A few weeks ago my husband stumbled upon the Single Dad Laughing blog.  The author adopted his son and has written several heart warming posts about the experience.  This reminded me that it had been a while since I’d looked up the laws on Indian adoptions.  We’ve been ready to do this for quite some time, but the laws in India said adoptive parents had to be at least 30 so we’ve been waiting.

Well, they changed the laws this year.  The minimum age was dropped.  We’ve now officially begun the process.  I’ll leave it at that since I’m not sure yet how much I plan to blog about this process.  Needless to say, I’m so excited.  I know it’ll be a long process but being able to finally get started makes it so much more tangible.

This kinda turns that spreadsheet I previously blogged about upside down and on it’s side.  Things have been re-ordered and I might get rid of a couple vacations, but I’m thrilled for that and wouldn’t have it any other way.

But, for the smaller things…  I’m still making them happen  One of the goals I had was to give back, but I left it very open ended because I wasn’t sure how I’d get there.  I’m still not sure, but I feel like I’m going in that direction.  Tonight I began volunteering at a local community center, as a reading coach.  I am hosting a book club for 10 elementary school and middle school aged kids.  We’re reading Nothing but the Truth, by Avi.  The experience was pretty awesome.  I know I enjoyed it thoroughly and the kids seemed to really enjoy themselves as well.  I hope they are looking forward to next week as much as I am!

There was one thing during book club that particularly stood out.  The book is a modified epistolary novel, so we had fun bouncing from diary entries to letters to dialog to memos.  In one of the dialogs the lyrics to the Star-Spangled Banner are written out.  A girl in the group asked if she could sing it.  By the time she was done, everyone in the room was singing with her.  It was so incredibly touching to be a part of that and something that’s definitely been committed to my memory.

As I mentioned, most of the items on this list are things I can do fairly impulsively.  However, there are a lot of things I need to have a plan for.  I probably should not wake up one morning and decide I am going to take a cruise to Alaska.  So, I now have a spreadsheet.  It’s a pretty spreadsheet.  I’m holding off on sharing because I am kinda embarrassed by just how detailed and pretty it is, lol.

I think my method for creating a timeline is pretty sound.  I did a bunch of sanity checks on it – compared it against the budget, figured out about how old the kids we hope we will have will be, made sure everything was spread out enough that we wouldn’t have one or two ridiculously hectic years, etc.

At any rate, it is a plan and it is looking doable!  I’ve combined a few things, like I think a train through Europe would be awesome.  And, if I’m going snorkeling somewhere may as well swim with Dolphin there too.  I’ll write more details about each item on the timeline as I put more thought in to them.  What I’m focusing on right now is that it’s seeming like my wishes are pretty manageable!  And fortunately when I ran the timeline by my husband his only response was a wisecrack about not making plans past 2012.

I love having a plan.

I’ve created an Edible Landscapes Pin Board to keep track of some inspiration photos.  Eventually I’ll need to narrow things down by what will actually grow successfully in Central Florida, but for now I’m just adding anything that catches my eye.

1. The Lord of the Rings, JRR Tolkien
2. Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen
3. His Dark Materials, Philip Pullman
4. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams
5. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, JK Rowling
6. To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee
7. Winnie the Pooh, AA Milne
8. Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell
9. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, CS Lewis
10. Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë
11. Catch-22, Joseph Heller
12. Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë
13. Birdsong, Sebastian Faulks
14. Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier
15. The Catcher in the Rye, JD Salinger
16. The Wind in the Willows, Kenneth Grahame
17. Great Expectations, Charles Dickens
18. Little Women, Louisa May Alcott
19. Captain Corelli’s Mandolin, Louis de Bernieres
20. War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy
21. Gone with the Wind, Margaret Mitchell

And now my inner nerd gets to play with spreadsheets to figure out how I’ll make this happen

There are a lot of things I want to do, but I also want to take this list seriously. I might be over thinking it but my plan is to let this list be a work in progress until my 30th birthday. Then I’ll get started with actually knocking things out. If I want to do something today but have lost interest in 2 years, that item should probably not be on my 40 by 40.  Giving myself some time will also give me the opportunity to actually plan how I’ll get everything done.

Here’s what I have so far.

1. Adopt 2 children
2. Meet my weight loss goal
3. Run (not walk, not jog – run) a 5k.  Preferably a 10k, but since this will require a LOT of work for me I think a 5k is a more realistic goal.
4. Be well in to Baby Step 6 of the Dave Ramsey program.
5. Travel somewhere in Europe.  Need to think this one through a little better.
6. Travel somewhere in Asia.  Need to figure out details for this one too.  Fortunately this one is already being planned and on the budget, so it is kinda cheating…  but it’ll happen after I turn 30 so I think it counts.
7. Take a cruise to Alaska.  Preferably to see the Northern Lights.
8. Read more.  I need to come up with a specific list – it’ll likely be a mix of classics, religious, non-fiction and who knows what else.
9. Take a wine appreciation class.
10. Learn and practice meditation.
11. Watch everything on AFI’s 100 Years…100 Movies list.
12. Take a classic Great American Roadtrip.
13. Hike a portion of the Appalachain Trail.  Doesn’t have to be anything major, 5 miles or so would be perfect.
14. Spend a full week in a cabin in the woods.  No leaving the woods for civilization and restaurants.
15. Sing Karaoke.  Like, in front of other people.
16. Cook a fancy schmancy 5 course gourmet meal.
17. Take couples’ dance lessons.  I’m not picky about the type of dancing so whatever I can get my husband to agree to would be fine, lol.
18. Go snorkeling
19. Climb to the top of a mountain.  Something the equivalent of Katahdin, which tempted me when I lived in Maine but I refused to face my fear of heights and do it.
20. Take a train.
21. Do a DIY furniture repair/restore.
22. Paint a wall using some fancy sponge, stencil, texture or whatever technique.
23. Stay in a fancy schmancy hotel.
24. Learn to throw pottery.
25. Plant a tree.
26. Do more giving.  I need to think this one through better.  A goal of mine is to start volunteering regularly this year, so hopefully whatever I do with that will help shape this.
27. Plant a vegetable and herb garden.
28. Get a fortune telling done.  Tarot cards, palm reading, whatever.