Dreams and Plans

I always enjoy reading others' bucket lists and resolutions, so I hope that my readers will be amused by mine. They range from the trivial and short-term to the significant and time-consuming. Some are lifelong projects. I've listed them in no particular order.

In writing this list, I've found that it leaves out my most important goals: loving God wholly, loving my husband, my family, my friends, and even strangers well, and using my gifts to serve the church. In some sense, I think these priorities are so important that they're impossible to reduce to a list of goals. 

Goals for 2015:
Spiritual:
1. Truly trust the Lord with the results of grad school applications
2. Focus on the ways in which my plans for study can serve the Lord and others
3. Read through the Bible chronologically
4. Find an effective rhythm for regular devotions
5. Have at least a brief time of reading the Bible and prayer every day
6. Read Romans, 1 and 2 Corinthians analytically
7. Memorize Mark with Jeremiah

Health:
8. Exercise, do devotions, and have breakfast before turning on the computer each morning
9. Reach my target weight by the time we leave Oxford (July)
10. Run a 5k race
11. Run a 10k distance
12. Go ice skating in Oxford
13. Have a proper sit-down dinner, except for on movie nights

Intellectual:
14. Start a PhD
15. Submit my T.S. Eliot article for publication
16. Submit my C.S. Lewis article for publication
17. Read Finnegan's Wake
18. Read the rest of Shakespeare
19. Work through French for Reading
20. Work through Wheelock's Latin

Creative:
21. Creative write for at least an hour every week
22. Practice harp for an hour three times a week
23. Advertise for Harp Gigs if back in the U.S. 

Adventurous:
24. Visit Italy (Venice, Rome, Florence)
25. Visit Austria (Vienna)
26. Visit Germany (Berlin, Munich, Salzburg)
27. Visit France again (Versailles, the countryside)
28. Go walking in the Lake District
29. Move someplace exciting and new!

Bucket List:

-Live in Oxford (September 2013-June 2015)
-See snow in Oxford (3 February 2015)

-Become an early riser

-Make walks a daily habit

-Follow the news regularly

-Improve my posture

-Learn to sketch and paint

-Knit fingerless gloves for my dad

-Earn a PhD in English Literature

-Publish a book (or several)

-Write a novel

-Read Finnegan's Wake

-Own a horse

-Cook proficiently without recipes

a) Learn to make a perfect souffle

b) Perfect my grandma's Christmas cookie recipes (2014, Jeremiah claims I have)
-Read all of Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking and cook something from every (appealing--no aspic!) section

-Run a marathon

-Read all of Shakespeare's works

-Maintain a healthy diet and contented body image--and help any future children to do the same

-Teach harp lessons

-Learn Henriette Renie's "Legende"

-Learn to read Latin
-Learn to read Old English
-Learn to read Welsh

-Teach English Literature (preferably at a university)

-Homeschool any children

-Learn to speak French near-fluently
-Learn to speak German passably

-Visit Ireland
-Visit Scotland
-Visit Italy (Venice)
-Visit France (the Louvre)
-Visit Greece
-Visit Egypt
-Visit Russia
-Visit China
-Visit Peru
-Visit India
-Visit New Zealand (LOTR sites)
-Visit Japan
-Visit Israel

-Develop and express my personal style in ways that are elegant and age-appropriate
-Become familiar with classical music

-See the entire Ring Cycle live

-Own a house debt-free

-Travel on the Orient Express

-Read the entire Bible analytically

-Learn what makes a good poem

-Learn self-defense/a martial art

-Learn to fence

-Learn to shoot a bow and a gun

-Read Dante in the original Italian

-Study Asian history

-Study economics and investing

-Own my own ice skates (Christmas 2014)

-Learn to play the cello
-Make my own cheese (alternatively, just become a Redwall mouse...)
-Climb Mount Everest
-Run a 5k
-Run a 10k
-Run a half marathon
-Read a biography of every president