My Bucket List

1. Have a home with a formal library with built-in bookshelves and a fireplace.

The ornate details are exquisite!

A spiral staircase to the second level is a must!

When I was a four-years-old, my mother was dying from breast cancer, and when she was sleeping, I was supposed to play quietly by myself.  During those hours, I learned to love books.  Even though I could not read yet, I spent hours looking at my picture books and creating my own stories to match the pictures.  As the years passed, I preferred to company of books to the company of my classmates.  My teachers would force me to go outside and play during recess.  During the summer, my new mother would force me to leave my books and go outside and get some exercise.  To this day, my books are my best friends, and I am happiest when I am surrounded by books.  I have more books than my current bookshelves can contain, and some day I hope to have an entire room devoted to my books.

These bookshelves are painfully empty!

2.  Return to Amsterdam for an extended vacation.

This is exactly how I remember it!

I did not get to see it at night.  It is so charming!

My husband and I went to Italy on our honeymoon, and we had an eight-hour layover in Amsterdam.  I thought it would be fun to visit, but I did not expect to fall in love with the charming, ancient city.  The city is filled with canals, and the architecture of the homes along these canals is charming.  I did not know what to do with our time there, so I chose to spend three hours waiting in line to visit the factory where Anne Frank hid from the Nazis during World War II.  While it was interesting, I regret that I did not make use of the time exploring the city.  I would like to go back and become better acquainted with the city.

Such a beautiful place to relax!

3.  Retire to Cortona.

Tuscany, near Cortona

The city center of Cortona

As I mentioned before, my husband and I went to Italy on our honeymoon.  I wanted to explore Tuscany, so we spent several days in an old villa in the middle of an olive grove, surrounded by fields of sunflowers.  Each day, we visited an ancient hilltop city, and our favorite city was Cortona.  The walls of Cortona date back to the Etruscan period, probably around the 6th Century B.C.  The streets are so narrow that you have to leave your car in a lot near the city walls, and walk up to the city center, or even higher to the ancient Monastery at the very top of the city.  I loved every minute we spent exploring the city; indeed, every time I turned my head, I wanted to capture the image in a photograph to frame in my home.  I loved the ancient buildings, the narrow, cobblestoned streets, and the narrower winding steps between buildings.  The food was spectacular, and the people were welcoming and accommodating, never judging us for not being able to speak Italian.  I would love to go back there, not just to visit, but to stay!

No cars can fit on these streets!

I ate here, on the porch!

Most of the streets are this steep!

I expected to see fields of grapes for wine, but instead there were fields of sunflowers!

4. Have grandchildren.

Baby clothes are so adorable!

Children's museums are great day trips!

Playscapes are fun any time of day!

This is the one item on my bucket list that I have no control over.  I did my part by procreating my own daughters, now it is on them to produce grandchildren--although not any time soon.  Ten years from now, I would love to have grandchildren to love and spoil and enjoy.   I will babysit, take them to fun places, read to them, play games with them, bake them treats, and love them to the moon and back!

Reading aloud is essential and a great bonding time as well

5. Be healthy.

Eat the rainbow of foods for good health!

Technically, this is not truly a bucket-list item, but it is essential for me to do everything else on my list.  I originally thought about saying something about getting my weight down to my "ideal weight", but I realized that I really just want to be healthy.  Both of my parents died in their mid-forties for health reasons, and I almost died in childbirth, so I have always tried to take care of myself.  Now that I have outlived them both, I am becoming even more aware of the impact that small choices I make each day have on my overall health.  I am learning that I want to quit yo-yo dieting; instead, I want to eat real food, minimize my sugar intake, exercise regularly, sleep well, minimize my stress, make healthy decisions, and live without regrets.

How I would like to look when I work out! (Haha!)

6. Write a Memoir.

A perfect place to write a Memoir!

After hearing my story, many people have encouraged me to write a memoir.  Some day, I would like to do that.  While this is a trite expression, truth is stranger than fiction!  My childhood was far from ordinary, and I have had some interesting experiences teaching in the Detroit Public Schools.  For being a quiet girl who prefers books over adventures, I have experienced a lot of dramatic moments; from being orphaned, to almost being abducted, to taking cover from gunfire, to hemorrhaging during childbirth, I have a lot to write about!

7. Learn another language.

I can identify seven of these: English, Spanish, German, Arabic, French, Hawaiian and Italian.

Actually, I would like to be multilingual.  I first desired to learn another language when I was in seventh grade.  It was during the Cold War, and I was fascinated with Russia and the secrecy of the Iron Curtain.   I wanted to learn Russian, so I checked a book out from the library and tried to learn the Russian alphabet.  I didn't get very far, and I soon decided that I was overly ambitious, so I stopped trying to learn Russian.  Ten years later, when I started working on a graduate degree, I studied Spanish for several years, but I did not have anyone with whom I could converse, so I lost much of what I learned.  This was before the Internet, and before I had the opportunity to travel, so now I have access to tools that can help me retain what I learn.  Once I finish my terminal degree, I will have the time to study languages.   

8. Read all of the books on my "Books to Read" shelves.

This is unlikely to happen because I collect books to read more quickly than I can get through them.  That said, I would love to have the time to at least put a dent in the stack.  Between my teaching workload and my dissertation, I have very little time to read for pleasure.  I look forward to the day when I can relax and read for pleasure without guilt, or read professional books and articles without the pressure of focusing on what I need to include in my paper.

It is best to read with a cat, and orange one preferably!

9.  Move to a warmer climate to finish my career.

I have lived all of my life in Michigan, and for two-thirds of the year I am miserable when I am outside because I am always cold.  Then, during the fleeting months of warmth in the summer, I am miserable when I am inside because people think that the air conditioners should be set to a frigid temperature.  Every winter, I vow to myself that some day I am going to escape from this miserable cold weather.  I am not sure where I am going to move, but it will be far south of Michigan!

I'm ready to leave this behind.

This is much better!

10. Travel the World. 

Such vivid colors!

One of the first places I want to visit is Greece.  Perhaps it is my desire for warm weather, but there is something beautifully compelling about the pictures I have seen.  The pictures of Greece that show the vivid cobalt blue sky, the whitewashed buildings with rounded roofs, and the azure blue Mediterranean Sea are stunningly beautiful.  I would love to experience that beauty firsthand.

A charming English cottage

I love British literature, and I taught it for twenty years which deepened my affinity for it.  I would love to visit England and see the homeland of some of my favorite authors.  While I'm there, I would also love to visit Ireland.  The lush green countryside is so lovely!  Then, I would love to see Scotland, the setting for Macbeth, my favorite Shakespeare play.  I also heard that you can stay at the Castle where Mary, Queen of Scots, (AKA "Bloody Mary") fled when she was                                                                                     running for her life.

A town in Germany

Germany and France are also on my list, partly because pictures I have seen look so beautiful and partly because my father's family was German, and my mother's side was half French.    The major cities, such as Paris and Berlin would be exciting to visit, but I would rather visit the smaller towns and countryside in both countries.

A lavender field in France

A street in Morocco

There are other places I would love to visit such as Turkey, Morocco, Kenya, Egypt, the Holy Land, Malta, Austria, and the list goes on.  Just like my endless reading list, my travel list is endless too!

Istanbul, Turkey