My List Of the Bucket!

With the new year fast approaching I have been hearing a lot about resolutions, goals, weight loss plans... all the same old things we all seem to think about right around the time we put away the eggnog and hang up the new calendars. I happen to not really believe in New Years resolutions. It always seems to me that I either make them too broad or too specific. Like for example I might say "be a better person." Yes, well that is all fine and dandy except that you have no idea what it means. Or I might get really specific like saying "lose 10 pounds." This one is extra horrible because what I am basically telling myself is that I am not good enough, I am too fat and now I must lose weight. And if I don't lose the weight? Well I stress about it for the first few months of the year, eventually becoming exhausted and then failing, where I then feel like crap. Not good.

So as I have grown older and wiser (oh yes, I am very wise at my 21 years of age) and I have decided that New Years resolutions are not for me. But all the talk of goals and things has gotten me thinking about something I do believe in. Bucket Lists! I have had an unofficial bucket list going on in my head for years. Something I have never written down, and some things I have never even said out loud, but all things that I have been longing for and that I am determined to make happen by the end of this lovely little life I am living!

One year, ten years, it doesn't really matter to me. But at some point in my life these are the things that I want...

#1 This one sounds like a weird thing to have on a bucket list, but I have really really wanted one of these dogs ever since I discovered the breed! I want to own a Bernese Mountain dog! They are so beautiful and such sweet dogs. When I lived with the Buddhists there was one of these pretty dogs living there with us. Poor thing though, it was fed a vegetarian diet because he was "cruelty free" which is, of course, something I am sure all dogs are concerned about. He was so skinny and his fur looked like crap. I very often thought about sneaking some steak into that dogs bowl full of rice. (not just vegetarian dog food. The dog ate just rice!)

#2 I was reading a Backpacker magazine one day and saw a little tiny picture of this beautiful green hill and some ruins off in the distance. The heading said "4 day hike in Peru: Machu Picchu" I was instantly drawn to it and decided right then and there that I would hike to Machu Picchu someday. I actually went as far as to call a travel agency in Australlia and became friends with the lady who always answered the phone. It is my dream hike, my dream vacation, my dream whatever. I love that there is so much culture there, you get to see villages and beautiful scenery, and then at the end of it all, you have the satisfaction of ending up somewhere and not just hiking a giant loop where you end up back where you started.


#3 This one is a little embarrassing, because part of me feels like who am I to think that anyone would be interested even if I were to do it, but here it goes... I want to write a book. I want to write a cookbook, and I also have an idea for a fiction novel that I have been dying to get published. Silly? maybe... but I will do it anyway.

#4 I have always wanted to learn Italian and then go to Italy and order coffee. Sound a little reminiscent of Eat Pray Love? I assure you I had the idea way before Elizabeth Gilbert ever told us about her adventure! It all started when I bought an Italian cookbook, then from there I fell in love with the food, then the culture and then the language. I have always loved coffee. And wouldn't you know it? So do the Italians! Good strong espresso, just the way it was meant to be. And those beautiful words, that delicious food... I will go there someday in my life, and hopefully many more times than once.



There are a few more... okay, there are a lot more! But these are the four that I have held near my heart for many years. So there it is. There is what I want my life to be in 4 little paragraphs.

"Once you make a decision, the universe conspires to make it happen."

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

(I hope you're right Ralph!)