1. Learn to play the freakin' guitar already.
2. Taste black truffles.
3. Meet Oprah and thank her.
4. Go white water rafting again. Maybe a girlfriend getaway.
5. Visit New York City for two weeks.
6. Build a self-sustaining healthy house on a plot of land large enough to have a big, gorgeous dog that never poops close to home, some sheep, a big garden, and fruit trees but close enough to other people that if someone came to murder us, there would be people to hear the gunshots. Yes, I think of these things. Often.
7. Publish a work of mostly fiction. Change the names and details of people I know such that they really have no idea I'm writing about them, the fools.
8. Go to art school.
9. Own a log cabin on a lake where you're allowed to shoot people if they seadoo. Because that's two sports in one: Cottaging and Target Practice. Equally stress relieving, I'd imagine.
10. Compost with worms.
11. Finish knitting Montana's baby blanket.
12. Travel Europe and Russia with Jude.
13. Throw a neighborhood carnival block party, raising money for a family in need or other worthy cause.
14. Somehow make international adoption easier. Get airlines to give free airfare to people who are picking up their international adoptive children.
15. Learn pottery.
16. Maybe do a mini-marathon. Note the hesitation.
17. Get nearly all my body hair lasered off. Celebrate with a naked stroll in a park. (Yes, that's a joke but I shouldn't have to say so.)
18. Learn to really sing.
19. Go scuba diving somewhere really colourful and take photos. And live to develop them.
20. Go horseback riding again.
21. Make pesto from scratch.
22. Make a stuffed salmon encased in pastry that's cut to look like a salmon.
23. Learn to really, properly swim.
24. Have an all-girlfriend canoeing-camping trip with someone who can play guitar. Woman with the longest leg hair the next day doesn't have to paddle back.
25. Memorize all the best Scrabble words and tactics.
26. Send my boy on a mission abroad and have him come home a man, in one piece.
27. Lead some kind of teen counseling sessions-- maybe for sexually abused girls?
28. Develop all my online photos with journaling comments before Facebook experiences a server failure or some equally horrific turn of events.
29. Live in Venice, Italy for a few months.
30. Grow peonies.
31. Learn to can my own fruits and veggies and then actually do it.
32. Visit Vancouver.
33. Visit the Salt Lake Temple.
34. Roll down grassy green hills in Ireland. Leave before I fall in love with some rogueish Irishman with THAT ACCENT! See how thoughtful I am, Jude?
35. Catch some fireflies again. Then let them go.
36. Catch some frogs. Then let them go.
37. Get my braces off. Celebrate by rubbing bread and carrots and salmon all over my teeth and then making out with Jude.
38. Get into really fantastic shape. Feel strong and healthy.
39. Become buddies with Julia Roberts and Jennifer Garner. We would totally mesh.
40. Replace my husband's suits and successfully condition him to iron his clothes and enjoy piecing together stylish outfits.
41. Write a song and sing it/play it for Jude.
42. Be in the chorus of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat.
43. Finish reading War and Peace by Tolstoy.
44. Read The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens.
45. Have a house of mine appear in Canadian House & Home Magazine.
46. See a ghost or an angel. Anyone from another realm will do.
47. See Prairie Home Companion live.
48. See Jack Johnson play from the front row someplace intimate.
49. See Cathy achieve her dreams, however that happens.
50. Be so rich that I can give away money and help all the time to people who both need it and deserve it. Teach a man to fish and all that.
51. Buy a much nicer camera.
52. See Les Miserables live.
53. Learn Photoshop.
54. Get this house finished.
55. Enjoy grass and tree ownership again.
56. Visit the Great Wall of China and leave my name on it somewhere.
57. Become fluent in French.
58. Learn basic Italian.
59. Become fluent in sign language.
60. Become a pretty good chess player.
61. Memorize more jokes.
62. Remember history studied and study more.
63. Become more charitable in my heart.
64. Have an Etsy store.
65. Visit London, bump into Jude Law and have him quickly fall in love with me then turn him away because I'm married and Mormon enough to care that I'm married, which will only make him love me all the more, of course.
66. Design my own house blueprints.
67. Teach Daisy to read and watch her silently devour books.
68. Be in a musical/play with Daisy.
69. Take a hot air balloon ride only for a mile and only about 100 feet in the air because that's just crazy to risk your life like that.
70. Never visit Disneyland or Disneyworld. Ha!
71. Make healthy cookies I actually love. For my grandkids.
72. Learn how to break dance. Or at least do that move where you support your body just on your hands tucked under your belly? That move.
