Category Archives: 50 by 50

More Items For My 50 by 50 Bucket List

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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

It’s Never Too Soon For Another Bucket List: Introducing My 50 by 50 Project

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I love lists. I love projects. So yeah, it might make me a cliche, but I love bucket lists.

Earlier this month, when we were driving around Nebraska, I thought, I want a 50 by 50 bucket list. Fifty things I will do before I turn the big 5-0. Which is nearly six years away, but why wait? The sooner I start the list, the better the odds that I’ll complete it.

This is the first draft of my 50 by 50 Bucket List. It is by no means complete, and I reserve the right to change or abandon it at anytime.

  1. Try rock climbing – at an indoor gym!
  2. Learn French – well, I’m already learning French on Duolingo. Let’s say that I’d like to be proficient in French (fluent would be cool but I’m pragmatic).
  3. Make coq au vin
  4. And a baked Alaska
  5. Get a ping pong table
  6. Learn how to tap dance (because if it doesn’t happen by fifty, it’s probably never happening.)
  7. Knit a pair of socks.
  8. Be able to French braid my hair. Or, if I chop my hair, be able to French braid Pippa’s hair.
  9. Write 50 weekday blog posts in a row. (Because this creates momentum, and momentum creates unexpected creativity, and I’d like to see what happens if I do this.)
  10. Create 50 weekly TikTok’s in a row. (ditto)
  11. Be all caught up on photo albums.
  12. Go all out for Halloween – fancy costume, decorations I love, crafting galore, etc.
  13. Make cake pops.
  14. Paint 50 days in a row. Anything. Just apply paint to a surface.
  15. Get a banana tree.
  16. Grow cut flowers.
  17. Write another graphic-heavy book, like The Distance Learning Activity Book for Parents Just Barely Holding On To Their Last Shred of Sanity
  18. Go to a second sound bath – because the first time I went, the guy next to me fell asleep and was snoring loudly and I could not get past the snoring. But now that I’m several years into my hot yoga practice, I would like to attend another sound bath because I think it would be something really good for my body, mind and soul.
  19. Fly a kite with my kids.
  20. Make a quilt.
  21. Take an in-person art class.
  22. Do some sort of mosaic craft.
  23. And play around with paper mache. Ick, this is vague. Let’s say that I’ve always been drawn to paper mache so I’d like to attempt five projects, start to finish, to see whether this is something I enjoy.

And this is what I have: FOR NOW.

I’m not rushing to just add things to the list for the sake of having fifty items on the list. I’m 44! I have time. Just having this list at the back of my mind really helps me think about my life and what I want to do. I don’t want to be ninety, riddled with regret. But I also don’t want to put things on the list just for the sake of filling out the list, and then those items become stressful obligations… This is a tool for me to examine my life and think about, What excites me? What do I want to try? Do? This is a list that reflects my inner longings, the things I feel called to do, but for whatever reason, have avoided or just not made the time for. So by starting this list, I hope to remember longings that I buried.

It’s also interesting to see what categories are on the list — crafting! cooking! learning! — and what’s not on the list – travel!

I do love traveling, but I suspect a lot of traveling will happen during my fifties, so let’s save destinations for another bucket list…

For now, these are some other items I’m considering adding to my list:

  • Podcasting. Sometimes, I miss it. Other times, it felt like a stressful obligation.
  • A saltwater aquarium.
  • Pickle ball
  • Writing a fantasy novel – but I love my Motherhood Circus series, and I don’t like to restrict my muse.
  • Design an enamel pin. Feeling some resistance here. Probably because this shit really belongs on the list.
  • Host a ladies’ crafting party – I’m an Enneagram 5, and I get really greedy about hoarding my alone time, but I think it would be really good for me to include a few social goals on this list.
  • Go back to Magic Castle.
  • Throw a 50th birthday party for myself

And starting this bucket list has made me want to create a few more bucket lists, like:

  • A Novak Family Bucket List for things I want us to do before Pippa leaves for college – and this could be broken down into a multiple lists. A list of fun things to do/places to visit. Another list of things I want Nathan and I to teach the kids – from how to boil an egg to how to drive a car.
  • A Pasadena bucket list
  • A crafting bucket list – so my 50 by 50 does not get hijacked by All the Crafts
  • A cooking bucket list
  • And the aforementioned travel bucket list

Lastly, methinks I need to update this website to include a page to keep track of my bucket lists. But should that be an item on my 50 by 50, or is that cheating??