Yesterday I already let y’all know why I won’t be making any resolutions this year. Mainly because life with two small children is too incredibly unpredictable to be nailing down a list of even five lofty goals for one year. But I like the idea of having things to accomplish. Just as long as the pressure of having to complete things within a year is off.

Then a fellow blogger/writer Alissa over at Clever Compass came up with the incredible idea of writing and sharing our life lists. Honestly I’d never put together a definitive travel list let alone ALL the things I want to accomplish in my years on this Earth.

It’s kind of hard to think of isn’t it? Try to come up with the top 5 things you want to do in your life and list them right NOW…

What’d you come up with?

Hard, no? And yet, it’s hard to stop once the ball starts rolling. In fact I thought of so many things I want to do I need five lifetimes to accomplish them all. I know some things may never happen, like seeing the Shire or going to outer space. And I know I’m tempting fate by saying I want to see my girls have babies. But still…these are the things I WANT to do, not the things I know will come to pass.

And no this isn’t a Bucket List. Cause I don’t want to look at this list like something I have to do before I kick the bucket. I want to look at it as things to do while I’m alive. A reference in case I’m ever bored and wealthy. You know, for the Lottery Years.

So without further ado and in no particular order my Life List

1. Become a prenatal and postpartum Doula
2. Adopt or foster a child
3. Own our own European-style cafe where you can get an awesome cup of coffee, or beer or wine or whiskey, a great bite to eat and watch a band or a film or read a book or write a book or meet your friends or meet new friends
4. Get a Master’s Degree or Law Degree
5. Run for political office
6. Meet President and Mrs. Obama
7. Visit NYC during the holidays and ice skate at Rockefeller Center
8. Take the girls to Disney World
9. Go to Lebanon and meet Michael’s grandmother and see their village, Deirmimas
10. Learn to speak Arabic and teach my children how as well
11. Take a RV trip to the West coast and back with my husband, kids and my mom
12. Go on a road trip with only my sister Tracey
13. Write and produce a feature film
14. Go on the White House tour
15. Read all the Harry Potter books with my daughters (and Narnia, Tolkien and Hunger Games)
16. Take a photography class
17. Begin a monthly dinner party club
18. Write a children’s book
19. Write a fiction book
20. Write a memoir
21. Publish something I write
22. Sing a song in public that isn’t karaoke or Happy Birthday
23. Record a song with my husband
24. Build a coop and raise chickens (thanks for the reminder Kelli!)
25. Have a proper and well-tended vegetable garden
26. Learn to compost
27. See the Rolling Stones and Led Zeppelin in concert one more time.
28. Go back to Tuscany, rent a villa outside of Montalcino and renew vows on our 10 year wedding anniversary
29. Find a forever house, buy it and fix it up and never move my things again.
30. Find where my ancestors are from in Africa and go there
31. Live in a foreign country for at least a year
32. Meet my long-lost Uncle
33. Go on an ancestral road trip from here through Indiana, down to Mississippi and back through West Virginia seeing all the places in this country where my family is from
34. Visit the Forbidden City and Great Wall in China
35. Visit the Shire in New Zealand
36. Visit our friends in Cape Cod
37. Visit Las Vegas, San Francisco, Portland and Seattle
38. Visit London, Dublin and Glasgow
39. Travel through the south of France by car
40. Visit Vienna, Berlin, Budapest and Prague
41. Visit Vietnam, Thailand, Bejing, Honk Kong and Tokyo
42. Travel through Brazil to Argentina all the way to the southern tip of Chile and back up to Peru
43. Hike Macchu Picchu
44. Go to the World Cup or the summer Olympics or both
45. Visit India and see the Ganges and ride an elephant
46. Go on the Amazing Race with my husband and see the world
47. See my daughters get married to someone they truly love
48. Be an Auntie
49. Be a Grandmother
50. Grow old with my Michael

So what do you think? Are there things on my list that you’ve already done? Anything that you think I should add to my list? What do you think is the most easily accomplished this year? I’d love to hear from my readers as well as other bloggers what’s on their lists.

If you are a company or blogger who can help me check any of these off my list I would gladly accept your help. You can contact me at

aliwayout (at) yahoo (dot) com.

Thanks for reading! Now link up!!