Wondering what Mommy Homework is??? Each week you will have an “assignment” here to share in our comments here on this site. You will love this-both sharing AND enjoying answers by others. Some of them, I compile into an ebook (contributors can resell as a product of their own–be sure to submit your email and full name when you register so I can credit you appropriately!).
The result is AWESOME!
We get to know each other…we are encouraged in our journey…and we glean super ideas from other great moms!
Ready for this week’s MH? This is a good one!
Our topic this week is “What’s On Your Bucket List???”
Your Assignment This Week…
Watched “The Bucket List” yet? It is one of my all-time favorite movies. My sweet hubby helped me hunt down a DVD copy for Christmas. I still cry like a baby the whole way through it! 🙂
In case you missed it, the two lead characters are “terminal” (like we all really are! :D). They make up a list of things that they want to do before they “kick the bucket.”
Last year was a year of big changes for me. I really thought about where I had been, where I was, and where I wanted to go. I thought through the things that really meant the most to me and how to do MORE of them. God really challenged me to live my life even more focused, with even more purpose. To “live like I was dying.” (Love that song by Tim McGraw) I actually pulled back and made “my” bucket list. Of course, it did not include some of the things that you might think. 🙂
This week, take some time to pull back and think over what you want with your life. What do you want to do? Where would you like to go? What would you want to do if this were your last year–last few months? What do you want to leave your family with? What do you want to instill in your children? What do you want to experience? What do you want to see? What would be on your “Bucket List?”
Slow down. Think it out. Let’s get real here. Let’s share YOUR “Bucket List” this week. What are your top 10 things to do or see before you die….
AND…this week, let’s LIVE LIKE WE ARE DYING! 🙂
Have fun! This should be a super assignment to read. I can’t wait! 
DIG IN!
I can’t wait!
Love ya!
Cindy
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Deadline–Friday at midnight CST.
I want to take all of my children on a short term mission trip individually. I have taken my first child and will be taking my second child this year – only 4 more to go 🙂 If this was my last year to live I would want to go as a family.
I would like to go to Europe with my husband.
I would want to spend fun times with my kids so they’ll have memories – Disneyworld, traveling to the beach, camping in the mountains – all the stuff that you would probably do for vacations throughout your life but in that year.
I was just talking about this yesterday with my husband! Too funny.
My top ten:
1)Go on a short-term foreign missions trip. I’ve never been, but have longed to go.
2)Take the kids across the country on a road trip.
3)Grow a successful garden big enough to feed us through the year and put up the produce from it.
4)Read the Bible through. Yeah, I know, I should’ve done this already, but I haven’t.
5)Make a king-size quilt for my bed.
6)Become a published author. To do this, I need to:
7)Write a book.
8)Act in a play, with actual lines, on stage.
9)Help someone else give birth.
10)Preach a sermon.
10 Goals I’d like to do before I die.
(1) Go to Holland
(2) Go with my son to meet Tim Tebow
(3) Write a book about my life
(The ups & downs and in’s & out’s concluding with glory to God)
(4) Go visit my ancestors homeplace in Italy.
(5) Go to Ireland
(6) Go spend a weekend on Grandfather Mountain in N.C.
(7) Go learn about my Italian background in Chicago-where my Italian Great Grandfather lived and became a boxer to help protect the Italians from Al Capone.
(8) Go visit the old home places I lived growing up. Take my family inside the houses and tell them stories of things I remember happening there.
(9) Own my own home and no longer rent.
(10) Laugh more & more with my family every year.
Some of these are probably out of the question.
But, these are things I’ve been pondering over the years.
