My Bucket List

Tonight I pulled out a journaling book that I started in 2007… it has in it, among other gatherings of words… my Bucket List.  One hundred things I want to do in my lifetime.  It’s been at least a year since I went through the list… that only goes up to 72 at the moment.  When I accomplish a listed item I highlight it.  There were eight lines highlighted already.  Surprisingly, tonight I highlighted three items from 2009 that were accomplished. 

I read somewhere long ago that if you write down your goals your brain grasps onto them subconsciously and even if you’re not remembering them… you are drawn to accomplish them.  I’m not sure if I believed that until I was married about 14 years and came across my scrapbook from my senior year of high school.  There was a page for 1 year, 5 year and 10 year goals.  What 18-year-old has any clue what they will be doing when they are 28???  Please.  Unbelievably, all the goals that I wrote down had been successfully completed… without me remembering that I jotted them in my scrapbook in 1984. 

Back to tonight and my Bucket List.  In case you live in a cave, a movie came out a few years back called the Bucket List and the premise was about two old guys determined to live out life’s wishes before they kicked the bucket.  I never saw it.  Anywho…. I highlighted three lines on my list tonight.

#10.  Take the kids on a missions trip.  Larisa, Austin and I went to La Mision, Mexico last summer… and it was Austin’s first time seeing an impoverished city.  It changed him, as I knew it would.  My 11-year-old son still is on the list to go, but I highlighted it anyway.  I firmly believe every American kid needs to see poverty, desperate need, and the happiness that is still available in spite of living conditions.  We are so spoiled blessed.

#51. Live close to the church.  For more than 10 years we have driven 30 minutes to church.  When your kids want to get more involved… an hour round-trip is a long way.  When gas is over $3 a gallon, every little trip counts.  Little did I know that we would be changing churches in 2009 and the new one is 8 minutes away.  Glory!

#61.  Publish a book for married women.  Last September my book Learning to Laugh in the Midst of Marriage came out.  Sweet! The book was not even started when I made the list!  See…. subconsciously!

Some of my other entries include traveling to far away spots on God’s green earth that I have studied and long to see.  Others involve helping others, teaching the kids new tricks, taking an emergency truck ramp…. quit laughing… they are so tempting,  learning a few tricks myself and reaching many for God’s kingdom.  I believe 2010 will bring at least three more highlighted lines… maybe more!

Do you have a Bucket List?

Good Grief! Where did this week go????

Just so you know, I haven’t been watching soap operas (we don’t even have TV) or eating bon bons (maybe that would have helped!)  This week has been one long blur of activity and busy-ness.  On Monday morning I figured out that school starts in one week.  Homeschooling, that is.  That’s when my life gets a schedule and free time is minimal.  The week before school starts is usually spent getting everyone’s books straight, cleaning the book shelves, sharpening the pencils (really!), testing all the felt pens and throwing away the bloopers, etc.  BUT, on Monday morning I also figured out that it was the last week of “freedom” to get stuff done around the house that hasn’t been done for….. well… some of them FOUR years.  (Sad and disgusting, I know.)  So I made a TO-DO list for my unsuspecting family.  Here it is:

 And There’s my hubby too… on the fridge.

The list had more than 50 items to be done and on Monday alone we finished over 25!  I was thrilled and exhausted.  We have slowly accomplished more of them as the week has drawn out.  The ones that are left require my husband to help…. or a task that I’m not exactly sure how to handle.  Then if cleaning and painting and wiping weren’t keeping me busy enough, my book came back for me to proofread!

So that was another day of not getting ready for school OR checking off items on the TO-DO list, but I’m glad that task is over.  I’m officially done with my part of Laughing in the Midst of Marriage.  It’s ETA is Mid September, I think.  I haven’t actually heard a date, but I saw on www.christianbook.com that it is pre-selling with a Sept. date for shipping.  Cool!

So THAT is why I haven’t blogged since Monday.  It’s not that I stopped having crazy things happen to me, or that I didn’t have strange stories to tell.  B~U~S~Y with a capital B.

