My Amazing Life List

How was your first week of the New Year? I hope that you’ll be wrapping it up in a shiny bow this weekend by doing something super fun. Today, my dearest partner in crime and I will be taking our first weekend escape of The New Year to the desert, right after I meet sweet Joy for a ladies lunch (pinkies up!), which crosses off two New Year’s resolutions of mine (1. Get out more during the week and 2. Take at least one weekend getaway every month).

Last year flew by so quickly. I can’t believe that it was a year ago this month that we first discovered the desert and fell head over heels in love with her. Little did I know then that our four-day trip would turn into six months of living in Palm Springs, an exciting new career for my beloved, and then a more permanent move to LA. I love life’s surprises, its twists and turns, and can’t wait to see what 2011 brings.

Have you made any resolutions? Have anything new to add to your Bucket List (we just watched that movie by the way and it was surprisingly good!). And how about we officially rename it the Amazing Life List instead (Bucket List just doesn’t float my Bottgega Venetta)?

Read on to see My Amazing Life List and How to Create a Bucket List of your own!

 

In case you’re unfamiliar with the concept, your Bucket List Amazing Life List is a list of all the things you hope to do in life to have made it a life you’ll be happy and fulfilled to look back on when you’re old and grey (not that anyone gets old and great anymore, at least not in LA! But you get the idea…).  And I think it really underscores the idea that instead of working so hard to find ourselves, that we should instead work more on creating ourselves, our dream selves, our dream lives. Life’s short. We might as well all get on with the business of being ourselves. You know, the self you always envision, but sometimes don’t share with others because you’re too scared.

 

 

I’m a list maker, so I hope you don’t mind indulging me as I share my list. It’s a long one, full of things I hope to accomplish in a lifetime, New Year’s resolutions, the silly and the serious, and with some things I’ve very gratefully already crossed off. I hope you’ll share your list too (I find it to be really inspiring to hear your thoughts!) and don’t hold back – from the big things to the smallest, from the general to the specific, I want to hear it all. My list has certainly been inspired by many, many, many others. That’s what’s great about lists like these. They can be contagious and really help inspire new goals and aspirations, things you may have never thought of but suddenly can’t not do. Okay. Deep breath. Here goes…

 

My Amazing Life List

Spend a summer in a villa in the Italian or French countryside writing, reading, biking to markets

Stomp grapes

Learn a little Italian

Wear more color

Be on TV

Meet one of my mentors

Be on TV more (it’s really fun!)

Be on Regis and Kelly (you love them and your name is Kelly Lee!)

Go on a hot air balloon ride

Ride an elephant

Cruise around somewhere warm in a vintage white convertible

Drive around the Australian outback in a Jeep

Skip along the Great Wall of China

Join a bookclub

Help make someone else’s dream come true

Live in New York

Live in LA

Stay at Giraffe Manor

Attend Wimbledon

Live abroad for a year

Start my own company

Say YES

Think less, do more

Surprise someone you love in a really great way

Surprise yourself

Wear more lipstick

Bake a giant cake

Go to a drive-in movie

Change someone’s life for the better

Take an art class

Get out more during the week

Try at least one new thing every month

Take a class at Slimmons!

Throw a big birthday party for K (my hubby)

Go on at least one weekend getaway a month

Try one new restaurant per week (alternate who chooses)

Order something that scares you more often

Explore one new neighborhood each month

Have a jillion balloons at a party — or one giant one

Tandem bike more often

Drive more (and get better at parking while you’re at it)

Be yourself more often

Have a big anniversary party (before your 50th!)

Have a yard with citrus trees

Have an artsy loft in New York (again)

Throw a Gatsby party

Learn to make donuts

Adopt something (wounded animal, child, affected British accent)

Take a family trip to Ireland

Become a writer

Write for a magazine

Write for a newspaper

Have your own column

Write (and publish) a book

Write a movie or write for a TV show

Win a writing award

Be published in the New York Times

Be published in New York magazine

Learn to bake pain au chocolat

Apply for a fun, wackadoodle job just because

Become an expert at something

Take my niece Kaylee to Paris

Build/design a modern house

Go to the opera

See a performance at Lincoln Center

See a performance at Carnegie Hall

Visit all 50 states

Take a cooking class

Have your own studio space/creative space at home

Have your own gym at home complete with ballet bar and mirrors

Watch all of Billy Wilder’s movies

Watch all of William Wyler’s movies

Watch all of Audrey Hepburn’s movies

Help orphaned children

See AFI’s 100 Years of 100 Laughs movies

Take my niece to DisneyLand and Knott’s Berry Farm

Go berry picking

Go to Martha’s Vineyard

Hike a volcano and see lava

Take a helicopter ride

Paraglide

Visit Berlin

Explore Prague

Go to Santorini

Ride a camel and see the Pyramids in Egypt

Plant a vegetable garden

Plant an herb garden

Learn a little French

Hot air balloon ride in Cappadocia

Ride this roller coaster in Japan

Go on an African safari with my sister

See what South America is all about

Visit Cuba

Be in a parade

Buy only vintage clothing for one year

Roll down a perfect green alpine hill

Have two summers in one year

Give up TV for one month

Read more books (that aren’t chick lit)

Master the art of workout-style (i.e. not looking like a homeless person)

Visit Mt. Rushmore

Collaborate with someone you admire on a creative endeavor

Go snowmobiling (on our own)

Go dogsledding

Take a reindeer-pulled carriage ride

Live in a foreign country

Ride a Vespa

Go rollerskating at a roller rink

Plant my own tree and watch it grow

Visit Mexico’s Crystal Caves

Visit Iceland in the summer

Own a vintage typewriter and write (and actually mail) letters to loved ones

Watch more French films

Learn ballroom dancing with Hubby

Go to the airport and pick some place off the board to fly to

Submerge myself in hot springs (see Iceland above!)

Spend April in Paris

See the cherry blossoms in Japan

Marry your best friend

Get marries outdoors

Fly first class

Invent an ice cream flavor

Live in a modern house

Take a picture every day at the same time and make a book of it

Plan a monthly art/culture date

Sew a dress

Visit Sicily

Read the Bible (at least the Cliff’s Notes!)

Cause a scene with Improv Everywhere

Have an art gallery opening

Start a picnic club

Live in the desert

Have a pool of our own

Roadtrip across the U.S.

Get involved with a charity that means something to me

Spend at least a month in Marfa

Take a year off and travel

Have a weekend house

Get in amazeballs shape (so strong that you can even lift your suitcase into the overhead solo)

Make enough money to have a family and friends compound

Become a brand

Surround yourself with creative and passionate people

Visit India

Slide down San Francisco’s cement slides

Find the best Chinatown dive bar in every city I visit

See sunrise in the desert

Spend Christmas in New York

I’ll be updating as time goes on — I hope you’ll come along for the ride!