Bucket List, Goals, and Failures!

Last January, I joined Leslie, Mireille, Joanne, Bo, and Christie to blog about our bucket lists and goals. As you all know, I pretty much stink at following through on things like this! Obviously, I’m way behind on updating this as we’re already halfway through January 2026! But, I think I did a pretty good job at my stuff this time around. You can read about my last bucket list/goals post here, if you like. I’m pretty sure Joanne hosted a link party, but it’s probably over. You can always join the Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot on Thursday nights (or Friday mornings).

Without further ado…

Boy howdy! I crushed my goals, I think! I didn’t realize, when I set them, how quickly things would happen. You’ll have to read farther to see how I did! If I were grading myself on my goals, I think I’d get an A-. I wasn’t quite as successful with completing much of my bucket list. But, that’s the beauty of bucket lists…they’re long term!

Last quarter’s goals…

As I said last time, these are more like triennial goals.. But, here they are in case you didn’t remember (because I certainly didn’t).

• Find and study three pieces of art at the museum, then develop into a tour. I have given several public tours at this point. For most of them, I just rearranged my graduation tour. But, I did do a tour on New Year’s Eve. I called it Nights at Newfields. I’ll be doing a separate post on that one. I have studied many more pieces of art as I am on two different “cores.” A core is a group of docents who specialize in a certain era or geographical area. I am in the European and Contemporary Cores. I picked the Contemporary Core because I’m just not that familiar with that art. I selected European because I love the Old Masters, Impressionists, and Post Impressionists.
• Continue my VTS training and become certified to do VTS tours. Dunzo! I was certified early in December and have already given one VTS tour, using art from my graduation tour. I discovered, however, I was doing the tour wrong. Now that I know the correct way, it will be so much easier.
• Finish at least one UFO (knit or crochet) Complete and utter failure…well, not completely, I guess. I did finish two halves of a shawl like thing. But, I decided I don’t really like it so I’m going to frog it. I love the yarn so I’ll soon find something else for it.
• Do photoshoots at a location other than my front porch. Unfortunately, this hasn’t happened, either. I would like to get a tripod, but that would break Nigel’s heart. He would think I was abandoning him. Technically, I did do one in our front hallway so I give myself partial credit on this one.
• Clean out Nigel’s closet. Done, done, done!!! I had Nigel sit in a comfy chair, and I took everything out of his closet. I threw it on the bed in one big pile so he couldn’t see what was in the pile. I held each item up and just let him make the decision. I think we ended up with two or three large bags of donations. I have threatened nicely asked him to let me put things back on the shelves.
• Develop a home workout routine. I know I won’t be able to use weight machines for my legs, but maybe I’ll get into a routine so that I’ll be motivated to finally join a gym. I ended up going to physical therapy after learning I have severe degenerative disc disorder in my lower lumbar area. I am using those exercises to strengthen my core as well as gently stretching my lower back.
• Continue to save toward new shower in primary bathroom as well as fall trip – this will probably be ongoing. Savings continues, but I did have to take a little out…see the next goal.
• Contact landscape company about fixing the front yard. Our front yard has a strip about six feet wide that begins at the driveway. It’s where they dumped the pea gravel. Of course, they didn’t remove it all and just graded it all down, then sowed the grass seed. Anytime we go without rain, the grass just dies. Nigel was supposed to do this, but you know how that goes. Nigel met with the landscaper (I was at the museum). He agreed the pea gravel is a problem, but he also thought we had some kind of fungus. I tend to believe him because, even with all the rain and snow we got, no grass is growing there. On top of that, we are having a sprinkler system installed this spring. Nigel loved the way our yard looked at the last house so I encouraged him to do it. We just have to be aware of where the sprinkler heads are and that they’re recessed when the mowers are here.
• Decorate for the coming holidays because, let’s face it, this is going through the end of the year! It took me a bit to get it all done, but I did it all. And, I mean I did it all by myself! I only put up with one tree instead of the usual four. I also didn’t decorate our bedroom as we’ve been sleeping in a different bedroom. That room has an adjustable bed which is easier on Nigel. The big Christmas tree is still up because, while I could get it down from the attic, there is no way I can get it back up! It’s in four pieces which will need to be wrapped in plastic. I’m trying to decide whether or not to put it in the attic or in the crawl space. I do have one last tub to do…my collection of Santas that are in the curio cabinet. Nigel asked that I leave them out for a bit.

