A Life Half Lived...

Today is my birthday. I am now 45 years old.

With the life expectancy getting closer and closer to 90 these days, I have only lived half my life so far. I can choose to look at that as half my life is past or that I have half to live yet. Since I am more of a glass half full girl, instead of a glass half empty, I am going to look at all the exciting possibilities ahead.

Last year I made a list of 44 Things that I wanted to accomplish while I was 44 years old. I came up a bit short, but I found some of them weren't that important as the year went along. Some of them the circumstances just didn't work out right. I got 26 out of the 44 Things crossed off my list.

This year I making a smaller but broader range list, some are left over from last year's list and some are new. A Bucket List for the second half of my exciting life.

BUCKET LIST

• Watch a Sunrise
• Continue to improve my photography and writing skills through the platform of my blog(s).
• Visit more National Parks (I have been to nine so far, I will be adding 2 more this summer)
• Finish visiting the other 14 Ottawa County Parks that I haven't been to yet.
• Spend a whole summer on the Leelanau Peninsula
• More wine tasting adventures with Glen, this is one of my favorite things to do together
• Europe - Scotland and Ireland, revisit England and France's Normandy region
• Facetime or Skype or visit in person with more of my blogging friends
• Go away by myself for a couple of days to take pictures and write. This could be a yearly adventure
• Tenting - if this year's trip goes well, I would love for Glen and I to do more of this kind of traveling, with some hotels thrown in for a good sleep and clean up
• Be the Grandma to my future grandchildren that I wished I had been able to have
• Visit Disney World many more times
• Continue working out and keeping my body healthy and strong
• Maybe...learn to play golf
• Dabble more in mixed media art

If I thought about it long enough I am sure that could up with a ton more things.

It is very interesting looking at this list, I see myself becoming exactly who I want to be. This might be the clearest definition of myself that I have ever had: someone who loves to travel, photograph, write, be active and healthy, spend time with her family, learn new things and continue to build wonderful, new friendships. I might finally be able to write that "About Me" page for my blog.