The 2010 Bucket List

Once more into the fray of a brand new year.  I spent the first weekend of this year considering the question of "resolutions" among other things.  I reviewed the ones I set out for 2009.  It was the same background music of my life that continues to play all the time, regardless of what year it is or what else is going on:  more training time with the dogs, more exercising, less eating, more being "happy" and less being "angry", getting organized, cutting the clutter, etc. etc.  All things that serve to make me feel more guilty and less productive when I don't hit them with all cylinders firing.  So this year I'm trying something a little different -- a bucket list of things I want to do whether they are "good" for me or not.

First up is MORE ADVENTURES.  Alone, with others, with the dogs.  Just getting out and about, seeing and experiencing, getting involved in the living part of life rather than the thinking part.  I'm making a list to put on the refrigerator of "See Alabama First" things to do over the next months.  If I run out of those things, I might sneak in some other Southeastern destinations and experiences.

Second would be NO MORE RECIPES CUT OUT OF MAGAZINES.  I swear, I have enough cookbooks for a whole neighborhood and hundreds more clipped out ones in 3 ring binders.  From the looks of things, you'd think all I did was cook.  I don't even like to cook.  So, I'm limiting myself to TWO new recipes per month.  Simple Southern recipes.  If I want exotic and/or foreign, I'll go out.

Third, and related to #2, is not stockpiling food.  It's shameful what gets thrown out in this house.  There's only two of us here, not Cox's army.  (No, I don't know who Cox was.....it's just something I've heard all my life from my grandmother, mother and any other female relative when discussing amounts of food.  As in "we've got enough here to feed Cox's army!")  While cooking for Christmas, I threw away several cans of food from the back of the pantry  that were older than a kindergartener.  Ridiculous!

Fourth is BECOMING MORE TECHNOLOGICALLY EDUCATED.  For example, stuff to spiff up this blog.  I want to be able to know stuff that 10-year olds take for granted:  how to burn a CD, download music.  Just things that I've never taken the time to do because basically, I didn't have to.  I don't want to be a clueless little old bluehaired lady.  Not yet anyway.

Fifth, is to VISIT ONE NATIONAL PARK I'VE NEVER BEEN TO.  After watching Ken Burns' PBS special on our national park system a few months ago, I can see that I've been missing out on some spectacular places.  Why go to Europe when what we've got right here is so amazing?

Sixth, CONTINUE TO HELP RESPONSIBLE DOG OWNERS AND BREEDERS IN MY STATE AND NATIONALLY PROTECT THEIR RIGHTS TO OWN AND BREED DOGS.  However I can and as often as I can.

And then pretty much all that other stuff held over from last year.  2010 could prove to be a very full, but lighter, year.  After all, I've still got to lose 15 pounds!