A Bucket List or a Bucketed List?

Being a copy-cat, as we used to say when I was a child, I found a great post by Leah over at Random Notes [hey, with a name like that it HAS to be good, right?] and I want to jump on board.  Instead of creating a Bucket List, Leah decided to make a list of all the great things she'd already been able to do. She called this her "Already Bucketed List" 

I like this so much better than the Bucket List and here’s why. Some of the things that ended up on my "Bucketed" list would never have been on any list of things I hoped to do some day. For instance, I didn’t even know that my great-great-grandfather was buried in that Toronto cemetery until I went there for a different reason. Also, I’m not a whiskey drinker, but being able to taste the peat-y flavor imparted to the whiskey by the brewing techniques particular to a specific area was a not-to-be-missed experience when one is actually standing in a distillery on the Isle of Skye.

So thanks Leah!! –I have really enjoyed this chance to be reminded of all the wonderful, amazing things I’ve experienced in my first 50(ish) years. It makes me look forward to the next 50 with a renewed sense of excitement and wonder about what is yet to come…things that I don’t even know that I want to do but will love when they happen!!

Diana’s Already Bucketed List

1. Watched a “thundering herd” of buffalo as they ran madly across a meadow.


















2. Walked down the same dirt path from the small village of Blebo Craig (in Fife, Scotland) to the parish church of Kemback that my great-great-grandfather, James Ritchie would have walked with his siblings and parents in the mid-1800’s.

3. Tasted the smokey, peat-y whiskey distilled on the Isle of Skye - while ON the Isle of Skye.


4. Walked the very streets of Bath where Jane Austen set some memorable scenes in her novels Nothanger Abbey and Persuasion.

5. Drank water straight from a rushing mountain stream in Colorado. It was so cold it seemed like it must have been snow only moments ago. (And I lived to tell about it – ah the innocence of the times before everything we put into our mouths was going to kill us)

6. And speaking of Jane Austen, walked out on the Cobb in Lyme Regis.

7. Stood by my great-great-grandparents grave in Inverurie, Scotland. [well OK, that's my Dad, not me - but I was there too!]

8. Watched a Shakespearean play performed in Stratford-upon-Avon.

9. Stood at the continental divide and watch the water running both ways – twice! Once in Colorado as a child, once in Wyoming as an adult.

10. Stood in the ruts made by the wagons heading west on the Oregon Trail.

11. Happened to be right there when the Giant Geyser erupted in Yellowstone on Sept, 2005 . This geyser is know for its "spectacular, but sporadic eruptions."


12. Eaten strawberries just picked and popped straight into my mouth still warm from the sun. (Again, I haven’t died – but of course pesticides had never been near any of these berries.)

13. Watched a grizzly bear feeding – from a safe distance across a river, but none the less thrilling.

14. Sat in silence and listened to the erie sounds a glacier makes and then got to see it calve!

15. Slept in an actual castle. (It was haunted too, although the ghost didn’t see fit to visit me.)

 16. Been salmon fishing in Alaska – rowed out in the silence and mist of the early morning.





17. Been to a baseball playoff game in St. Louis – which was played on grass and during the daytime…as baseball was MEANT to be played.

18. Found the grave of my great-great-grandfather, James Ritchie, in Toronto, Ontario.

19. Watched John Denver live in concert.(I was a child of the 70’s…what can I say!)
 
20. Seen the names of pioneers etched in stone at Register Cliff.

21. Enjoyed tea with scones and clotted cream and jam in England.

22. Visited Hill Top Farm – home of Peter Rabbit, and just incidentally home of Beatrix Potter as well. 

This list could have been 3 times as long and actually was, but I picked out just 22 for this post.  Wow - that's really all I can say!