Wednesday, August 1, 2012

Bucket List... sort of.

Okay, so a friend just posted about bucket lists and it got me thinking. I've never really thought much of bucket lists because it often seems so overdone and Hollywood. Scream from the top of Mt. Everest, jump out of a plane, tandem paddle board with your loved one in the Caribbean surrounded by dolphins as the sun sets and natives swim by serving you drinks in coconut shells with tiny umbrellas, etc. It all has to be THE most amazing thing ever and way over-dramatized.

Sometimes the goals I have aren't epic.

Sometimes they're just normal. Or at least normal to me. Okay, sometimes they're weird.

So, I decided to make a goal list. It's not a bucket list. It's just a list of goals and projects that I would like to complete in the not too distant future. Hopefully it will help me actually get them done. I'm not putting them in any specific order because I don't feel I can rate them all like that, and then I would feel like I had to get them done in that order or something. But here they are.

1. Buy a house. I don't want a perfect house. I want one that needs a little love that my wife and I can make into the perfect house for our family.
2. Create a line of simple handmade costumes and accessory toys to sell. Hopefully I can go into more detail about this in the near future.
3. Open a cafe/hang out spot.
4. Build Stormptrooper armor and join the 501st.
5. Finish my Jedi uniform and join the Rebel Legion. I've made a non-"working" lightsaber and started on the tunic.
6. Refinish furniture. Ambiguous I know. I do have a selection of furniture that needs it, including a kids table and chair set, a rocking chair, and a vanity.
7. Scratch build a piece of furniture. Right now I'm thinking about a table.
8. Build a recurve bow.
9. Using that recurve bow, successfully hunt a deer and go through the entire process of taking it from forest to table myself.
10. Write a DIY book chronicling all of my DIY efforts.
11. Get a motorcycle. Not just any motorcycle. A vintage UJM. Or a Honda Scrambler. Or maybe a cafe racer.
12. Travel overseas. Not very specific I know, but there isn't one place that I want to go above all other places. As long as I could have fun traveling with my wife I'd be happy with any destination. Some places that would be fun: Italy, Scotland, Wales, Germany, a couple other "lesser" European countries, New Zealand, Australia, and Japan.
13. Go to a major Con. Comic Con is obviously the mecca, but I'd also do Celebration (do they still have that?), Dragon Con or something similar.
14. Forge a knife. I've done a simple railroad spike knife and put a bone handle on a knife blank, but I want to actually forge a knife out of steel from start to finish. I want to make the handle myself and make a leather sheath for it and everything.
15. Get a tattoo.
16. There's a list of other random projects that I want to finish that I don't feel are big enough to count as "goals" so I'll count them as one goal. This list consists of things like, sew our curtains, make some wall art, finish my whiskey stones, finish my sgian dubh, make more plush toys like my penguin and a Chewie doll, finish my prop flintlock and raygun, make wooden swords, etc.

I'm about 100% sure I've left things off, but that should do it for now.

Do you have a "bucket list"? Is there anything that you really want to do but you feel silly putting it on a bucket list?

4 comments:

  1. Thanks for the link! Nothing wrong with setting a few goals for yourself! ;) We need to have you guys over or something! It's been too long!

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    1. No problem! I figured I'd give proper credit for the inspiration. Yes, we definitely need to hang out sometime soon. It has been a long time, and we haven't even seen your new house!

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  2. The way that you end every post with a question that is a sum-up of the article inviting the reader to share their own experiences on the subject reminds me so much of the questions in textbooks in school.

    "Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. stood up to adversity through a platform of non-violence. Have you ever encountered adversity? How did you respond? Were your efforts as successful as Dr. King's? Write a brief essay describing your experiences."

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    1. As far as I can tell the summary questions are one of the cardinal rules of blogging. The only options I have are italics or bold. I decided to go bold since it seemed more manly, although you can barely tell it's any different than the rest of the post. Now write a brief essay about it!

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