As I hoped, starting my 50 by 50 list got my creative juices churning, and I already have a few more items to add. Also, I realized that since I’m six months away from turning 45, my 50 by 50 Bucket List is like a five year plan for creativity, connectivity and self-care.
Ooh, maybe I want to craft a five year plan for the second half of my forties… And the 50 by 50 Bucket List will be a piece of that plan, but I can also map out writing ambitions, health goals, and personal development work… but let’s focus on the new items for the 50 by 50 Bucket List!
24. Go on 50 Artist Dates
25. Feminist Bible Study Detox: this is a project I keep thinking I should do. I went to Catholic school for 11.5 years and absorbed a lot of beliefs that are lurking in my subconscious. I want to read the Bible critically to flush out those beliefs and decide whether they are beliefs worth holding — or toxic beliefs that need to be scrubbed away. I keep thinking about this work, and then avoiding it, so I believe it belongs on this list.
26. Cook and/or Read Around the World. Another project I keep thinking about, bouncing between I should cook a recipe from every country! and I should read a book written by someone from every country! But there are A LOT of counties in the world, so this is intimidating. To make this less scary, I will either read 50 books or cook 50 recipes from around the globe. Let’s see what I do with this!
27. Do a mud run!
28. Record an audiobook. I should probably start with my memoir but hey, this is my bucket list, and if I want to record a novel first, so be it.
29. Start a cookbook club, or at least attempt to. Have you seen these online? They look awesome! You gather some foodie friends, pick a cookbook, assign recipes, and then gather to sample the spoils.
30. Sew a dress for myself.
31. Write and then publish a Christmas story, preferably a short story or novella. I like writing novels but I think it’d be fun to write a companion piece to my Motherhood Circus series that did not consume a year+ of my writing life.
And then there are some other ideas bouncing around my head that I’m not ready to put on the list:
- Something with hiking – but this is on my 23 in ’23 and seems good to have as an annual goal because it’s soooo good for my soul
- Start an herb garden – but this seems like another good candidate to put on my yearly project list – hello, 24 in ’24!
- Visiting tide pools – samesie
- Conquering clutter – but this is on my 23 in ’23
- Teach folks to knit! My Grandma Shirley taught me to knit and I’d love to pass on the skill.
- Baking bread (but again, I already have this in my 23 for ’23 project…)
- Same with drawing…
- Learn how to make balloon animals (seeing as this is something I’ve always thought about doing and now my protagonist Elodie does it)
- Make homemade Christmas stockings
- Read the dictionary! A crazy lifelong ambition, but possibly too much if I do a Bible study detox.
- Make homemade beauty projects
- Learn some sign language