My List of Buckets (My Bucket of Lists)

Oops! I got that backwards. It should say, My Bucket List. I was reading license plates while stuck in traffic a couple of weeks ago and the car’s plate in front of me had the letters, VOP and I pointed it out to my son and told him that my POV is backwards.

   Anyway, we watched the movie, “The Bucket List”, starring Morgan Freeman and Jack Nicholson, three weeks ago. My oldest son had never seen it. Good movie. Hey, did you know that the race scene was filmed right here in my hometown at the Auto Club Speedway? Cool, huh? However, the movie got me to thinking about my own bucket list.

   You see, I haven’t felt good lately and yet, I feel fine. I have this cough, and it’s been going on for two years now and yet, I’ve had it for a lifetime. As a baby I would get all congested and cough. My parents would take me into the bathroom; turn on the hot water in the shower, close the door, and get the bathroom all steamed up so that I could breathe. (Didn’t they have humidifiers back then? Gee, I did not think I was that old. Ha-ha.) When I was in elementary school, I would cough all night long, every night for a month and the next month I would run high fevers at night. High enough so that a few times my parents took me to the hospital where they would pack me in ice to get my fever down. Then the coughing would start up again the following month and it only happened certain months out of the year. The family doctor couldn’t find anything physically wrong with me so he suggested that my mom keep me indoors after 3 p.m. He thought it might have had something to do with a change in the air pressure. My cousin hated this idea because we didn’t get out of school until 3 p.m. and we couldn’t play outside. In fact, I talked to my cousin a few months back and she reminded me of those dark days blaming it on my asthma, but I didn’t have asthma then and I don’t have asthma now. I’m not short of breath. I do not wheeze. There is no tightness in my chest. I have no symptoms of asthma. Even as an adult, if I go to an evening baseball game in the park, or an outdoor concert at night, I will cough all night. Now, I’ve developed a new symptom. After a coughing fit, I go into a sneezing frenzy.

   So what has caused this latest coughing spell? Well, as a child, we only used evaporative (swamp) coolers and to this day, that is what I still use to cool my house.

   On the other hand, maybe it is long-term covid. Did I have it, you ask. I got sick December 30, 2019 and testing had not been started yet, so who knows. Maybe I was one of the very first cases. I don’t get sick very often. Prior to that, I have not been sick since December 2007. That’s twelve years between cold viruses. Pretty good, huh?

   In October 2020, I went and got a tetanus vaccine and the woman asked me if I had, had my pertussis vaccine. I told her no but I should have told her I did not want one either, but I was in shock at the time. (A different blog post to come.) For those that don’t know what pertussis is, it is whooping cough. And I have been coughing ever since.

    Last, but not least, I could just blame it on the weather. Global warming/Climate Change, but that is also another post soon to come.

    However, this is supposed to be a post about Bucket Lists, so let us get started. When it comes to my bucket list, it is quite boring. Well, not for me but others might think it is. You see I have no urge to travel the world. If I did travel, there are only two places I would like to see, Times Square on New Year’s Eve and Mount Rushmore on a clear fall day. I do not want to go skydiving, or climb the highest mountains. I don’t want to be rich and famous and live behind gated walls with bodyguards following me everywhere. However, I do want to live comfortably and be known and loved for who I am.

   I make lists all the time. To-do lists. Grocery lists. Things we need lists. Goal’s lists. We will categorize those as my, ‘Bucket of lists.’

Now on to my Bucket List

Blog Posts

• My List of Buckets  (Yay! Done.)
• Climate Change/Global Warming
• To Vaccinate or Not
• Hate
• Bullies
• Rocky and Athena (A short story)
• The Invisible Demon (A short story)
• Who am I/Who I am

Series Books

   Chris’ Journey Turning Different Corners

• Book 1 Her Journey Begins  (Already published)
• Book 2 A Corner For Life
• Book 3 Moving On, Coming Back
• Book 4 The Final Corner (Title subject to change)

The Reincarnations of A.M.B.E.R.

• Book 1 Alexiah
• Book 2 Matty
• Book 3 Bibliana
• Book 4 Eliorah
• Book 5 Rachel

Short Story Collections

   “Wisps of Words” (almost ready to publish) and “Prompted by a Photo”

Non-Fiction

   ‘Dad Called Today’

Children’s books

• Kiley Paints Her World
• Kiley Visits the Farm
• Not a Cloud in the Sky
• The Monster in Tommy Tree
• Kiley’s New Neighbor
• Kiley and Friends Stand Together
• Kiley’s Adventure on the Deep Blue Sea
• Kiley’s Color and Learn About Animals
• Kiley says, “Let’s Write About You”

   As you can see my bucket list mainly consists of my writing. It does not matter if I become a famous author or not I just don’t want to take all these stories to the grave with me. They are meant to be shared. And the way I have been procrastinating, I had better live a LONG time. Ha-ha.

There are two more things to add to my list. As a child, I took piano lessons for three years and the only thing I can remember how to play was a simple song my step-dad taught me called, Robin in a cherry tree.

So what I would like to do is relearn how to play the piano just enough to be able to play, “California Dreamin’ by the Mamas and Papas” and “Another Day in Paradise” by Phil Collins.

Well, that’s my Bucket List. What’s on yours?

  Hugs till next time.

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• Tagged: books, bucket list, karens different corners, writing