The To Do List

I was a having a conversation with a friend the other day, and the subject of To Do Lists came up.  I was commenting that he might want to work on developing some interior decorating skills (because you never know when they might come in handy). And his response to my suggestion? "It's on the to do list."

Now I am a to-do-lister.  I make lists for everything: schoolwork, cleaning, packing, errands, grocery shopping, daily tasks, workouts, short-term goals, long-term goals, party planning, bill payments.  I even add items to my list after I've completed them just to have the satisfaction of crossing them off the list. And I'm usually really good at accomplishing everything on my to do lists.  

However, there is another kind of To Do List. It's the list that contains all of life's biggest goals and ambitions.  And it's usually the list where those goals and ambitions go to die.  It's the list where we put all of our "I'll get to it someday" items. Or, with a more sarcastic tone, the "Yeah, I'll get right on that" items. I've made a ton of these lists.  And because nothing ever actually gets crossed off, it just keeps on growing.  Some of the items are absolutely ludicrous, while others actually have some potential for being accomplished.

So here is my Master To Do List. I'm sure by tomorrow I'll have added a couple more items, but whatever.  It'll all get done... someday.

The Master To Do List:

• Learn Morse code (might be a useful skill when the end of the world comes and there is no other means of communication)
• Organize and label all of my digital pictures (every summer I say I'm going to do this... but it never happens)
• Learn to surf (for when I finally have that beachfront property with immediate access to the ocean)
• Run a marathon (running the entire thing is not requisite; I'd be happy to just walk/limp/crawl over the finish line)
• Witness a Running of the Bulls in Pamplona, Spain (and then attend the awesome bullfight that follows)
• Learn to play the guitar (I received a guitar for my 18th birthday and I still don't know how to play it (and for those keeping track at home, yes, that was 10 years ago))
• Write and publish a novel (the next Stephenie Meyer? probably not, but it's a fun dream)
• Travel to Australia and New Zealand (this will be one major vacation and very $$$)
• Listen to every song in my iTunes library at least once (with 47+ days worth of music, I don't see this happening anytime soon)
• Visit every LDS Temple in the United States (once I visit the 65+ in the US, I'll start thinking about hitting up the 70+ international temples)
• Learn and understand the finer points of photography (as it is right now, I just pretend that I know what I'm doing)
• Learn (and speak fluent) Italian, French, German, Russian, Chinese, Portuguese (just in case I become the wife of a diplomat and we have to spend our lives traveling all over world)