DiAnn Mills @DiAnnMills
Tweet this: Revisiting Your Bucket List
Last week’s blog about making a bucket list for 2016 received an overwhelming response from 
e-mails to blog comments to twitter posts. I loved reading your thoughts and comments. Many of you decided to create your own and were looking forward to “filling” it. Thank you!
When one of you wrote about a farmhouse with a wraparound porch, I melted. That is one of my deep desires! The wheels began to turn in my head, so . . .
This week I’d like to continue with the same topic but add a twist by asking you to post on my blog in the comment section your own bucket list. All those who post your list below as a comment no later than midnight central on Friday, January 8, 2016, will be entered in a random drawing for one of two $25.00 Amazon e-gift cards.
Please share this with your friends, and let’s hear about your goals, achievements, and aspirations that you want to accomplish not only in 2016 but also in your lifetime!
Are you brave enough to dream?
Tweet this: Revisiting Your Bucket List
Comments 66
My Bucket List…
Well, this is sure going to take some serious thinking…
Guess for me…
I have a ‘Dream World Bucket List’ and
a ‘Real Possibility Bucket List’…
Let me explain…
‘Dream World Bucket List’
A few years ago, hubby and I toured a home for sale in Kerrville, Texas. The home was lovely, but what put it over the top was the million dollar view from the terrace overlooking the Hill Country. We wanted that home with the view SO BADLY and to the point where ‘in our mind’ we had already started placing our furniture in each room and my painting easel was on the white limestone patio, with a glass of ice tea with fresh mint, a delicate piece of china with finger sandwiches and a few morsels of dark chocolate – for energy. The home and view were awesome!!!
BUT…after a painful meeting with our financial advisor, he assured us we could buy the property, but… we would not be able to travel, much less eat three meals a day, plus snacks, and definitely no more dark chocolate. The reality check was distressing, but after ‘many moons’ we realized what we would leave would be more upsetting than having the home with the view. We realized that moving away from our grown children and our only GRAND, our church home, our church friends would have been more painful than having the home and the view. Yes, in time we would have a new church and church friends, but not the precious folks that we have shared joys and sorrows for the past thirty years. So now we continue to look for the Kerrville type of property in Northwest Houston with the view… At this point in time, an overpass,
a.k.a. ‘a fly over’ is the best option, but it would not provide the calm peaceful surrounding as the Hill Country.
…but the ‘Real Possibility Bucket List’…
That list began for me after surgery this past August. The Good Lord allowed me to have a LOT of time to rest, think about what was really important, and review the time He had given me on this side of eternity.
So I began THEN to…
1- Quilt by watching u-tube videos and was able to piece and quilt eight Christmas placemats for our holiday meals.
2- My artwork has taken more of my thought and time.
3- I am blessed to sew for my GRAND, and she loves what I make her. (Yes, I know this is temporary.)
4- Hubby and I are able to resume traveling around the USA and over the pond.
5- Read more…
6- I do not dwell as much on what I might do in ‘the future’… I am just SO grateful for each and every day, each and every thing I get to do, and each and every person I am blessed to be around.
Creating this list, was a flashback to August for me when I realized that time does not stand still for anyone.
I really haven’t thought much about a bucket list, but I should! Here are some off the top of my head
1. Find my future husband and get married.
2. Have kids
3. Adopt kids
4. Visit all the states in the union
5. Go out of the country
6. Swim with Dolphins
7. Lead someone to Christ
8. Take a road trip for fun out west
Hi Christy – all look like fun to me! I adopted four boys. Rewarding.
Dianne, I laughed all the way through your list. Such fun! Oh, I want the home in the hill country too – but don’t want to leave church, friends, and family.
Charity, I so apologize for misspelling your name!
My bucket list
Send more time getting to know the minor prophets: Nahum and Haggai this year, through read through the Bible program.
Refine weeding(editing and re-editing) my manuscripts.
Get more savvy with social media, and harness some of it.
Wrestle fear of failure, and my ‘lion-in-the-way.
Practice a “TYA” (there you are!) approach to people.
UH UH! Spelling errors. I meant to say ‘spend’ more time. Also meet the minor prophets through a Read through the Bible program.
Here’s a few highlights from my bucket list… go on a hot air balloon ride, travel to Europe, go on a week-long backpacking trip in some gorgeous mountains, serve a church mission with my husband, buy a house, illustrate a children’s book, learn to surf.
Thanks for the fun giveaway!
Heidi, worthy items on your bucket list. Be blessed!
My list has shortened over the last few months due to fact that I’m having to learn how to deal with a major health issue. Multiple Sclerosis came in hard this past year, knocked the wind out of my sail, therefore, I had to take a step back.
