La Mancha List Part 2

It's Labor Day and rainy and I'm still trying to kick this flare so I really want to crawl back in bed, but it's a bloggin' day. Guess what that means?

La Mancha List Part 2, y'all!!! ("To RUN where the brave dare not GO!")

26. Learn how to sew, knit or crochet: At various times in my life, I've half-heartedly attempted to learn one of the above, but being clumsy and lacking patience, I've generally given up after about 20 minutes with much cursing and throwing of pointy needle-ish objects. Someday, I'd like to torture my descendants with ugly misshapen sweaters or socks (or fluffy pink bunny suits, holla!) for holiday gifts, and so clearly must attain some sort of proficiency in some type of garment construction.

27. Attend a Summer Olympic Games:I've been bananas for the Olympics for basically my entire life (my mother still possesses an outfit I wore as a baby advertising the 1984 Olympic Games). At the age of 12, I watched the Magnificent 7 win the team gold in women's gymnastics and calculated whether, with much hard work, I could manage to make it on to the 2000 women's gymnastics team. Lacking both gymnastics skills and any level of muscle tone, this was indeed an impossible dream, but attending an Olympic games is not.

28. Visit England: I am a level 1 grade A Anglophile, so walking the paths of Jane Austen and Shakespeare (and Colin Firth...) would probably make my head explode with joy...so maybe I should tackle this goal last...

29. Visit Japan: I admit I never thought much about Japan until I started dating a level 1 grade A Japanophile about 10 years ago, but the idea of visiting has grown on me in the past few years, especially after reading David Sedaris' hilarious tales of his adventures in Tokyo.

30. Learn how to change a tire: While driving the kids alone, I like to freak myself out over what I would do if I got a flat tire. We only have one car, so Dylan couldn't come out and rescue me. Learning to change a tire myself would eliminate one of my many sources of road anxiety.

31. Write a sci-fi or fantasy series: In case you haven't noticed yet, I am a huge geek. At least if I became a sci-fi/fantasy writer as opposed to a sci-fi/fantasy reader, I could make some money off my geekdom.

32. Meet Mindy Kaling: I thought I should probably have one meet-a-celebrity goal. I considered Ryan Gosling and Christian Bale, but honestly, what I want to do in their presence is the same thing I can do from afar without embarrassing myself (i.e. stare, drool, make high-pitched squealy sounds). When I read Mindy Kaling's book it was like reading my own inner monologue (only slightly more Indian and a lot more successful). If I met her, I feel like we could become buds...and then I could meet John Krasinski (cue staring, drooling, and high-pitched squealy sounds).

33. Run the Hood to Coast relay: For those not in the know, this is a kick-ass relay race in Oregon that I learned about from the Another Mother Runner podcast. It sounds disgusting, grueling and like about a metric ton of fun.

34. Make some girlfriends who are crazy enough to run the Hood to Coast relay with me: Right now I think I could count on *maybe* two of my pals to be nuts enough to tackle this goal with me and sadly, one cannot run a relay race on one's own. Yet another reason to become an extrovert.

35. Sew a quilt: So, I'm pretty much going to have to conquer #26 before I attempt this one. My grandma sews the most amazing quilts and I grew up thinking that was one of the coolest things ever. I've just noticed a lot of these goals revolve around replicating something cool I saw someone else do in my childhood...hmm...

36. Learn Krav Maga: Why? Because it looks totally badass and anyone can learn it. Also, an extra measure of security to level against my stranger danger anxiety (thanks a ton for that one, McGruff the crime dog).

37. Swim across a body of water: I purposefully am not specifying which body of water, because I am a crappy swimmer and at this point my life swimming across a pond would be a major victory. Perhaps after I train for that triathlon I'll be up for tackling something slightly larger.

38. Go on a vacation WITHOUT THE CHILDREN: When Ry was about a year and a half, my good buddy Lindsay (the fearless kitten from "Flight Face") and her husband qualified for sainthood by watching him overnight so Dylan and I could go to Asheville for our 5th anniversary. It was A.M.A.Z.I.N.G. and I've been dreaming of it ever since. An entire vacation without the children sounds like utter bliss.

39. Learn sign language for reals: Technically speaking, we communicate with Ry through sign language. The problem is that I have the sign language vocabulary of a mentally impaired chimpanzee. Eventually I'd like to learn enough to have a conversation and to be able to tell his hand stims from actual signs...

40. Own a piece of property near a beach: Condo, apartment, house, cardboard box, I do not care. I also don't care which beach (although one located in Antarctica is not high on the list). My Boog adores the ocean with every fiber of his odd little being and it would be fantastic to be able to spend time at a beach every year with him.

41. Visit all 50 states: Airports don't count. Driving through them does, but only if we stop and set foot on the ground (side note: in reading over the rough draft of this [yes I rough draft my blogs, so what], I realized I had written "set food on the ground". I almost left it because it was such an awesomely weird typo). 24 down, 26 to go.

42. Visit Prince Edward Island: I must have read the Anne of Green Gables series about 200 times as a kid. I'd love to see where it all happened (yes I know it's fiction).

43. Make it all of the way through "Citizen Kane": I have tried. I have failed. I have fallen asleep.

44. Make it all of the way through Ulysses: Ditto.

45. Do a totally homemade Christmas: I love the idea of making all gifts, meals, decorations, etc. from scratch one year. It's a very Laura Ingalls Wildery thing to do. I'm going to have to get a whoooole lot better at crafts first, though.

46. Grow a lemon tree

47. Finish writing La Mancha list: Yeah...I wanted to give myself an easy one. Plus, I am finding it harder and harder to come up with stuff I really want to do.

48. Own a Jacuzzi tub: On our honeymoon, we stayed in a hotel room with a Jacuzzi tub and it was absolute HEAVEN. It was so awesome that I almost talked Dylan into buying a house here that needed major renovations and had no yard just because there was a Jacuzzi tub in the bathroom.

49. Own a personal housekeeping robot a la Rosie from "The Jetsons": No, the Roomba doesn't count. I want one with a sassy personality that I can talk to.

50. Power my entire house with solar panels: A friend of Dylan's once told us that his...brother I think actually got a check from the power company every month because he powered his house with solar panels and there was enough energy leftover that it was actually putting energy back into the system. I have no idea how that works exactly, but it sounds insanely cool.

Well, that's my next 25. Stay tuned for Part 3 the next time I'm too lazy...er...busy to come up with a new blog topic!

(To be WILLING to march into HELL for a HEAVENLY cause!!!)