In My Heart's Home

We go on road trips to the ocean, to the places where the trees are big, to places with history and folds around you while you walk down wooden plank sidewalks towards the train depot. We love to travel but every now and then we end up someplace where I am overwhelmed by the feeling that I could live there forever and be happy.

Arcata. South Lake Tahoe. Pinecrest.

It's always places with water and big trees. My heart's home has water and big trees.

Maybe someday I'll retire to someplace that makes me feel like soaring and sitting and reading a book all at the same time. Maybe...

What if I...

1. travel to europe with my kids & husband to take cheesy pictures in front of famous places in history
2. take a vacation to mexico without the kids & drink too much and eat tacos by the sand with my husband
3. host a girls event monthly at my house (book club, recipe group, bunco?) where people can laugh & enjoy each others company
4. taught my daughters every family recipe I know so that someday they can teach their daughters
5. went camping in big trees with my hippie friends and played cards next to the fire well into the night while talking about ghosts and the good life
6. hosted a catered big event for my family to have just as a family reunion once a year at someplace local so everyone would come
7. created a piece of artwork I was so proud of that I hung it in my livingroom and smiled whenever I thought of it
8. owned my own home where my kids hung out and swam in a pool in the backyard while my husband bbq'd and I fiddled with the garden in the summer
9. understood my relationship with God well enough to explain it to someone else who might need to hear about it to be able to start their own relationship with God
10. viewed my life skills and spiritual gifts more as an opportunity to do something AMAZING and less as a trial of endurance
11. finished writing my book, even if it isn't published wouldn't it be cool to say it was done and that I know how the story ends
12. danced in the rain like no one was watching even if everyone was watching because I really didn't care
13. found a job that I could enjoy enough to spend the rest of my life doing it and if that job also happened to pay a respectable amount of money...that would be an even better what if
14. my family traveled to every state so my kids could see all the cultures that exist just within their own culture
15. taught my children to love themselves, to be confident with the skills God gave them, and to be content with an every changing life
16. I made the world a better place for just one person
17. had a home that became the sort of place people went when they wanted to be somewhere because they felt loved well and welcomed as soon as they entered the door
18. saw the world both in it's beauty but also in it's places of deep need...from the beauty of Australia to the slums of Africa and everywhere inbetween
19. could get together regularly with my favorite people and play games, eat good food and laugh at the world around us

This post is a work in progress and will often be republished/updated/edited when I feel it needs to be. It is based on the post below. Thanks!

I once made a list of 40 things to do before I was 40 because it was all the rage at the time and I had nothing better to do with my spare time...

Thing is...

I'm almost 31 now.

In 2006, forty seemed like this far off and distant place that I had all the time in the world to get to. Now forty seems a hop skip and a jump after dinner gets done tonight. Time flies when you have kids...and priorities change.

Some of the other bloggers out there have been making "bucket lists" like in that movie... a list of things to do before you die (sounds morbid).

Thing is...

I know I'd wait until the last minute to do it... I'm a procrastinator like that. You'd find me on my death bed with a web page up trying to figure out if there was anything I could knock off the list without hurting myself.

So...

What to do? What to do?

I want to make a list... but not a list before I'm 40 or a list before I die not a to do list for life... more of an "if I had time" or "wouldn't it be bitchin if" list.

So I was talking to a girlfriend about getting older, growing up, trying out life in the hardest circumstances and about how much I miss margaritas when I am preggo and I happened to call it my "what if list".

People give what if such a negative vibe. But really, what if is just another statement of hope if you spin it the right way.

What if I did some stuff if the opportunity ever presented itself... wouldn't that be bitchin?

So I am going to work on a what if list... who's with me?