Life List

My life list continues to evolve. It's first iteration was inspired by Mighty Girl and was not numbered. The current iteration is inspired by Karen Walrond, who suggested categories in which to organise our items. I'll continue to update this list as I complete items or think of new ones. I believe it is an ever changing thing and should always reflect my current life and goals. If you have any comments, please leave them below. I'd love to hear if you have your own life list, or if you have any suggestions of things I could add to my list. If there is anything on this list that YOU WOULD LIKE TO DO WITH ME, let me know. Having a pal might just be the thing I need to cross something off!

⇒ I bolded the five items that I chose at Camp Mighty to complete this year.

Good Things on Repeat

1. Find 20 Geocaches with the boys (Five down! Look up NY Mama at geocaching.com)
2. Paint five paintings (One down, four to go)
3. Sew five items
4. Collect at least five pieces of art (Paul Klee, Ed Rusche, Emily Carr, Frida Kahlo, Vik Muniz)
5. Read five epic books to the boys (Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, His Dark Materials, Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan)
6. Watch 50 Documentary Movies: Herb & Dorothy, The Workshop, Crumb, Exit Through the Giftshop, Capturing the Friedmans, Wasteland, The Business of Being Born, March of the Penguins, Touching the Void, Little Dieter Needs to Fly, Grizzly Man, Everest:IMAX, Tornado Alley, Born into Brothels, Man on a Wire, The Fog of War, Senna, Henri Cartier-Bresson: The Impassioned Eye, Rape of Europa, Garbage Warrior, Ansel Adams: American Experience, Alfred Stieglitz: The Eloquent Eye, My Best Fiend: Klaus Kinski, Capturing Reality: The Art of Documentary, The Tillman Story, Orgasmic Birth, Waiting for "Superman", GasLand, Inside Job, Easy Riders Raging Bulls, Cave of Forgotten Dreams, Sketches of Frank Gehry, The Beales of Grey Gardens, Umbrellas, Kurt & Courtney, Genius Within: Glenn Gould, Forks Over Knives, Lost in La Mancha, Inside Deep Throat, The Cool School, Ken Burns: The Civil War, Helvetica, Street Fight, Restrepo, Israel: Birth of a Nation, Modern Marvels: The Manhattan Project, In Search of History: Salem Witch Trials, Beautiful Losers, A Walk to Beautiful, Babies, Devil's Playground
7. Visit all 58 National Parks in the US: Acadia, American Samoa, Arches, Badlands, Big Bend, Biscayne, Black Canyon of the Gunnison, Bryce Canyon, Canyonlands, Capitol Reef, Carlsbad Caverns, Channel Islands, Congaree, Crater Lake, Cuyahoga Valley, Death Valley, Denali, Dry Tortugas, Everglades, Gates of the Arctic, Glacier, Glacier Bay, Grand Canyon, Grand Teton, Great Basin, Great Sand Dunes, Great Smoky Mountains, Guadalupe Mountains, Haleakala, Hawaii Volcanoes, Hot Springs, Isle Royale, Joshua Tree, Katmai, Kenai Fjords, Kings Canyon, Kobuk Valley, Lake Clark, Lassen Volcanic, Mammoth Cave, Mesa Verde, Mount Rainier, North Cascades, Olympic, Petrified Forest, Redwood, Rocky Mountain, Saguaro, Sequoia, Shenandoah, Theodore Roosevelt, Virgin Islands, Voyageurs, Wind Cave, Wrangell Saint Elias, Yellowstone, Yosemite, Zion
8. Explore 20 major cities outside North America: Paris, London, Cairo, Tokyo, Rio de Janeiro, Beijing, Kyoto, Madrid, Nairobi, Calcutta, Lima, Istanbul, Venice, Amsterdam, Athens, Zurich, Edinburgh, Bangkok, Rome, Reykjavik
9. Watch 1000 sunsets
10. Get 100 massages
11. Photograph the faces of 100 children
12. Make 10 personal "Top 10" lists
13. Plan, develop and shoot 10 photography projects: A Birth, An Abandoned Building, Irreplaceable Objects, Toys From My Childhood, Barns/Farms, An Afternoon of Faces
14. Visit 30 museums in New York City: Ellis Island, Museum of Natural History, Guggenhiem, The Met, MoMA, Lower East Side Tenement Museum, Museum of the Moving Image, New York Historical Society, Whitney, Cooper Hewitt, The Frick, Museum of the City of New York, International Center of Photography, NYC Fire Museum, NYC Police Museum, NY Hall of Science, NY Transit Museum, PS1, NY Aquarium, Madame Tussauds, The Museum for African Art, Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum, Isamu Noguchi Garden Museum, Rose Center for Earth and Science, Studio Museum in Harlem, The Cloisters, The Jewish Museum, The Museum of Sex, The Paley Center for Media, Brooklyn Museum of Art
15. Fold 20 origami creatures (5/20) ⇒ Origami Animals
16. Build 3 models from Lego's architecture series
17. Collect vintage Fisher Price toys

