Impossible Dreams?

I am spending my 3 day weekend catching up on my reading, and today I am reading a wonderful book called The Next Thing on My List: A Novel by Jill Smolinski. A brief summary of the book so far is that June Parker, the main character, is trying to complete a list left behind by an acquaintance, Marissa, who was killed in an accident while June is giving her a ride home from a Weight Watchers meeting.  The list consists of things that Marissa would like to accomplish before her next birthday since she has achieved the first goal of losing 100 pounds.  As June moves throught the list, she deals with issues in her own life as well as the guilt she feels over the accident.

Since this is kind of a milestone year, I thought it would be interesting to list what I'd like to accomplish by my next birthday in November.

1. Finish at least 1 quilt(or any craft) project. It seems I like collecting the supplies and the initial excitement of projects much more than following through to completion.  Although I promise I will finish the quilt I started years ago for my son if he moves out.  (See #3 below.)


2. Lose 40 pounds. I have a binder full of diet recipes, numerous healthy cookbooks, a treadmill, a Y membership, a shelf full of exercise videos and a Wii. I can't understand why I'm still fat.  Oh wait, you're actually supposed to use all these things?

3. Get my firstborn moved into a place of his own. I love my son but I really think I'd appreciate his <ahem> unique perspective on life so much more if I only had to listen to it when he came by for dinner or to do laundry once or twice a week. I know his sisters share my sentiments.  (If I can ever figure him out I'll write about it some day.)

 

4.  Go on a vacation.  We visit my family in Pennsylvania every summer, but due mainly to the kids activities and summer jobs, we haven't had a chance to do much else in recent years.  Now that they are all  responsible enough to stay home if they can't join us, we might get to go on a real vacation. OK, they probably aren't  responsible to be left at home but CPS can't come after me for abandoning them at this point.  Leaving all 3 of them together probably won't work either.  This may have to be a goal for my 60th year.

 

5.  Buy some fun new clothes. (After I get started on #2)  I came out of the bedroom the other day and both girls told me I looked like just like Grandma. 

 

I originally thought this would be a list of 10, but I'm already getting depressed thinking about trying to achieve just these five things.  Excuse me while I go mix up something in my new cocktail shaker.