Every Year Needs a Bucket List (2014)

As I mentioned in my last post (“When You Feel Like You Flunked Out of Last Year,”) I almost didn’t want to make a “bucket” or “To Do” list for this year. I almost decided to leave it blank and let life just happen. (Life IS going to go on and just happen anyway.) I even posted this on the Classic Housewife Facebook page:

But then I decided, “every year needs a bucket list.”

Why?

I know that I’m not going to accomplish everything I plan to do, I know that the year will bring many unexpected things I never even dreamed of putting on my list, and I know that there’s a real possibility I could look at my list at the end of the year and think, “Well, I really fell off my list wagon, didn’t I?”

Forget all that. That’s not the purpose of the list.

I like to make lists, I like to plan, I like goals. I am all too familiar with how easily life just flows through the weeks without any notable accomplishments without them. Even if I don’t accomplish half the stuff on my bucket list, the list gives me motivation, goals, and a direction to start in.

Every year needs a bucket list.

So here’s my, albeit simplified, 2014 Bucket List:

In 2014 I want to finish making our “Blessing” Home more “Homey.”

• Finish the painting projects that I started in 2013 and *almost* finished – my bedroom, the kitchen/school room, and Catie’s room.
• Start – AND FINISH- more painting projects: at least the two bathrooms, living room fireplace, and the home office.
• Watch for, wait for, and find the perfect low bargain “steal” on the buy/sell groups for replacement living room furniture.
• FINISH the dining room bar project I started when we moved in.

In 2014 I want to clear some clutter spots and make them more functional (to take better care of our home and our stuff.)

• The pantry project (some built in shelves and organizing bins.)
• The master bedroom closet project – adding shelves and a better system.
• Declutter/organize/purge/USE the home office — as an office and not a storage room!
• Organize and better use the laundry room shelving.

In 2014, I want to make memories:

• Take a weekend trip to the Texas coast.
• Road trip to Roswell, NM to visit family.
• Road trip to TN to visit family.
• Keep planning fun birthday parties, like I did last year, like I used to do.
• Another just because BFF sleepover.
• Summer camp for the girls?
• Get back into the habit of reading novels to the kids in the evenings, finish reading the How to Train Your Dragon Series, and all or most of the Narnia series (I just bought an all-in-one-volume.)

In 2014, I also want to do some really great things:

• Attend Homeschool Moms’ Winter Summit in January in San Marcos
• Attend Teach them Diligently in July in Dallas.
• Attend Women of Faith in September in Dallas.
• Paint more paintings.
• Learn new guitar chords and more songs.

Who knows if we’ll get to all that this year or not, but I’d like to think we could. Who knows what else the year will bring instead? But now I have some goals, and my specific goals for January are to finish the kitchen (fixing the paint around the pantry door, and the pantry door itself,) take care of the office and overflow of paper clutter, and attend the Homeschool Moms Winter Summit. I think that’s totally doable, isn’t it? Now the important step: get busy and do it. =)