Birthdays and Before 35 Lists

Today at 12:29 pm marks my 26th birthday. I'm pretty sure I can still call myself mid-twenties, but there is something about crossing over to the closer-to-thirty-than-i-am-to-twenty zone that frightens me just a little bit.

Last August I made the first part of a "Before 35 List." Most people make a before 30 list, but since I was already in my mid 20s I wanted to give myself at least 10 years to get some of this done.

The list is currently 32 items long. Not overly aggressive, but not simple things to complete. This past year I've done 1.75 of them. I visited europe. I made wine - but it wasn't my own, so that only counts for .5 of the "Make my own wine" goal. And I read two classic books. Pride and Prejudice and Wuthering Heights, so that's approx. 25 of the read 10 classic novels goal.

I know some of these goals will take time. I mean, learn to speak another language often takes more than a year to do, especially when you work full time and you live in an english speaking country, but I'm kinda disappointed in myself. I really thought that I would get more done. With that said, I'm kinda leaning toward turning my before 35 list to being a bucket list instead and thus, I want to add some more items to expand beyond 32.

32. Visit Africa
33. Learn to make a croissant.
34. Run a Marathon
35. Shoot a gun.
36. Learn to snowboard
37. Go fly fishing
38. Go sailing
39. Learn sign language
40. Sing in an Opera again
41. Try out for a play at the Boiler Room (or other local community theatre).
42. Spend a week in silence.
43. Go rock climbing
44. Visit Cedar Point again.
45. See Mount Rushmore
46. Visit Bethel church in Redding.
47. Learn how to play chess.
48. Try photography professionally
49. Own some chickens
50. Knit a blanket
51. Become an Early Riser
52. Attend a TED conference
53. Meet a president or former president
54. Donate blood.
55. See someone healed of blindness/deafness/smell (something tangible).
56. Sleep in a castle.
57. Invest in the stock market.
58. Go whale watching
59. Go on safari
60. Milk a cow
61. Finish reading the Bible all the way through
62. Go to a Renee Fleming concert
63. Go to the Kentucky Derby
64. Be at the Macy's Thanksgiving day Parade in person.
65. Live car-less for a month
66. Take an Alaskan cruise
67. See a Broadway show in New York
68. Make my own pasta.
69. Eat snails
70. Donate my hair to Locks of Love
71. Try being a vegetarian for 30 days.
72. Fly first class.
73. Drive a tractor.
74. Learn to play the harp
75. Be able to do 50 normal push-ups
76. Get a tattoo
77. Be debt free
78. Build a giant snow man
79. Find/buy a great garage sale deal. (ex. awesome leather chair for $20 bucks.)
80. Pay respects to my grandparents at their graves
81. Learn my heritage (I know i'm Scott-Irish and part english, but I would love to know specifics.)
82. ...
83. ...

Okay... i'll stop at the nice round number of 81 for now.

I was doing some bucket list research and found this website which allows people to enter their goals and resolutions from around the world. It's quite fun to view goals by region to see what people in different cities want to do with their lives. Do you wanna know what the top three items were in nearly every city from New York and London, Shanghai and Istanbul, to Cleveland and Winnipeg?

1. Fall in love. 
2. Lose weight. 
3. Stop procrastinating.  

I think that's profound. We all desire the security and passion of love. We all want to be happy and healthy in our bodies. And we all want to get our lazy asses off the couch to do something about it. The hardest part is taking the first step.

I'm lucky my birthday somewhat coincides with the end of the year and the start of a new one. It's easy to measure what happened since my last birthday and easy to set lofty goals for the new year. I genuinely yearn to be a person who sucks the marrow out of life. I don't want another year to go by with only 1.75 of my bucket items to be crossed off my list. I desire to live life to the fullest and I legitimately plan to complete at least 4 or 5 of my goals in my 26th year. Step by step. Day by day. It will get done.

What are your 2011 Goals? What's on your bucket list?