Well… knowing now that COVID was going to lock down life for a while, I would have made more of an effort to cross some of these things off my Yearly Bucket List during the first 6 months, but I was still able to get a lot done! Regardless of how the global pandemic affected our activities, I was still able to use this list as a guide/reminder to make the effort to fill up my life with things that make my heart happy!

So here’s what I had on the list, which ones got done, and some quick iPhone snaps to document these bucket-filling moments:

• Go ice skating with the girls  – DONE – We did this on December 23 with friends of ours, and it was so much fun!!

• Paint on the beach or at a park – DONE – Painted a beach scene with the sound of the waves as my soundtrack while we were in Galveston on May 19 (my mom ended up framing this one and hanging it in her home!).

• Host a couple’s game night
• Beach time – DONE – May not have gotten to spend much time on the beaches in Southern California this year, but we spent lots of time in Galveston – Dec. 28-3, May 18-21, and July 27-30, and I snuck in a few moments at the top of the beach in San Clemente on Dec. 9 before flying back home after my cousin’s wedding! 

• Read 30 books – DONE – And then some!! I thought I would end up reading/listening to a lot fewer books this year as I no longer have a long commute for my part time job, but I ended up finishing more books than last year! Here’s what I read: As You Wish, In Conclusion Don’t Worry About It, Smarter Faster Better, The Dinner List, Sisters First, The Wedding Dress, Orphan #8, Map of the Heart, The Care and Management of Lies, The Curious Charms of Arthur Pepper, The Stars are Fire, Lilac Girls, The Mountain Between Us, Carnegie’s Maid, Hillbilly Elegy, I Was Anastasia, Where the Crawdads Sing, The Aviator’s Wife, Bossypants, How to Stop Time, The Dressmaker, The Japanese Lover, The Associate, Educated, The House Girl, Beyond the Bright Sea, A Duty to the Dead, When Less Becomes More, The Bookshop, The Boy on the Wooden Box, Uncommon Type, An Impartial Witness, When the Men Were Gone, A Bitter Truth, The Lost Girls of Paris, Suite Francaise, The American Agent, An Unmarked Grave, The Alice Network, The King’s Justice, Grace Not Perfection, A Question of Honor, The Glass Ocean, An Unwilling Accomplice, Ellie & the Harpmaker, Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff – and It’s All Small Stuff, A Pattern of Lies, The Shattered Tree, A Casualty of War, When They Call You a Terrorist, Something Other Than God, Find Your Why, Hotel on the Corner of Bitter & Sweet, We Were the Lucky Ones, Digital Minimalism, Under Our Skin, A Forgotten Place, The Bookwoman of Troublesome Creek, Motherhood So White, The Tattooist of Auschwitz, Uninvited, Before We Were Yours, Deep Work
• Host branding mini sessions – This was a project I hoped to do this spring… but COVID.
• One social media free weekend each month – Almost Done – I forgot to do a weekend in April, but other than that, I did it!
• Start a new family tradition – DONE – Mimosas on the first day of College Gameday/College Football, and drinking hot chocolate as we drive around our neighborhood to see Christmas Lights on Dec. 23

• 3 no-spend months – Almost Done – I completed no spend months in September & January, and planned for one in June, but we
• Paint a piece to display/hang in our home – DONE – I painted a ton of things (both watercolor and acrylic) this year, but only a few are out on display. One is a wooden frame I painted with the girls (and has a photo of Peanut and I from our beach portrait session!), a simple beach scene that’s now on a shelf in our master bedroom, and another is some abstract peonies that I now have up in my office. I also watercolored & lettered this phrase I say to the girls all the time (“I love you deeper than than the ocean and wider than the sky”), and it is framed and hanging upstairs in the hallway by their rooms.
• Reach out to 4 other creatives to get lunch/coffee
• Travel somewhere new
• Mommy/daughter date with each of the girls – DONE – Donut date with Peanut on Nov. 14, and lunch date with Pumpkin on Mar. 2.

• Go to an art gallery or museum – DONE – Did this one virtually during quarantine! I took an online tour of the Vermeer Exhibit at the National Gallery of Art in D.C. & did virtual detail tours of Girl with a Pearl Earring & Monet’s The Water Lily Pond.
• Slip N Slide with the girls – DONE – We splashed and slid and laughed a TON in the backyard on June 4!

• Backyard camping with the girls – DONE – This was SO. MUCH. FUN! It also was a silver lining to doing distance learning in the spring, because we camped in the backyard on a school night in April to take advantage of some beautiful weather, and we never would have done that if the girls needed to get up and go to school the next day! Big thanks to Pops for loaning us the tent!

• Organize the girls’ schoolwork/artwork – I still haven’t even gotten close to starting this one!

 

To see how previous years’ bucket lists wrapped up, just click below:

• Year 1 recap
• Year 2 recap
• Year 3 recap (Never did a final recap, so this is a progress update, but I wrapped up the year with only 8 of 14 things crossed off the list.)
• Year 4 recap
• Year 5 recap