Black Oak's Daughter

One of the blogs that I follow pretty regularly belongs to Maggie Mason.  I’m not much into mommybloggers. Of the 20 or so blogs that I follow, the only mommyblogger that I read is Dooce because she’s hilarious and brutally honest.  Maggie and Dooce are friends.  Maggie is a mommy, but she only mommyblogs as part of her whole life and not as if it is her whole life. I have a lot of respect for that. It’s how I approached parenting too. There is balance in everything and Maggie has seemingly mastered that balance as well.

Maggie has also turned doing what she loves into a couple of websites that hopefully make her a good living. Being the person that I am though, I’m much more interested in her blog. Today’s post clinched it for me.

I’ve been thinking about this for a while. I didn’t want to do a bucket list, because that premise hits me as morbid – doing things before you die. It’s like a race to the finish line. I faced that bucket a couple of years ago and that list sucked for a lot of reasons. Having cancer sucked bad and I didn’t want to dwell on everything that I hadn’t accomplished yet, so scratch the bucket list. It’s a really bad idea when you frame it with my life.

Maggie has a list on her website. She calls it her Mighty Life List. She’s been sponsored by Intel to accomplish a few of her things, and today’s post is absolutely inspiring. That first picture says it all.

I like the positive twist that the name of the list implies – A Mighty Life List. It’s bold, it’s beautiful, it’s fun, interesting, and most of all it is engaging. She is engaged with the world around her, and her list shows that.

I had a conversation with my best friend a few days ago on my birthday. She asked for my list. What things do I want to accomplish? What goals do I have?  For the last couple of years, and until I get through this kidney thing, life has been very focused on what tasks need to get done that day. My life has become much smaller than I like and quite honestly, I’m going a little stir crazy. Between recovering from surgery and handling homeownership alone, it’s hard to keep big picture goals in mind when day to day living is so consuming. I’m always behind, and there are times when catching up to even what needs to be done this week is hopeless.  There will be a time again when I have my  health back, and mowing the lawn doesn’t do me in for 2 days, and my lawn is edged, and the gutters are clean, along with my bathrooms, and the trees are trimmed and my cats are healthy, and I can do something more than just get through the day trying not to worry too much about what’s going to blow up next.  It’s enough to drive a person into a wee small box of a life, and I’m better than that. My life should be a testament to survival, and love, and laughter and fun, and I need to find a way to get out of that wee small box and back to where I can live and love and be at peace with myself

I’ve started a list. Something that I can focus on that doesn’t include leaking plumbing, or weed whacking.

In the next few days I’ll modify the sidebar where the quote of the day is, and make that my own Mighty Life List. I’ll put it on a separate page too, so I can cross things off as I go. I’m going to steal Maggies name for her list because I really like the positiveness, and the hope that it gives me. I give full credit to her for that name.  I’m not going to limit myself to a number, this list will be ongoing, and I’ll cross off what I’ve done, and add new things as I find them.

I hope you enjoy it, and that it gets you thinking about your own life, and what little, and big, things you can do to make it special.  We all need a little bit of that.

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