into my soul through this process with the only hope of being more. More what, I'm not sure. But definitely more.