Marriage… it’s the real thing.

Isn’t it cute?  This is the tentative cover art for my next book that should be coming out in August/September.  It’s #2 in the Laughing series…. Laughing in the midst of Marriage.  Lord knows I’ve been given a boatload of writing material by being married to Rickey.  This one seemed to be easier to write than the mothering one.  I’m not quite sure why???  I guess that old adage “second time’s a charm” is true. 

It’s quite exciting to hold your own book in your weary writing hands for the first time.  I’m so looking forward to it.  Truly scrumptious.

I’m speaking at a marriage conference this weekend… so please pray if you’re the praying type.  Hey, I suggest you try it, even if you aren’t the praying type.  I have plenty of entertaining stories to tell, but WHAT really is the key to a great marriage?  I’m not sure I’m supposed to answer that, but this type of conference really makes you stop and think, “What HAS held us together for 22 years?”  Undoubtedly, it’s the Lord.  We would have killed each other long ago had we not been God-fearing souls.  As we daily give up SELF and focus on serving others, it’s really a no-brainer.  That’s the problem right there… when my brain gets involved.  Why am I so selfish?  Those are the days when I’M fully in control and have forgotten to surrender to the Lord.  Jesus, help us!

www.LindaCrosby.com

June THIRTIETH….

Today is the half-way mark for 2008….  makes me sit and wonder how I’m doing in 2008… and WHAT I’m doing…. and what I’m NOT doing. 

A song came on the car radio this morning that talked about “It’s not who you are.  It’s not what you’ve done.  It’s how you lived.”  After a moment of contemplation, I pronounced, “I don’t agree with that.”  My daughter, always up for a good debate, said, “I do.”  We went back and forth about if what you are doing IS how you are living.  Does how YOU live only include yourself?  Does what you’re doing include others?  We both tried on each other’s side of the argument for size…  we never came to a conclusion, but I still don’t agree with the lyrics.

I was anticipating 2008 like I’ve never anticipated any year previously.  That being said, I was never pregnant over a New Years…. that I was aware of.  So babies don’t count here.  I always anticipated new children with great joy.  But this year began with a bang as my parents celebrated 50 years of matrimonial bliss and took me and my siblings (and spouses) on an eight day cruise.  We have never gone anywhere for more than four hours together without our nine children.  It was fabulous.  Words don’t describe how relaxed we were.

Next, my first solo writing project was published.  Wow.  I still can’t believe it sometimes.  I survived my first book signings…. but not without nightmares.  (For graphic nightmare details, please see: https://mysistersjar.wordpress.com/2008/05/03/pre-book-signing-nightmare/ ) Which reminds me, I need to send the next proposal for Laughing in the Midst of Marriage.  Truck loads of material for this book are stored in my memory banks.  You may have read several of the stories on this blog already…. so you know what I mean.  (golf carts, acupuncture, photo radar tickets….)

And our adoption of Zaza…. is still pending.  We started the journey in Nov. 2006 and so I’ve passed through two new years with the anticipation of gathering our new girl in our arms.  But it seemed closer as 2008 arrived.  We pray every night that God’s will be done in the timing of bringing her home, but I always add…. “and please make it soon!” 

Never would I have imagined sewing bags and bags and bags to help bring Zaza home.  Thanks again, Jennie, for this amazing idea as well as the fortitude to execute it brilliantly!  I’m rather enjoying the sewing journey.  With every bag I make, I have a new favorite.  Tonight’s bag almost didn’t hit the auction block.  I love it.  But I can always make another like it… or different to become my new favorite.  Here it is “Ten Thousand Charms”: (the green is lime… not sage.)

Five new bags go up for auction each Monday… for five days at www.bagsforzaza.blogspot.com. Please help bring Zaza home and check it out.  Tell others.  Link the site.  Make posters and put them up at work.  Buy one and show it to every stranger you meet.  :o)  Thanks, from the bottom of my heart.

And not to forget blogging.  I didn’t know what it was in 2007, so I’ve come a long way, baby.

www.LindaCrosby.com