If You Get the Answering Machine, You'll Know Why

Happy birthday to me, happy birthday to me, happy birthday to me, happy birthday to me.

So, now that that's out of the way (thanks for singing along),

here's my list of 35 things I'm going to accomplish during this next year.

Inspired in part, by a book my college best friend Lori (hi Lori!)

gave me - "The Wish List" - a long, long time ago.

1. Start teaching Michael to read
2. Celebrate my 10th Wedding Anniversary
3. Run in at least one 5K
4. Create a customized crossword puzzle for my hubbers, providing clues that only we two would know
5. Learn three jokes that get laughs every time
6. Develop close friendships with people of different generations
7. Have back-up singers echo me every time I say something important (well, I'm crossing my fingers on this one)
8. Start a watermelon garden
9. Spend five days focusing on each of my five senses – one day per sense
10. Keep in touch with far-flung relatives
11. Write a children’s book in which the protagonist is a character very like my own son
12. Get the amaryllis (thanks Janice!) on my windowsill to bloom in winter
13. Prepare a salad using 20 different ingredients
14. Do nothing all day and feel no guilt
15. Grind my own coffee beans for my morning cup
16. Not eat all I can eat at an All-You-Can-Eat buffet
17. Find a four-leaf clover
18. Praise rather than criticize
19. Reread my favorite book (Jane Eyre)
20. Design jewelry (remake my wedding rings)
21. Eat fresh corn on the cob in January
22. Do karaoke
23. Lay a tile floor
24. See all the Oscar-nominated movies dating back to 1927
25. Write a thank-you letter to someone who influenced me
26. Give blood four times
27. Create a budget and stick to it
28. Scratch my name in the wet concrete of a fresh sidewalk
29. Substitute nonsense for common sense from time to time
30. Put all my photographs in albums, clearly marked
31. Put a message in a bottle and float it out to sea
32. Devise a treasure hunt for my kids
33. Vacation with my best friend
34. Help Matthew write and "publish" his first novel
35. Ride a tandem bike with my husband