ONE HUNDRED GOALS
I love to plan, perhaps too well! I am always writing lists, of things I have to do and things I want to do—things to buy and things to write and things to read and things to research. I have my daily checklist, my planner is filled months in advance, and I start writing next year’s resolutions in October.
So writing a list of ‘One Hundred Goals’ was an enticing idea, and a challenge to exit the regular round of goals—for a day, a month, a year—and think about the things I want to accomplish in the farther future, once in my lifetime or over my lifetime.
Lest you be deceived into ideas of grandiose plans, many of the items on my list still managed to be quite trivial in the grand scheme of things. There is, however, a heaping share of ambition as well!
1.Introduce someone to the gospel.
2.Send flowers to someone anonymously.
3.Plant a sunflower fort.
4.Plant a tropical herb garden.
5.Start an earthworm composter.
6.Plan, install and use a water recycling system for my home.
7.Eat a chicken I’ve raised.
8.Raise chickens without commercial feed.
9.Milk a goat or cow.
10.Make raw yoghurt.
11.Make raw cheese.
12.Bake sourdough bread.
13.Grow and dry herbs for a tisane blend.
14.Make perfume with fresh roses.
15.Crochet lace edging for bed linens.
16.Dye yarn with native plants.
17.Crochet a lace tablecloth.
18.Make wood-cut art to frame in my house.
19.Sew a king-size quilt.
20.Own a claw-foot bathtub.
21.Own a Tiffany lamp.
22.Save for and purchase brass candlesticks.
23.Save for and purchase Morris-style wooden filing cabinet.
24.Own a William Morris textile or wallpaper.
25.Create plans for an eco-friendly house {in the style of the Spanish Revival, perhaps}.
26.Gain certification as a professional herbalist. {Working on it...}
27.Gain certification as a family or woman’s health educator.
28.Open an apothecary service. {Apotheca Florida coming soon...}
29.Have 5 regular clients for my herbal practice.
30.Create 10 herbal and nutrition workshops {DVD/CD, notes, herb supplies}.
31.Teach 50 herbal and nutrition workshops. {Just 46 to go!}
32.Attend an herbalist conference.
33.Create 25 videos for a health Vimeo channel.
34.Create 25 videos for an education Vimeo channel.
35.Attend the Ambleside workshop in Virginia.
36.Help with a home-birth.
37.Get married.
38.Have children.
39.Homeschool my children {or start a private CM school/ RIE daycare}.
40.Host and lead a homeschool study group in my home. {Educating Mothers had its first meeting in August 2014.}
41.Host and lead a separate book discussion group in my home.
42.Teach in a homeschool co-op. (Started teaching ‘Introductory Latin’ in Fall 2015.}
43.Teach a folk-dance class. {K.I.C. had its first folk-dance class in Fall 2014.}
44.Teach at a homeschool conference.
45.Bike in St. Augustine, Florida.
46.Attend a Jordi Savall concert. {I have had the great fortune now of attending two.}
47.Attend a Barbara Furtuna concert.
48.Attend a live performance of the complete Handel’s Messiah. {I attended a Seraphic Fire performance in December 2014.}
49.Attend a live performance of the complete Haydn’s Creation.
50.Hike all the Everglades trails.
51.See a ghost orchid in bloom in the wild.
52.Make a nature collection in a printer’s box.
53.Plant an ylang ylang tree.
54.Plant an elder tree.
55.Grow lavender.
56.Fill a personal journal. {Almost there!}
57.Fill a nature journal.
58.Fill a poetry journal. {Working on it...}
59.See an original Vermeer painting.
60.Buy perfume at Les Senteurs in London.
61.Visit William Morris’s Red House.
62.Visit William Morris’s Kelmscott Manor.
63.Travel the Lake District in England.
64.Visit Claude Monet’s house and garden.
65.Travel in Spain.
66.Travel in Italy.
67.Brew beer.
68.Taste brandy, rum, gin, whiskey and scotch.
69.Learn to play Dutch Blitz.
70.Learn to play whist.
71.Learn to play chess.
72.Take shooting lessons.
73.Learn to dance the jitterbug. {I’ve reached the intermediate stage.}
74.Take dance lessons. (Took Latin dance classes in 2015.}
75.Host a costume dance. {It’s become a community tradition.}
76.Host a New Year’s Strauss ball.
77.Take voice lessons.
78.Play recorder at the nursing home.
79.Fluently play all the music in Bancalari’s Medieval and Renaissance Music for Recorder. {I’m more than half way there...}
80.Play ‘Recercada segunda’ on my recorder.
81.Purchase and learn to play alto recorder.
82.Play regularly with an amateur music group.
83.Be a supernumerary in an opera performance.
84.See a Shakespeare play at Blackfriars in Virginia.
85.Perform in a full-length Shakespeare play.
86.Memorize a book of the Bible.
87.Memorize 100 passages of Scripture and poetry. {Working on it...}
88.Read Platero y yo in the original language.
89.Read translations of Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, and Virgil’s Aeneid.
90.Complete a course of Latin.
91.Read Caesar’s History in original Latin.
92.Write a letter to a living author or musician. {I sent a message to the Sixth Floor Trio after attending the amazing 2014 Garden Music Festival.}
93.Create and disseminate a K-12 curriculum.
94.Write lyrics and compose music for a lullaby.
95.Write a romantic sonnet.
96.Write a play about Jane Gray—Quene Jane.
97.Publish a book related to health.
98.Publish a book related to education.
99.Publish a book of collected essays.
100.Publish a short novel, or collection of stories and poems.
November 22, 2013