New goals…

• Finish writing the mini retreat for church
• Paint Jack’s room
• Finish one UFO
• Develop more tours at the museum
• Wash windows once it’s warm
• Clean out my closet and figure out how to store all my shoes so I can see them
• Read more books this year. Get actual books rather than read on my iPad.
• Decide on new countertops for kitchen

Bucket list revisited…

I am pretty happy with how I did on my bucket list. So, let’s take a look.

Last quarter’s bucket list…

• Throw myself a birthday party! Accomplished! I actually ordered myself a beautiful and delicious custom birthday cake though my son insisted on paying for it. I wasn’t exactly sure how to get it into the museum with a knife, and I didn’t know when we would all get together, I invited my family to share my birthday cake with me! Everyone agreed it was delicious and beautiful!
  • When I started my docent journey, the last thing I expected was to gain three new close friends. But, I have not only gained three friends, I have several other women I consider almost friends. The four of us meet every month for lunch even though we see each other on a regular basis at the museum for meetings and tours. At our November lunch, I told them we were going to celebrate my birthday. So, they sang to me and shared a scrumptious dessert.
• Take a road trip. I did this just a week or so ago. Actually, I did go on a road trip to my hometown when one of my longest and best friend’s husband died. I didn’t spend the night, but it was so good to see her even though it was under such terrible circumstances. We have been through so many things, from first grade through high school and beyond. A week or so ago, I met up with my best friend in a little town about 90 minutes from Indianapolis. We have done this twice now and stay at the cutest boutique hotel. We talked the entire time about this, that, and everything in between. We have laughingly said, should something happen to our husbands, we will move in together because we know each other so well.
• Continue to plan trip to London. OK. I’m not sure how this one is going to go down. I wanted to go to London on my own, but one of my new friends said she’d go. My youngest still wants to go, too.
• Begin to think about Spring trip with my travel buddy. We have talked once in a while about this, but we haven’t sat down and really planned anything.
• Give a VTS tour. I’ve actually given two of these with a third this coming Saturday.
• Meet up with a blogger or two in the area or travel there. Nope…my extroverted introvert is too shy to ask other bloggers to do this.
• Lose that last ten pounds…ugh…these last ten pounds are now down to about five. But, the first five were really hard, and now this last five are being even more difficult.
• Install moulding in the living room to make it more Marsha than builder! I’m actually having trouble coming up with what I want to do. Then, there’s the matter of the color. I think, sometimes, the green needs to be a deeper green. But, since it receives so little natural sunshine, would that make it darker? I don’t know…

New bucket list…

• Plan London trip(s)
• Plan trip with my travel buddy
• Lost last five pounds
• Take a solo trip
• Install moulding in living room

Wrap it up, Marsha!

Wow! I’m just a titch impressed with myself. I accomplished so much more than I thought, and Christmas was in there with all of those activities! I sometimes think my goals and my bucket list items could be combined. I mean, a bucket list is about things you would love to do but may never…kinda unreachable, right? But, it’s one way of having two lists that are more manageable than one big one, too. So, can we talk?  Do you think there is a difference between a goal and a bucket list item?  Have you ever gone on a solo trip (like overseas or 1000s of miles from home)? Do you think darker colors do make rooms darker even if they’re big rooms?  Please leave me a comment or two, and we can talk. I promise to respond as quickly as I can.

Thank you!

I want to thank all of you from the bottom of my heart for reading, commenting, subscribing or emailing! It truly means so much to me! If you’d like to follow me on Instagram, you can find me here.

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Where you can find me:

Linking up with Nancy’s Fashion Style,  Fine-Whatever, Is This Mutton, Shelbee on the Edge, Chez Mireile, Suzy Turner, and Away from the Blue as well as Deb’s World and A Fresh Cup of Coffee. I also link up with This Blonde’s Shopping Bag, Doused in Pink, I do deClaire, Mummabstylish, Style Splash and Elegantly Dressed and Stylish as well as the Senior Salon Pit Stop (Esme’s Salon) and Slices of Life. Please check out these wonderful ladies and their blogs! I also am a co-host for Ageless Style on the third Thursday of the month and Songful Style on the last Monday of the month. I co-host Traffic Jam Weekend every Thursday with Melynda, Lisa, and Sue. I also host 10 on the 10th on the 10th of the month! I do hope you’ll check out all of these blogs and link parties!

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