4 posts tagged “list”
As you've probably realized, I like lists. And I like challenges. A challenge that comes in list form? That's the best ever. So, for my Golden Birthday (my 28th on April 28th) I've decided to make a list of 28 things to do in my 28th year. Doesn't that sound like fun? I think so. So fun, in fact, that I woke up at 4:44am and couldn't stop thinking about it and I never went back to sleep. (Item #1 on my list should be "Invent a dial that can be directly wired to my brain's cortex that allows me to adjust the amount of thinking I am doing while lying in bed.")
Side note: I'm happy that my Golden Birthday -- when, according to tradition, I'm supposed to have My Best Year Ever -- is when I'm 28. I'd hate to have gotten it out of the way when I was 5 or something. "Well, I learned to tie my shoes. It's only downhill from here. Pass the bottle of Jack."
Still, I'm having a hard time making a list. When you're (nearly) 28 and you've already bought a house, seen the Taj Mahal and Big Ben, paid off all your debt (not including your mortgage -- you're not that awesome), received a Master's degree, and sposored a kid from Guatemala, it becomes more difficult to find things you haven't done...that you actually want to do.
This is where you come in, my fine 'hood. I need some suggestions. Most of you have known me for a while now, so you should have a little inkling of things I might want to do in the next year. I'd like to hit all areas of my life -- physical, mental, emotional, spiritual, etc. Below is a list of some things I'm thinking about. They aren't final yet, but it might give you some ideas, which in turn might give me some more ideas. And, I hope, this might get me to a list of 28 things in the next week and a half -- before I get to start crossing things off (which, let's all agree, is the best part of making a list in the first place)!
- Run the 10k "Run for the Hungry" in November
- Read the entire Bible (I have the one-year chronological Bible)
- Take a Really Big Trip -- either to New Zealand or England/Scotland, perhaps somewhere different if the price is right
- Take a painting or collage class
- Go wine tasting
- Cook a holiday meal for a group of friends
- Hike Half Dome in Yosemite
- Go on a cruise
- Take golf lessons
- Volunteer building a house with Habitat for Humanity
- Get an article published in a national magazine
- Take a serious look at my buying habits in regards to Human Trafficking and adjust accordingly
- Make everyone twins
Okay, that last one was from Baby Mama. But you get the idea. So any ideas? I definitely want these to be Kinda Big Things. I will blog about each of them and say whether or not they were worth doing, so you too can perhaps take a shot at hiking Half Dome, or making everyone twins. I think doing 28 things in my 28th year is a great way to celebrate everything I've done so far -- and all the things I have left to do!
Taking a page (ha! a page!) from Emily, I decided to put together a summary of what I've read in 2008. It's interesting to look back and see all that's gone into my brain this year!
60 books read
19 nonfiction
41 fiction
5 audio books
8 books through my email (www.dailylit.com)
52 different authors
24 female authors
28 male authors
13 authors I’ve read before
39 authors who are new to me
29 American authors
22 from somewhere in the UK or Ireland
1 French guy
Some genres
12 Memoir or autobiography
9 Mysteries
9 Christianity or religion
7 Classics
Most books by the same author
5 by Bill Bryson
3 by PG Wodehouse
2 by Josephine Tay
2 by Alexander McCall Smith
Top five nonfiction books
Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis
The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid by Bill Bryson
The Year of Living Biblically by A.J. Jacobs
unChristian by David Kinnaman
Born on a Blue Day by Daniel Tammet
Honorable mention: In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto by Michael Pollan
Top five fiction books
The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins
A Room with a View by E.M. Forster
The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri
Brat Farrar by Josephine Tey
The Uncommon Reader by Alan Bennett
Honorable mentions: The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini, Devil in the White City by Erik Larson, How Elizabeth Barrett Browning Saved My Life by Mameve Medwed, Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency by Douglas Adams
The Complete List with Ratings (out of 10)
1. Female Chauvinist Pigs: Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture by Ariel Levy (8)
2. Through the Children's Gate by Adam Gopnik (8)
3. The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri (10)
4. Velvet Elvis by Rob Bell (7)
5. Nature Girl by Carl Hiaasen (7)
6. The Memory Keeper's Daughter by Kim Edwards (6)
7. The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini (9)
8. Brat Farrar by Josephine Tey (10)
9. Society Girls by Sarah Mason (6)
10. The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith (6)
11. Do Butlers Burgle Banks? by P.G. Wodehouse (8)
12. Left Behind by Jerry Jenkins and Tim LaHaye (6)
13. Swapping Lives by Jane Green (6)
14. The Mother Tongue: English and How It Got That Way by Bill Bryson (8)
15. Miss Pym Disposes by Josephine Tey (9)
16. The Sunday Philosophy Club by Alexander McCall Smith (7)
17. The Case for the Real Jesus by Lee Strobel (7)
18. The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid by Bill Bryson (9)
19. A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson (9)
20. Traveling Mercies by Anne Lamott (9)
21. My Man Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse (6)
22. Mary Barton by Elizabeth Gaskell (7)
23. A Room with a View by E.M. Forster (10)
24. Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis - reread (10)
25. The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield (7)
26. Devil in the White City by Erik Larson (9)
27. I'm a Stranger Here Myself by Bill Bryson (8)
28. Born on a Blue Day by Daniel Tammet (8)
29. Bertie Wooster Sees it Through by P.G. Wodehouse (7)
30. The Monsters of Templeton by Lauren Groff (6)
31. Agnes Grey by Anne Brontë (8)
32. First Among Sequels by Jasper Fforde (6)
