My Bucket List

Lately I've been reading a lot of bucket lists on blogs.  I am not sure why so many people are blogging their bucket lists, perhaps it's because the New Year is coming up.  Either way, I decided to jump on the bandwagon, and make up mine.  It's in no particular order, and I keep adding to it, of course.

• Be a Mommy (and be able to breastfeed).  I have Baby Fever like you wouldn't believe.  I'm 31 and have PCOS and can't stop thinking about it! 

• Have our Handfasting.  It's a wedding celebration ceremony, that we will choose to not marry us legally, though some people choose to legally get married with their handfasting.  We are not legally married now, and can't be as long as we are disabled and on Medicaid.  Because of that we would make less on disability and we could possibly lose our Medicaid completely all because we wanted to get married.  As you can imagine, two disabled people without insurance can only spell bad things.  Because we both have epilepsy (that's how we met) we could potentially die without our medication.  So as long as the laws don't change, we can't be married.  Trust me, if the laws changed, we'd be married tomorrow!

• Publish a novel or novels.  That's been my dream since I was eight years old.  

• Publish my memoirs.  Growing up with such a crazy life definitely makes for a good book!

• Get my Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing.  I would love to find a reputable and not expensive place to get this  degree online.

• Learn Italian.  This is the language I'm working on learning now.

• See Italy.  Once I learn Italian I want to practice it in the beautiful country of Italy!

• See Ireland.  Some of my ancestors came from Ireland.  I hate beer, but I'd love to say I had a drink in a real Irish pub!

• Learn Irish.  I want to learn Irish because so many of my ancestors were Irish.

• See Wales.  I've wanted to see Wales since I read the book A String in the Harp by Nancy Bond, when I was ten years old.

I took a picture of my book.  It's been well loved since I got it 21 years ago, as you can see.

• Learn Welsh.  I want to learn Welsh because of my interest in Wales.

• See London.  I can't remember not wanting to see London!

• See San Francisco and ride a cable car.  I've wanted to do this since I saw a Rice-A-Roni commercial on TV when I was a kid.

Rice-A-Roni, the San Francisco treat!

• Go to Long Island to see my best friend in person.  She's just like the most awesome girl.  Ever!

• Go to Alwood Cemetery again, where my Grandpa Ezra and ancestors, almost forgotten, but not quite yet, are buried.  

• Visit Edgar Allan Poe's tombstone.  I know the guy who toasted him with cognac, and left three roses and the unfinished bottle of cognac, no longer comes, and is probably dead, but still...

• Read War and Peace. This was on my list of things to do before I turned thirty, but since that didn't work, I moved it to my bucket list.

• Own our own home and some land with trees on it.  In particular, I want a tulip tree, red oak, white oak, cedar, pine, juniper, dogwood, and redbud.  I'm not sure where we'll be then, but the climate sure as hell better support these types of trees!  

Redbud and Dogwood trees

• Plant more trees on the land we someday will own.  You can join the National Arbor Day Foundation and get ten free trees, chosen for the area you live in.

• Learn Arabic.  By this I mean Modern Arabic and Quranic Arabic.

The Arabic Alphabet

• Read the Qur'an in Arabic. Not for religious purposes, but because it is a great piece of literature that has impacted the world, just like the Bible has.  Also, the Arabic in the Qur'an is slightly different than modern Arabic.

• Visit the Middle East.  I find the Middle East customs very interesting, and the desert beautiful.  I would love to go see it in person, though I'd prefer to do it after the fighting settled down a bit.

• Learn Russian.  I think learning Russian will be a huge challenge, but I really want to tackle that challenge.

The Russian Alphabet

• Learn to crochet fancy stitches.  Right now I can only do basic stitches.

Honeycomb crochet stitch

• Crochet a lace shawl.  This will take incredible patience and a lot of time because I can't crochet most days because of my hand pain.  I will also have to learn how to crochet lace, and to work with such delicate yarn.

Beautiful lace shawl

• See the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C..  No one should ever forget the atrocities that the Nazis committed against the Jewish people.

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C.

• Go to see Auschwitz.  I want to honor and pray there for those who died in the Holocaust, for all of the concentration camps victims, not just the victims at Auschwitz.  I also want to pray for something so horrible to never, ever happen again.  I just don't think I could go to all of the concentration camps and not break inside forever.

Auschwitz

• Meet some of my long-time pen pals.  That would take me to Peru, England, Australia...

Wendy lives in Lima, Peru

• See the Vatican. I am a former Catholic, and though I'm not Catholic anymore, it would mean very much to me to see the Vatican and go to Mass there.

Mass at the Vatican

• Be well enough to hike in the woods again.  You wouldn't believe how much I miss the woods!

I want to follow this path to see where it leads, don't you?

• Learn to knit.  I've even taken one-on-one classes on knitting, and I just can't "get" it.  I'm not giving up, though, and I think I may be able to loom knit on days my hands hurt, unless, of course, the hand pain is very severe that day.  On days like that I can't even type.

• Raise a happy, well adjusted child that does not grow up to be an Elvis impersonator or a clown. I don't care what my future child grows up to be, but I really hope he or she doesn't grow up to be an Elvis impersonator or a clown!

Future child of mine...please, please don't grow up to be an Elvis impersonator!  I'll love them if they do, though. ♥

• See Area 51.  "The X-Files" only made me want this more!

• See my sister again.  I think about her all the time!  I love her so much, but she wants nothing to do with me.  Additionally, if she found out I'm not Catholic anymore, then I don't think she would want to or her husband allow her to see me again.

Sister Bear of the Bernstein Bears

• Find a cheap non-drug treatment for pain that works.   For some people pain meds are a great thing, but I don't want to go on them, and I certainly don't have the money for a massage therapist or acupuncturist.  I barely have enough money to eat some days.  Many days.  That's why I risked people getting mad and put the donation box on my blog on the top right corner.

Chronic pain makes life lonely and difficult

• See the ocean on the West Coast of the USA.  I'd love to see Oregon and California's costs.

Oregon coastline

• Raise awareness for Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome.  I hope that I've helped people learn about EDS and inspired researchers to continue to search for a cure, and I continue to help in my own way.

Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome

• Teach people what to do when they see someone have a seizure, and possibly save a life.  November is here, and I'll be doing epilepsy and seizure posts throughout the month.