Nevertheless, I am determined to keep moving forward…
2016 Bucket List
(1) Spend major amounts of time with God
(2) Pray for any and all that God brings my way
(3) Learn to maneuver around the daily dealings with MS
(4) Work on blogging (and other connections I have with the world)
(5) Continue the good fight of faith
The above is constants in life, however, I am believing God to heal me. So my bucket list for when that happens is as follows…
(1) All the above, plus…
(2) Dance
(3) Dance so more
(4) Walk a marathon of some sort
(5) Book speaking engagements
(6) Travel
(7) Take the world by storm
These are my 2016 thoughts, as time continues, and as God permits I did/do have big plans in life. God is good. Until I can do more, my bucket list is to do all that I can from no matter what angle I’m currently in; confined to bed rest, rolling around in my wheelchair, or totally healed and running the world. I guess you could say my bucket list is to continue moving forward; mentally, spiritually, physically, and financially.
Rikki, dancing with God is what I hear. Prayers sent your way!
I had to think for awhile. I have what I call my impossible dream list ( I’m possible-not mine I borrowed). Didn’t think to make it more concrete. So for 2016 in no particular order:
1. Finish my goal to get out of debt – two left.
2. Finish my BA.
3. Make time to exercise (even if just a walk around the block)
4. Lose 35 lbs more (lost 10 so far)
5. Make time to finish the quilts I started last year
6. Learn to knit better.
7. Get brave and pull out the stories I started and finish writing them.
8. Scan family pictures to give to my children.
9. Increase my study time with my scriptures.
10. Organize my office/sewing room
11. Purge my closets and donate to a women’s shelter
12. Purge bookshelves (sadly I have bursting at the seams shelves in every room of the house) and donate to the local library.
13. Take a ceramics class.
14. Get my passport.
15. Prioritize this list, break it down into steps, print it and put it where I can see it everyday.
Hi Veronika, You have a filled bucket! Thanks for posting!
Thank you for the opportunity to put what was a vague outline in my head to paper. It made it real. It also makes it possible for me to remember my goals when the going gets rough. Mostly, I want to look back on 2016 and feel I’ve made a difference however small.
I’ve never taken the time to sit down and really thought about a bucket list, but there are a couple of things that have been on the mind of my Husband and myself. This would all depend on whether or not we hit the lottery, or came into a large sum of money. If that were the case, we would like to:
1. Buy a large house in the country, on a few acres.
2. Use this house not only to live in, but open a sanctuary for animals.
3. Make sure they got the best of care, and a wonderful place to wander outside. Also have the best people to work with us, to help take care of the animals.
We love animals, and where we live now, people think it’s ok to dump their animals in hopes that someone will take care of them. It breaks my heart that we can’t bring them inside, because we live in an apartment, and already have 3 cats. Two of the cats we adopted from a feral mother that we tamed, and recently adopted the 3rd, who kept a vigil outside of our apartment, and wouldn’t take no for an answer. Too many of them have frozen to death with our harsh winters, and we’ve seen it firsthand.
Hi Peggy,
I can hear your heart in your bucket list. Thanks for sharing.
2016 and beyond:
1. Take a helicopter tours and other tours of the Hawaiian Islands.
2. Learn social media & blogging and blog design to start two blogs.
3. Take some writing classes and write and publish articles and books.
4. Study the Word more consistently.
5. Put & organize my writing research into books/blogs.
6. Read in the future books on my list.
7. Purchase in the future the bibles on my list of other versions and editions.
8. Find a job; hopefully a work at home job.
9. Update my wardrobe.
10. Learn to drive and buy a car.
11. Continue and finish writing the two books I have started.
12. Revise, edit, and finish the articles I have started.
13. Put into action plans the other ideas I have had in mind to create.
14. Study the ma again.
15. Enjoy my little nephew more and all my other nieces and nephews.
16. To have my own home based business to create current, future, and retirement income.
17. To have a house.
18. To purchase new furniture.
19. Attend a writing retreat.
20. Travel around Texas to locations I haven’t yet gone to.
21. Attend other writer’s conferences that I haven’t yet attented.
22. Attend Ministry conferences that I haven’t yet attented.
23.
24.
Marriana,
Beautiful list! You’ll be busy.
My Bucket List:
1. Take a trip on the Mississippi on a houseboat with relatives.
2. Go to Newfoundland with my best friend Sherri ( leave the hubby’s home).
3. Get my apple trees growing good.
4. Spend even more time with my grandchildren.
5. Decorate that 45 foot monstrosity in front of my house for Christmas some year.
Sharyl
A houseboat on the Mississippi? Sounds so fun.
Here’s my bucket list:
Travel with my family to someplace I have never visited.
Make more time for my family
Finish writing a novel and getting it published.
Earn income blogging
I’m going to go work on some of these things now! Thanks for the encouragement and giveaway DiAnn!
Hi Loraine
Great list! Travel to a place you’ve never been – that I like.
