When I was 15 I wrote a small list of things to do before I die. When I was 23 I found it and added to it. Two years ago I got my first (and current) laptop and typed the list into it, saved it, and forgot about it until a few weeks ago. That makes this list is about 12 years in the making and officially the longest running creative project I have ever endeavored.

I’ve been changing it these few weeks and still might in the future, but for now, this is it. Some of the things were outdated, so they got cut: I don’t need to be on Oprah anymore, and even though it would feel awesome, I don’t need to climb Mt. Everest, either. After adding and subtracting, I scrambled everything so they wouldn’t be all childish dreams on top and serious, grown-up lady dreams on the bottom. (Hehehe!)

Surprisingly, a lot of them revolve around travel and athletic endeavors, two things that I don’t normally associate with myself.

Have you done one? Has it inspired you? Think you’ll finish it before you kick it? What’s on yours?

Save a life.
Buy my grandparent’s house.
Hike through a rain forest.
Learn to take great photos.
Write a book and have it published.
Learn to throw pottery.
Visit Ireland and drink a pint in a pub while singing an Irish bar song.
Get good and kissed on top of the Empire State Building.
Walk across the Golden Gate Bridge.
Do really expensive tequila shots on a beach in Mexico at sunset.
Visit Argentina and eat dulce de leche.
Visit Australia to see the bush and the great barrier reef, pet a koala.
Make a blueberry pie from blueberries I picked.
Go “real camping”, with no showers, and bathe in a river.
Learn to drive stick.
Own an old Volkswagen bug. (close enough!)
Make a bed-size quilt out of re-purposed fabric.
Run a marathon.
Float on a row boat in the middle of a lake and star-gaze.
Road trip from New York City to San Diego.
Spend Christmas on the beach in a bikini.
Ride in a hot air balloon.
Fall madly, hopelessly in love.
Witness the Northern Lights.
Catch fireflies in a jar on a summer night.
Play in the ocean until I am completely exhausted.
Adopt a dog from a shelter.
Visit a redwood forest and hug a sequoia.
Yell a secret into Niagara Falls.
Get a tattoo.
Learn to play a song on guitar.
Sponsor a child in a third world country.
Visit Nelson, British Columbia.
See the bioluminescent waters in Puerto Rico.
Backpack through Europe.
Visit Canada.
Gallop a horse.
Have a vegetable garden.
Speak fluent Spanish.
Swim with dolphins.
Have a picture of me taken while standing underneath the Eiffel Tower.
Live in New York City.
Be a really snappy dresser.
Snuggle a manatee.
Go whale watching.
Have my own weekly or daily radio show. (I’ll cross this off if my podcast is even a tiny bit successful.)
Help build a house in a third world country.
Fly a plane.
Learn to make a really great cake from scratch (with homemade frosting).
Hike in Hawaii and jump of a cliff while yelling “Geronimo!”
Eat a bowl of fish stew in an outdoor restaurant on a cliff overlooking the Mediterranean.
Smoke a joint in an Amsterdam coffee house.
Drive through the Tuscan countryside in a tiny two-seater car.
Own a 100% sustainable, zero-impact beach house, with room for a dozen friends.
Be independently wealthy.
Ice skate on a frozen-over lake.
Dance in Brazil.
Shake Barack Obama’s hand.
Crochet an Afghan.
Do something I absolutely LOVE for a living.