La Mancha List Part 1

Coming up utterly empty on blog topics today, I considered a post on my conspiracy theory about a dust bunny breeding colony engineered by the people at Swiffer (Swiffer: so evil, so effective), one on my daughter's intense love of experiencing the world by rubbing random (and often foul) substances into her long hair, and one on this weird thing I have behind my knee that kinda hurts but is most likely a spider bite and not the deadly cancer of the behind-the-knee-area that WebMD assured me it was.

Um yeah, so clearly not much bloggable material going on in my life right now (see "Dear Dr. Satan" and "Righting the Redneckery" for reference for my, "Thank God my life is boring right now!"). Anyway, so I turned to some pals, one of whom gave me the idea for a bucket list post (thanks Tiffany!). Only we're not calling it bucket list because that puts the emphasis on the inevitable end of the list (chattin' up the Grim Reaper) instead of the fun things you get to do before that. Some call it a life list, but I'm calling it a La Mancha list so I can have the immense pleasure of singing "The Impossible Dream" in my most dramatic voice complete with chest-clutching and hand gestures every time I read the title ("This is my QUEST! To follow that STAR! No matter how HOPELESS! No matter how FAR!" and no I'm not going to post a video of myself singing it...unless you send me a bottle of wine to drink first).

Now, in no particular order, I present the first 25 items of my La Mancha List ("And the WORLD will be BETTER for THIS!"):

1. Run a half marathon: I am actively working on this one right now, though I am still in the huffing-puffing-wheezy phase after a mere 5 minutes out. I may or may not be pursuing this goal expressly to not be beaten by my 52 year old mother who has run a few and who just got a friggin' medal in a 5k a couple of weeks ago. What can I say? I get my competitive nature from the aforementioned medal-winnin' badass.

2. Visit Italy: Yeah, I don't really know a thing about art or history, and am excited to visit for the sole purpose of eating massive quantities of Italian food, drinking massive quantities of Italian wine and laying on the beach. I wear my shallow nature proudly.

3. Touch each ocean: ...except the Arctic...because I am not a polar bear

4. Live outside the U.S.: I may have gotten this idea while watching "House Hunters International"...man 4 items in and I'm already losing credibility as a semi-serious adult...

5. Get something published.

6. Get something good published: a very different (and less attainable) goal from the previous one. A well-received novel rates a bit higher than a Craigslist personal ad in my esteem.

7. Tell Rylan's story: I keep sitting down and trying to write a book just about Ry, but I just don't feel like I know him well enough yet to do his story justice. I'm hoping he'll learn to communicate better at some point and then I can write it - or he can do it himself!

8. Do a triathlon: This one is inspired by early memories of watching my dad do...I think the San Pedro triathlon. While I have a troublesome memory of asking, "Is Daddy going to die?" during the swim (my dad's more of a bike/run kinda guy), I also remember being really proud of him when he finished. I am enough of an egomaniac to want to inspire that kind of pride in my kids...I just have to learn to ride a bike without feeling like I'm pedaling a warp-speed death machine first...

9. Raise chickens...
10....and/or miniature goats...


11....and/or giant tortoises
12. Get an advanced degree: By the time I figured out for sure what I wanted to do (which actually I knew in the first grade but was too chicken to pursue such an "impractical" career for several years), I had two kids (one with special needs and a demanding schedule) and no money so the whole going-back-for-my-Master's thing is kinda on the back burner for the next few years at least, but I realized awhile back that it is something that I really want...and then this weekend I sat at a table with my Phd candidate husband, a law student, and an MBA student and realized that if I even want to hang with my smart friends, I should probably do something semi-academic and soon.

13. Learn to enjoy a professional massage: Other overtired overworked moms probably want to kill me right now, but I had a coupon for a free prenatal massage when pregnant with Pippa and I let it expire...I hate being touched by strangers. I'll put up with it when the stranger is a medical professional, but I end up just feeling bad for masseurs, manicurists and the like for having to touch other people for a living and I don't really want them touching me. But this is clearly dumb so I'd like to get over it.

14. Save enough money to send Pippa to college and set up a possibility fund for Ry: Right now our savings account contains roughly enough to send one of my kids to 15 minutes of Little Gym (make that 5 minutes), but once this grad student stipend nonsense is over, I want to become a super-saver. And we call it a possibility fund for Ry, because he has so many possibilities ahead of him! He could need 24/7 adult care, or he could need to attend Harvard Medical School. Either way, he'll need some dough.

15. Make friends outside of the Internet: I'm actually working on this one tonight (if I don't chicken out) as I'm attending an open house put on by our local Holistic Moms Network chapter. I am an introvert, but I don't want to die early and I keep reading all this crap about extroverts living longer, so I guess I better make some friends who live outside of my computer already.

16. Get more ink: This ties directly in to the "get published" goal, because I made a bargain with myself that my next tattoo has to be bought with proceeds from something I've written. Past Megan is a jerk.

17. Teach my daughter to love her body: I think it's pretty safe to say Mr. Boog "Pants-Optional" is probably not going to suffer from body issues, but I worry daily about raising a body-confident daughter. I didn't like my tiny-boobed, no-waisted, giant-thighed body until after I'd had two kids and saw how strong it was. I never want her to feel like hers is inadequate because it doesn't look like someone else's.

18. Make jam from fruit I've grown

19. Build (okay supervise the building of) a truly kick-ass treehouse for the kids (and/or me): When we were in Savannah, Dylan and I saw the absolute coolest most intricate pirate ship treehouse I've ever seen. It was AWESOME and I couldn't help but wish I was a kid and that was my treehouse. I want the kids to have a great treehouse like that...even if Boog probably won't care about it at all...

20. Do beta testing for a Sims game: Ermahgerd, that really is my Impossible Dream right there.

21. Write a play and see it performed: I actually have an idea for a two-person play and it will preferably be performed by my good buddies TiaMatt. The nice thing is that even though the main character is 30ish, I can take the next 20 years to finish it, because by the time Tia's 50ish, she may actually finally look 30ish ;).

22. Learn how to take a decent photograph: Anyone who's seen my Facebook page doesn't need this one explained.

23. Learn how to dress myself and attempt to care about it: By this I mean learn how to wear the appropriate fashions, not learn how to button things...although...

24. Learn how to decorate my house and attempt to care about it

25. Write a cookbook

Well, those are my first 25! The next 25 will probably appear the next time I can't think of anything better to write about. What's on your La Mancha lists, folks? Think about it and then go out and REACH that unreachable STAAAAAAARRRRRR!!!!