One of my last blogs before my son went to heaven was about my bucket list. Here it is, almost three years later, and I see ‘bucket list.’ Needless to say, my bucket list has changed in many ways.
1. To continue putting one foot in front of the other, with God has my good shepherd – He is my every breath.
2. Continue to write and write and write. Write to help others on this journey, to reach other military families with hope.
3. To write stories that will help others understand military life and to bring hope to others through characters going through similar situations.
4. To continue to travel and visit so many wonderful people – redeeming the time!
5. To be more in touch with my wonderful writer friends like you! ~ Miss you!
Diane, beautiful list. Your son is proud.
1. Visit somewhere I’ve never been for my 60th Birthday (thinking about Puerto Rico)!
2. Spend more time with friends.
3. Pay more attention to people around me who are lonely.
4. Exercise more and eat more healthy.
5. Lose 20 pounds (or more).
6. Discover more authors (and buy more bookshelves).
7. Visit several more missionary families on their mission fields (have been to both France and Ecuador doing just that).
8. See Hawaii and Alaska (have been to most of the other states)!
9. Ride a horse on the beach!
10. Save more, spend less.
11. Go through boxes that have been stored away forever!
12. Listen better.
Hi Doreen, love your list! I might have to join you on a few!
2016 Bucket List
1. Visit with my nephews every week.
2. Work on organizing my doll collection every day.
3. Enjoy my vacation in Las Vegas and see a show or two. We are already seeing who is in town. It will be first trip there.
4. Spend quality time with my uncles and aunts during my visit to Florida.
5. Start planning our family trip to Disney next fall – I am the family travel agent
6. Learn some new skills – I already signed up for some craft workshops.
7. Update my club website and write my article on collector behaviors
Hi Linda
Enjoy the planning and the fun!
My bucket list for 2016
1. Publish my contemporary women book – Whitecaps
2. Publish my book of daily devotionals
3. Continue to play the top 50 golf courses in the world with my husband
4. Travel one week each month to a new state and at least one trip to Europe
5. Exercise daily and not gain any weight- stay where I am now
6. Attend church daily or as often as I can. Be more active in a church ministry
7. Celebrate life by having one treat a day – clothes, quiet reading time, friends in our home, my son’s visits, etc.
Hi Marsha
I so remember the sweetness of your story – and growing in God is the best we all can do.
This is a 2016 list, not really a bucket list.
1. Read the Bible Daily
2. Find a home church-our church split and we have been nomadic visitors
3. Clean out a lot of the junk we have accumulated. I helped my sister move and she had so much she just had to get rid of and I realize that my family has too much stuff too.
Hi Lynn, finding a new church home can be hard. Prayers sent your way!
My bucket list for 2016 :
1. Have close relationship with God
2. See Hawaii and Ireland
3. Eat healthy and exercise more
Oh Sheila, Your list contains two of my favorite places to visit. Enjoy!
My bucket list is ongoing. I add to it all the time. And whenever we/I complete something from my bucket list, I add something to it. My bucket list things are places to go/things to see. Occasionally, its things to do, swim with dolphins, see a volcano, active lava, etc.
But my bucket list will never be done. Is that ok, do you think? LOL
Hi Lisa, swimming with a dolphin sounds wonderful!
I’ve never made a bucket list, in fact I don’t like that name….lol! I like to call it “things I’d like to do in my lifetime”. I guess “bucket list” just sounds morbid to me!
I’m not one do to resolutions or goals for the year. The only thing I can see myself sticking to , is knock my TBR pile in at least half (print copies only). I’ve acquired so many books that my shelves are bursting!
teamob4 (at) gmail (dot) com
Hi Trixi, whatever we call our lists, the important thing to do is – check them off our list!
Mine is to get more of the family photos scanned and work on the genealogy.
Hi Leona, I keep saying the same thing, but I haven’t completed it yet!
1. Read the Bible through.
2. Have a fully-edited manuscript by the end of the year.
3. Exercise regularly.
4. Work hard and trust the Lord’s timing.
5. Read 100 books.
Hi Katherine,
Yes! Finish your story!
My bucket list for 2016:
To say No more often – too many times I volunteer & then get frustruated when I cannot accomplish everything; I will choose my few volunteer jobs that call to me & be honoured to do them.
To travel with my husband & try & hit 4/5 weddings across the Country & world this year (and mini trips around them).
To become more accepting & let God plan it for me.
To remove all barriers to our prosperity & reduce debt in order to retire sooner .
Lots more percolating 🙂
Hi Kay,
Noble plans. Prayers sent your way!
Wow! A Bucket list…let me think…
Feeling that my memoir about attending college with five kids in tow is ready for publication.
Getting an agent interested in the manuscript.
Selling the memoir to a publisher.