Michelle Fitzgerald
My sister-in-law had a teacher in 7th grade who had her students comprise a list of 100 things they wanted to do before they died. She still has her list (at age 44) and has accomplished a great many of those things. It is so fun to watch her excitement when she completes another of her list items. I don’t have a list, but I do want to leave a legacy for my family. I want them to know God and live for Him daily. I want to be a Godly wife and love my husband more and more each day. I want to influence others around me for Christ. I want to share the things God has taught me over the years with others. I want to learn to play the violin – and have already started lessons! I want to expand my ministry to helping moms of all ages, especially homeschooling moms, to reach their full potential in Christ.
WOW! Okay, I’ve done some thinking about this and here is what I’ve come up with. Now I am assuming that unlimited funds are available to me to be able to do this, as well as my husband being completely healed from his amputation, cause right now we are too broke to buy a Coke at the corner gas station and totally homebound after my hubby’s surgery!
So, I am not listing 1-10 b/c these intertwine to much. And I have to say, I really don’t feel like there are all these things I’ve been putting off or have not gotten to do. The most wonderful thing about this was the realization of how content I feel; despite a really hard several years, major health issues for my hubby and me, I feel like I have been so totally blessed and had such amazing opportunities in my life and I have such wnderful family and friends that it took my awhile to come up with stuff b/c my biggest thing was I that all I want is to be with my family and close friends! I just want us to be together to enjoy life and enjoy Jesus!
First and foremost I’d want to be with my immediate family. My hubby and kids.
For the first month or so I would want to travel Europe. I’d want to take my family to Albania, where I lived as a missionary. I’d want them to see the country and people I fell in love with. From there I’d want to go to all the countries of our heritage. First Slovakia b/c I still have family there. Then Germany, Italy (mostly southern but we must visit Venezia!), Scotland, Wales and lastly Ireland where we’d visit some missionary friends. And I’m mostly not talking the big city tourist stuff. I’m talking the small villages our families originated from.
Then we would come home to the US for the last couple months. We would be in a house on the beach, seemingly somewhat secluded but in reality not really that secluded. There would be lots of people nearby so we could go out on the beach and do some beach evangelism, and maybe start our own little felowship of new believers?!
The house would also border some sort of wild type land, a forest, something good for exploring. There would be no media other than select music. No TV, internet, phones . . . but there would be a massive built in library with all the best books we could pour over.
This wonderful beach house would have my piano and guitar and flute, and lots of music, hymnals, praise music . . . It would also have lots of craft and creative type supplies, as well as building type supplies so all of us could do lots of fun bonding stuff with our hands. And a pastry chef sould come to this house with it’s glorious kitchen and give me private lessons and we’d all get to indulge in the yummy creations! Oh and by the way the house would have a housekeeper, the “Alice” type (you know Brady bunch?!) who is sorta part of the family so all I have to worry about is enjoying family time (no dishes, laundry or cleaning, cooking but someone else to clean it up!!!)!
While at this house we would have a revolving door of visiters, with also some down time with just us in between. Our family: My parents, I am an only child but I have four friends who are like sisters, so them and their families and then my husbands side of the family, his parents, sisters and their familes. And also our next door neighbors (homeschooling dream neighbors the Lord plopped down right next to us, praying specifically really works!!) All these people provide wonderful fellowship for us as adults as well as lots of kids for our kids to have fun with as we all romp the beach, explore the wild lands and soak in the large jacuzzi tub on the deck.
OH-And at some point we would take a little jaunt over to Kentucky to go to the Creation Museum. I know we would all love it!
You know this is my ultimate dream time. But I would honestly be just as content to stay here at my house, fellowship with the believers and family God has blessed our lives with right here and have everyone (friends and family) come here to bond here in our tiny house. Small in size but big in heart! (But if Alice could please join us that would be very nice! Can you tell how much I like cleaning!)
I just want to be with the people I love the most, family friends and Jesus!
As wonderul as doing all those other things would be, or being in those places, it pales in comparison to the people I love!
Now will someone else jump in and answer this?
Blessing to all!
