A Little Gift Makes a Big Difference

We have a lot of Thanksgiving decorations and this has become my favorite.  It isn't the most expensive or the most attractive but it is my favorite.  The history of this little figurine makes it important.

The Outer Banks of North Carolina has always been a special place for us.  In fact, my husband told me we were going to the Outer Banks for our honeymoon.  The wedding announcement in the newspapers said, "after a trip to the Outer Banks, the couple will reside..."  So I packed sweats and sneakers appropriate for being at the beach in early November.  Imagine my surprise when we headed north.  My husband had arranged a week in Colonial Williamsburg.  Nice surprise, but I wasn't exactly the best dressed person around.  But I digress.

For the first 10 years of our marriage, we took trips to the Outer Banks to celebrate our anniversary.  We stayed at the same motel, ate in the same restaurants, spent endless hours at the National Seashore and evenings fishing on the pier.  We didn't have much money back then, and limited vacation time but the off-season rates allowed us to continue the yearly trips.  After the children were born, we left them with their grandparents while we enjoyed our time alone at the beach.

When we began to earn more and finally had a few more nickels to rub together, we planned more elaborate vacations and family vacations with the kids.  As a result, we hadn't been to the Outer Banks for more than 25 years.  Last fall we decided to go there again.  We were appalled to find that the charming quiet areas were overrun with large colorful beach houses.  There were houses on land that we had known to be inlets in years past.  The only things that resembled our memories were the National Seashore and the lighthouses (and actually one of the lighthouses had been moved further inland).

But the beach was deserted and we knew we would have fun, even in the rain and chill.  And then it happened.  I got food poisoning!  The first time in my life.  And I was as sick as I had ever been.  No fancy restaurants...just ginger ale and crackers.  I felt terrible physically and I felt terrible emotionally that I had ruined our trip already marred by the weather and the changed atmosphere.

One afternoon while I was resting, my husband went out to look at some of the shops.  When he came back, he had a box for me.  Inside was this sweet little figurine, "The 1st Lady of Pie."  For a few minutes I actually felt better.

So that's why this is now my favorite Thanksgiving decoration.  She was the best thing about the trip.  When I look at her I forget all about the disappointment about the growth, the rain and the cold and reflect on the early years when we went to the Outer Banks.  But try as I may, even looking at the 1st Lady, I cannot forget those days of misery following the food poisoning.

Do you have a favorite Thanksgiving decoration?  One that you always put on display even if you don't bring out all the other stuff?

Maybe There's a Hole in my Bucket List

A friend of mine recently hiked to the top of a tall mountain.  One of those all-day hikes to a lodge at the top.  Dinner and breakfast at the lodge and then a box lunch for your hikes during the day or back down the mountain.  There are no roads to the lodge; only trails.  Food and all supplies are brought to the lodge by llamas.  There is no electricity in the spartan "cabins" and guests must bring their own towels and washcloths.  I'm not at all surprised that this is something my friend would do.  It's something I would like to do as well.  But I admit I was a bit surprised when she told me the hike was on her "bucket list."  My surprise was not that this hike was on the list, but that my friend had a bucket list at all.

You see...I've never had a bucket list.  It never occurred to me that I should have one, even after the successful movie was made.  As I have talked with other friends, I find that many of them do indeed have bucket lists and delightfully cross off the events one-by-one.  Now that I've become more aware of bucket lists, I find them often in sidebars of blogs.  Click on the icons and you can read their bucket lists.

Bucket is not my bucket.  It's from Wikipedia.  My mop bucket is far more attractive.

Should the lack of a bucket list concern me?  Or the fact that I have no desire to develop one?  Does this mean my life is stagnant and I have nothing more to look forward to?

As I looked more and more into the issue, I have found dozens of Websites about bucket lists.  Perhaps the most extensive one is this one.  On many of these sites, you can read the bucket lists of other people and even follow them as they cross off the items.  You can "join" some of the sites and publish your own list and chart your progress.  The sites will even help you create a bucket list.  Excuse me, but isn't there a little bit of a problem if you can't create your own list of things you want to do?

Do I have goals in life?  Yes, I do.  Are there places I want to visit?  Yes there are.  But none of them are so important that I feel compelled to do them before I die.  I can die just as easily without those experiences.  In short, is there anything I can think of that would come to my mind in my last hours on earth to which I would say, "Gee, if I'd only done (insert item from bucket list)."  I simply cannot come up with a single thing.

I should provide a disclaimer that I have never been a keeper of lists.  When I was working, my life was consumed with lists and I couldn't have survived without them.  Now that I'm retired I manage to maintain a grocery list, and I do write appointments on a calendar, but I don't have any other lists.  Not even a bird list.  But I still know if a bird is a "lifer" because I know I've never seen it before.  My husband, on the other had, keeps a regular office desk "day-at-a-glance" calendar.  He tucks notes on his dresser and reminders on his bathroom mirror.  But even he does not have a bucket list.

Perhaps it's because we are physically and financially able to do most everything we really want to do.  And we do make plans.  One of our plans is to drive the entire length of the Blue Ridge Parkway, but it's not sufficiently important for a bucket list.

I think perhaps I have taken the bucket list further than it was meant to go.  Perhaps it's more of a "want-to-do-sometime" list than "things I want to do before I kick the bucket."  So...do YOU have a bucket list?  If so, is it ranked from most to least important?  Do you share it with other people?  And most important of all...Do I need to worry because I don't have one?