73. Hold a hand stand for at least five seconds.
74. Do a backflip. With a belt on. Tied to the ceiling.
75. Hear James Taylor play live.
76. Become friends with Rosie O'Donnell.
77. Be able to roll in a kayak.
78. Adopt some older children when my kids are older or be a foster parent.
79. Have some of my poetry published. Under a different name.
80. Have a butler's pantry right off my kitchen and have it extremely organized at all times.
81. Raise my children to be nonjudgmental, kind, good, humble, open-minded but critical thinkers. And happy.
82. See Jude write his book. Have it published.
83. Swim in an Italian grotto.
84. Host a dinner under a large canopy-like tree, with candle lanterns.
85. Be able to do one pull-up.
86. Meet Thomas S. Monson.
87. See my sister happy and well-off in B.C.
88. Meet my all of my virtual friends.
89. Teach my girls hand clapping games.
90. Sleep in a hammock in Hawaii with mellow island beat music playing and with the waves splashing in the background.
91. Go seashell hunting near the Bay of Fundy.
92. Take a cottage vacation alone where I can read, and paint, and write and sleep for 13 hours straight.
93. Be mortgage and debt-free.
94. Get Lasik eye surgery.
95. Hire a housecleaner and have her over twice a week FOREVER.
96. Since my house will be so clean: Have fresh flowers year-round.
97. Learn to juggle.
98. Join Toastmasters.
99. Learn to cook Indian.
ooh! You're going to Sault Ste. Marie? I grew up there! (on the US side...)
And yea, unfortunately I think I used to BE one of those wimpy girls at the gym. Not trying to look sexy, I was just totally intimidated by the machinery and not all that willing to work hard. Now my time is so limited that when I make it to the gym I make it count!
Posted by: Meagan Francis | Monday, June 22, 2009 at 09:26 PM
Okay, but the serious grunting? Not sexy. Sorry.
(And hey -- did you stop the BlogHer ad-ing?)
Posted by: Jane of Seagull Fountain | Monday, June 22, 2009 at 11:22 PM
Serious grunting is not sexy, I agree. But the working hard without caring what others think IS. Yes, I rid myself of BlogHer. I'm not big enough to get anything out of it at this point.
Posted by: Natasha | Tuesday, June 23, 2009 at 12:31 AM
Yes people who give everything and then look disheveled when working out are attractive (aka Lou) - as are people with good appetites and who enjoy food. And people who dance in public. But not show-offs. Yuck. And people who climb trees. Oh, and women who throw snowballs. Just thought I'd add that.
Posted by: John B | Tuesday, June 23, 2009 at 03:35 AM
Oh, and have you seen my latest tweet for another NOTsexy?
Posted by: JohnB | Tuesday, June 23, 2009 at 04:23 AM
I totally agree, so sad to see ladies at the gym too scared to work up a sweat because their mascara might run... sad!
Posted by: Lou | Tuesday, June 23, 2009 at 09:14 AM
as to #4...you have THE cushiest grass. Just thought I'd let you know...I enjoyed walking on it yesterday. :)
Posted by: mary | Tuesday, June 23, 2009 at 10:49 AM
That's right - work! Eat tuna - pure protein...
Posted by: ian | Wednesday, June 24, 2009 at 12:24 PM
I only like fresh and raw tuna and they're not always so easy to come by. Is there that much protein in them? I have Muscle Milk shakes after. I'm trying to eat eggs in the morning for breakfast. Goes a long way, apparently, to help with weight loss and energy. So far I've done this once in a week. Ha!!
Posted by: Natasha | Wednesday, June 24, 2009 at 01:56 PM
Natasha, I love you, but that was pretty judgmental. Just because a person at the gym is young, pretty, made up, and thin, doesn't mean they're trying to be sexy or get a man or anything like that. When I was in my early 20's I went to the gym regularly even though I was thin. I was trying to build muscle without losing any more weight because I have a hyper thyroid, so I'd do exactly the workout you described. I may be thin, but I'm also very weak. I can't afford to lose any weight, but I need to exercise to be healthy and energetic. And I STILL have no clue what a set is, people just tell you to do sets and repetitions without explaining what on earth that means. Does not being judgmental only extend to people who are overweight?
Posted by: Memarie Lane | Wednesday, July 01, 2009 at 11:16 AM
Marie, I was kidding. See later when I said that in all seriousness anyone at a gym cannot be faulted? I'm pretty slim too, you know, and spent the previous 28 years of my life as pretty skinny. My point was that if you're there to get strong, find out how to do so. You'll go nowhere doing one set of 20 lbs.
Posted by: Natasha | Wednesday, July 01, 2009 at 11:21 AM
Memarie - link for sets & reps
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080719110933AAcMP0c
I get your point Natasha but I would give credit to anyone that even shows up as they are the 1%.
Posted by: Jeff Shattuck | Tuesday, July 07, 2009 at 09:10 AM