33. The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion (6)
34. Notes from a Small Island by Bill Bryson (7)
35. The Gathering by Anne Enright (5)
36. Twilight by Stephenie Meyer (5)
37. In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto by Michael Pollan (9)
38. Special Topics in Calamity Physics by Marisha Pessl (7)
39. How to Get a Date Worth Keeping by Dr. Henry Cloud (8)
40. Remember Me? by Sophie Kinsella (5)
41. How Elizabeth Barrett Browning Saved My Life by Mameve Medwed (8)
42. Alphabet Weekends by Elizabeth Noble (7)
43. Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain (7)
44. Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency by Douglas Adams (10)
45. The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins (10)
46. Breakfast at Tiffany's by Truman Capote (6)
47. The Uncommon Reader by Alan Bennett (10)
48. Loving Frank by Nancy Horan (9)
49. Auntie Mame by Patrick Dennis (9)
50. When You Are Engulfed in Flames by David Sedaris (6)
51. The Shack by William P. Young (6)
52. Persuading Annie by Melissa Nathan (9)
53. Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert (6)
54. The Faith Club by Ranya Idliby, Suzanne Oliver, and Priscilla Warner (6)
55. The Year of Living Biblically by A.J. Jacobs (8)
56. Full Speed by Janet Evanivich (5)
57. Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll (6)
58. unChristian by David Kinnaman (10)
59. Some Tame Gazelle by Barbara Pym (8)
60. Three Bags Full by Leonie Swann (7)
And there you have it! Again (and I'll say it again all year -- I apologize in advance!), I have created my Reading Challenge of 2009, supporting Blood:Water Mission. You can find out more information about pledging me here. Have a great new year, filled with happy books!
“The Big Read reckons that the average adult has only read 6 of the top 100 books they’ve printed.” 1) Look at the list and bold those you have read. 6) I'm going to add a step - gray out those you are unfamiliar with. 1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen Books I've read: 37 Books I'm currently reading: 2 Books I don't want to read: 5 Books I own and want to read: 15 Books I don't own and want to read: 29 Books I'm mostly or all unfamiliar with: 10
Books that belong in one of the above six catecories but I am too lazy to figure out where they go: 2 Not too shabby. I need to get reading those that I own. I have far too many unread books on my shelves!
2) Italicize those you intend to read.
3) Underline the books you LOVE.
4) Strike out the books you have no intention of ever reading, or were forced to read at school and hated.
5) Reprint this list in your own blog so we can try and track down these people who’ve read 6 and force books upon them ;-)
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 The Harry Potter Series - JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell9 His Dark Materials – Phillip Pullman10 Great Expectations – Charles Dickens (I own)
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller (I own & have started and put down)
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare (I've read most. I'm going to count it.)
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier (I own)
16 The Hobbit – J.R.R. Tolkien (I own)
17 Birdsong – Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveler's Wife
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot (I own & have started and put down)
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens (loved the miniseries!)
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited – Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky (I own) 28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck (started in HS and hated it)29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy (I own & have started and put down)
32 David Copperfield – Charles Dickens (I own)
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez (I own)
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins (currently reading!)
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies – William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez (I own)61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov (I own)
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac (I own)
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick – Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson (currently reading!)75 Ulysses - James Joyce76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell (I own. Also, I've read every other DM book. Does that count for anything?)
83 The Color Purple, Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven – Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection – Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince – Antoine de St. Exupery (I own)
93 The Wasp Factory – Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces – John Kennedy Toole (I own)
96 A Town Like Alice – Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare (Question: wouldn't this fall under his "Complete Works"? It's not like it's "The Complete Works of Shakespeare...oh, and Hamlet.")
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables – Victor Hugo
...you have all these grand plans for your day...and you do NONE of the things you had planned?
Yeah. That was my day.
Planned day:
- Go to church
- Finish up editing project
- Clean room
- Do two loads of laundry
- Work on dad's website
- Clean out my car
- Go grocery shopping
- Make pasta salad for upcoming potluck
- Start October's budget
- Went to church (okay, so I did done ONE thing on my list...)
- Watched a bunch of Friday Night Lights and Ugly Betty episodes while puttering around on Vox and Facebook, doing absolutely none of the things on the aforementioned list.
- Went to a barbecue. (I didn't know about this until it was announced in church.)
Matthew #1: I wrote a paper today!
Me: Ooh, your first college paper. About what?
Matthew #1: The Upanishads.
Matthew #2: Oh, the Upanishads. I had lunch with them last week.
Me: You had lunch with ancient Hindu religious texts?
Matthew #1 & Matthew #2: *stare of amazement*
Me: Yeah, I have no idea how I remembered that.
Didn't get much done, but impressed some kids with my awesome random knowledge. So today wasn't a total loss.