Doing Things With Others

1. Plant a tree for each of my children with my husband
2. See the Northern Lights with my husband
3. Build a tree house with my family
4. Create a time capsule with my kids
5. Spa weekend with my sister Jill
6. Tour of New York City with my sister Tracy
7. Spa weekend with Tara and Regina
8. Plan a spa weekend and invite all my favorite ladies
9. Ride a roller coaster with my kids
10. Take snow boarding lessons with the boys 
11. Tour North America in an RV with my husband and kids
12. Take my husband and kids to Yellowstone National Park
13. Go on a vacation with L, T and H
14. Go back to the Post Ranch Inn for an anniversary celebration with my husband
15. Visit Berlin with my husband
16. Visit Graceland with my husband
17. Visit Prague with my husband
18. Take the kids to Disneyland
19. See the Northern Lights with my husband
20. Visit Washington, DC with my parents
21. Go on a creative retreat with a friend
22. Storm King with Cheryl and her kids
23. Go on a week's vacation alone with my husband
24. Visit Regina in Toronto
25. Make sun prints with the boys
26. Make floating paper lanterns with the boys
27. Make sculptures out of marshmallows with the boys
28. Build a Fairy houses in the woods with the boys
29. Make a movie with the boys that animates their toys
30. Make a paper mache volcano with the boys
31. Take the kids to a water slide

Trying New, Not Particularly Serious, Stuff (Whimsy)

1. Make a batch of pickles with my Grandma's recipe
2. Go roller skating in Central Park
3. Create a sculpture in my backyard with rocks and sticks
4. Find a sand dollar on the beach
5. Install a water fountain in my backyard
6. Hike to the top of Storm King Mountain, NY
7. Stay at the Banff Springs Hotel
8. Hike the trail through Johnston Canyon, Banff, Alberta
9. Take the Banff Gondola to the top of Sulphur Mountain
10. Go snow tubing
11. Visit an ice palace
12. Grow a vegetable garden
13. Go on a vacation where all I do is relax and read a book
14. Buy a pair of John Fluevog Shoes
15. Make a photo wall of my family and friends
16. Try acupuncture
17. Ride an Elephant
18. Learn a card trick
19. Re-learn how to skip rope and double dutch
20. Make a pinhole camera
21. Learn how to walk a tightrope
22. Swing from a trapeze
23. Build a miniature room to photograph
24. Paint a mural
25. Learn all the words to REM's song "End of the World"
26. Travel to Thailand
27. See a floating paper lantern festival

Giving

1. Send personal letters in the mail to 10 people
2. Finish the baby books for the boys
3. Make 5 art journals to give to friends (1/5)
4. Cook a homemade meal for 10 friends in need (6/10)
5. Take pictures of seniors at a Senior Center and give out prints
6. Help 5 people complete an item on their life list (1/5)
7. Leave 20 unsigned notes of kindness somewhere unexpected
8. Donate blood
9. Find a charity to support
10. Volunteer at a soup kitchen
11. Help someone change their life