Taking an online class on self-publishing.
Taking a class on marketing and/or social media.
Finally understanding marketing and technology.
Getting more followers on my blogs.
Attending more writers’ conferences.
To be more tech savvy.
To help me convince my family that I am a writer and need more time to write.
Thanks for this opportunity to blurt it all out on a page, DiAnn!
Great!!
Hi Victoria
Contact me at diann@diannmills.com and I’ll make a few recommendations to help with your list.
My bucket list has some personal items, some material things I will never have the money for, some I really want to do but am chicken and one that I need others to do.
1. The biggest person item is for my husband to be able to retire so we can live in the same place all year not just part. (This requires monetary ability)
2. See my daughters and grandkids more.
3. Have a better relationship with one of my daughters.
4. Go to Amsterdam, San Francisco, Norway, and the wonders of the world.
5. Drive (since I was 12 I wanted one of these but I’m getting more realistic and changed it to drive) a 2 seater convertible Mercedes.
6. Go skydiving
7. Go hang gliding.
8. Go up in a hot air balloon.
9. The thing I want most in the world is something I’m afraid is beyond my capabilities and that for a cure for cancer especially neuroblastoma what my 4 year old granddaughter has. I would love to see a cure for cancer in my lifetime.
I’ll take the Hot Air Balloon ride with you!
Become Debt FREE; Visit Alaska, Hawaii, & Maine; Ride a jet ski; finish several quilts that I’ve started; lose 95#; wash & paint the bathroom walls!
Way to go!
1. Develop my prayer life so I am not just spinning my wheels on vain repetitions.
2. Become more intentional in my reading so I have the time for books I really want to read rather than reading whatever I stumble across next.
3. Stop spending so much time on giveaways for books that I’m not all that interested in reading. My stack from last year is too high and I have put off reading some books that I think would help me grow spiritually.
4. Look for opportunities to spend quality time with my grandsons. They are growing up too quickly and I haven’t invested in them to the extent I feel that I could if I became really serious.
5. Take my wife to visit some places that we have not seen before.
6. Work to make our 50th wedding anniversary in June a time to remember for the rest of our lives, however long that may be.
7. Learn to fully accept this retirement stage of life. I had not planned to retire until at least the end of 2016 but my last employer eliminated my job over two years ago. I had no choice but to accept their decision but I need to embrace where I am now and learn to enjoy it for all its worth.
God always has a better plan for us. Have you looked at the mobile and iPad app – Prayer Prompter. Might be a help on your list.
My 2016 Bucket List
1 help one person at leat 5 times a week
2 be a better person
3 talk to my family everyday
4 take a few minutes a day for myself
5
6
7
8 to be figured out later
Looks like a great list to me!
I’d like to see a baseball game in every major league stadium. One of my problems, of course, is that the clubs keep building new ones, so I’m not sure whether to count the old one or not.
Yep, count ’em. See you in a few weeks!
As I am almost 73 years old, a big part of my list has already been done. There are a few places I’d like to visit but we’ll see what happens. I would like to spend more time with my grandchildren but they are a military family that live all over the place. I take what I can get there. They have helped me fulfill a lot of my list so thank you. I hope everyone has a great year and get to mark off a lot of items on their list. God bless.
Fannie, you sound very contented.
I am very contented. The major item on my list will take place in the spring. I am going sky diving with my best friend’s daughter. I have wanted to do this for years and now I’m doing it. Yea!!!
Go to an Alabama/Auburn football game (tickets are outrageous!)
Visit several places: Hawaii, Alaska, Niagra Falls, Key West, Macinac Island.
Alaska sounds cool – pardon the pun!
Mainly on my bucket list
Is finding immersion
In doing my very best
To be a better person-
The best I can try to be,
Keeping Faith alive…
In my heart, and my soul,
To let my spirit thrive!
John, beautiful poem. Thank you!
We have been doing things on my husbands bucket list since his cancer came back in 2012. He did radiation for almost 3 months and it went away for a while. It is back again and he is on his final treatment and we were talking about bucket list items with a couple on our Alaskan cruise and she asked me what was on my list. I didn’t have one so I decided that I would make my own list for 2016 and see how many I can check off.
1. Go up in a hot air balloon
2. Go sky diving
3. Go scuba diving
4. Go to a museum a week in NYC. I live here, so why not
5. Go to the top of the Empire State building
6. See Mt Rushmore
7. Go to Carlsbad Caverns
8. See The geyser at Yosemite
9. Take a cruise to Hawaii
10. Take a cruise through the Panama Canal
11. Go to Australia and see Ayers Rock and the Great Barrier Reef
12 see the Pyramids in Egypt
13. Go on an African Safari
14. Go to all of the parks at Disneyworld
15. Buy a house on the beach
I’ve done an African Safari – and you’ll never regret it!