Dreaming Wild

1. Visit the International Space Station
2. Have tea with a Geisha in the Gion district of Kyoto, Japan
3. Buy the perfect piece of land
4. Build a new modern home
5. Parachute out of a plane
6. Climb to Mount Everest Base Camp
7. Live in Italy for a summer in a rented house
8. Build a real library with 20 foot ceilings in my home
9. Complete my family genealogy
10. Stay overnight at James Turrell's Roden Crater
11. Stay overnight at Walter De Maria's Lightning Field
12. Rent an apartment in NYC while owning a house in the country
13. Learn how to scuba dive
14. Live in a house with an amazing view of the setting sun
15. Visit Newfoundland, Canada and see icebergs
16. Visit the Egyptian pyramids
17. Visit the Blue Lagoon in Iceland
18. Live in Big Sur for a year
19. Learn how to surf
20. Snorkling at the Great Barrier Reef
21. Have a portrait painted of me

Creative Work

1. Submit photography to a stock photo site
2. Submit an article to a magazine
3. Submit photographs to Communication Arts Photography Annual
4. Show my artwork or photography in a gallery
5. Publish a children's book
6. Publish a non-fiction book
7. Publish a photography book
8. Create a handmade book documenting my personal history
9. Organize all my family videos into one format and in one accessible place
10. Speak at a conference
11. Photograph a wedding
12. Photograph a family
13. Sell prints of my photographs

Completed

1. Attend Art School and study Photography
2. Live in New York City
3. Catch a firefly
4. Take a train from NYC to Montreal, Canada
5. Stay overnight at a French Chateau
6. Ride in a hot air balloon (in France!)
7. Rent a convertible and drive down Route 1 from Monterey to Big Sur
8. Stay at the Post Ranch Inn
9. Fly in First Class on a plane
10. Ride the roller coaster at Coney Island
11. Solve the Rubik's Cube (using a guide!)
12. Have a Natural Childbirth ⇒ Milo Jett's Birth Story
13. Have a Homebirth ⇒ Home Birth Water Baby: Quinn Leo's Birth Story
14. Breastfeed my baby for at least one year ⇒ Breastfeeding Graduation Party
15. Purchase a domain name and relaunch my blog ⇒ Welcome to My Brand Spankin' New Site
16. Purchase a pro Canon camera
17. Photograph our old family farm ⇒ My Great Grandparent's Farm and Return to My Great Grandparent's Farm
18. Teach myself to paint ⇒ Painting 101
19. Bind a book by hand
20. Meet my Half sister ⇒ Hello, Long Lost Sister!
21. Take the kids to The Tyrell Dinosaur Museum in Alberta
22. Photograph an intimate portrait of my Mom ⇒ Waiting for a Diagnosis
23. Walk the Highline in NYC ⇒ Walking the High Line in New York City
24. Find the perfect Fall boots ⇒ Frye's Veronica Slouch in black
25. Print business cards ⇒ My New, MOO Business Cards
26. Attend a Mighty Summit with Jill V  ⇒ My Camp Mighty Top Ten
27. Have professional photographs taken of my family  ⇒ Family Portrait Session with Eric Ferrar
28. Volunteer 20 hours at Milo's school
29. Write Photography 101 article: How to Shoot Manual
30. Attend the Altitude Design Summit ⇒ Photographed at ALT Summit & Roundup of Links
31. Meet Karen Walrond ⇒ When the Fabulous Unexpected Happens

Comments

[Nichole]

That's a great list. I love the idea of organizing the items in categories. I wish I could offer something like a ride on my pet elephant or a visit to my ice palace. However, here are things I could help you with:
- I volunteer to become one of your favorite ladies so I can go to your spa weekend. :)
- I will offer you lodging when you visit the Great Smoky Mountains.
- I will accept help with the completion of an item on my life list.

[Leslie]

Nichole - First, you are awesome. Second, thank you! The rest is that I want to make a quilt too and I found this amazing FREE quilt pattern on Amy Butler's site. I didn't know she made patterns. I can't make your quilt for you, but maybe this pattern will help? Also if you write a short story, I would be happy to read it for you! How's that? Want to pay for my dinner too? I can tell you where to send the gift certificate!