Sherri Atwell
Two years ago when I had a spell with my heart I began examining what I
wanted to complete in life. Here are some of the things I came up with:
1. My girls are currently 11 and 14 and I began preparing them as much as age
allowed to make it without me…able to do household chores, teaching them
to use recipes and cook, teaching different crafts they wanted to learn, teach them
that people are more important than things and other values we have, etc.
2. Making sweet memories with my darling husband and making sure he knew
how much he was loved by me!
3. Making sweet memories with my precious children and making sure they know how very special they are to me.
4. I would like to go to Mexico where my son does mission work and meet the
believers he talks about, and see his work for the kingdom of God.
5. I have put more effort in getting to know Jesus better before I go to be with Him.
6. I have been working on the family tree and gathering family stories for my
children to have.
7. One thing I would like to see happen is a reconciliation with my oldest son
who decided he didn’t need his family when he started a relationship with the
girl who became his wife. He only needs her, her family, and his new church.
That has broken our entire family’s hearts. We had a wonderful relationship
with him before she entered the picture…he now says it was all put-on on his
part…
8. It would be nice to have a housekeeper so I would have more time and
energy to do all the above!!!
9. Oh yes, I organized my pictures and labeled the ones my children wouldn’t
know what relative it was.
I have had a wonderful life being wife to Fred for 27 years and homeschool
mother to our precious children for about 20 years. We have gone through
hard financial times and done without to allow my dh to be in the ministry
and me stay home and homeschool. I have also had a lot of health issues to deal with that slows me down from doing all I want to do. But we have also had great blessings that God has given us, for which we are thankful.
Our little place of 5 acres and our 24 yr. old mobile home that my husband has
remodeled beautifully is paid for. We have 2 creeks on our property and lots
of woods that our children enjoyed the last 10 yrs. And we have been blessed
to travel over a large part of our beautiful country enjoying God’s creation, and
see a lot of places where our country’s history happened.
We have had many wonderful brothers and sisters in Christ to be friends with
and make the journey sweeter. Yes, I have had a good life!!!
Carolyn Griggs
Here are some of the things on my “Bucket List”. Things I pray to accomplish or do by the grace of God…
1) Successfully homeschool my 3 children until graduation
2) Hike in the mountains with my family
3) Go on a cruise with my husband
4) Truly have a better knowledge of the Word of God and live it out victoriously
5) Pay off our house early
6) See Niagra Falls
7) Read all of the books (with my kids) that I should have when I was in school
8) Do a missions trip in Africa
9) Go white water rafting with my family
10) Beyond being a Godly wife and mother, find out what is God’s specific purpose and plan for my life and do it!
My Bucket List
1. see all of my kids saved and walking the holy life that God has purposed for each of them. 2 down only 2 to go
2. pay off our house
3. go to Europe
4. finish my quilt for my husband
5. make a love journal for each child
6. re learn to play the piano
7. lose 20 pounds
8. see my boys learn to read well
9. spend more real time with my family
10. just one more kiss from my husband and one more hug from my kids before I go.
Hmmm this has made me think. I am now off to make a list on how to make these things happen.
Bahama Blessings
Heidi Jo
This is always an eye opening subject. . .
I would listen more and yell less.
I would write each one of my children a letter to tell them how much I love them and to tell them my dreams for them and their futures.
I would take the whole family on a trip to Ireland.
While there I would renew my marriage vows with dh.
I would spend more time getting to know God better so that I could love Him more and serve Him better for the time I had left.
I would spend a lot less time on the computer and a lot less time worrying about things that aren’t really that important like housework and more time just loving on my babies and my sweet husband.
Today, I couldn’t help but think how blessed I am. I have running water, heat, food to eat and more. I know that if for another list, but I couldn’t help but share that before going on…
My biggest thing I would love to see if for all my children come to a saving knowledge of Christ and then next see them all raising their children for God’s glory.
That I would be a blessing to my children and husband and point them to Christ.
I want to instill a heart for missions here and abroad in my children.
I would really like to be able to organize my house and actually make it a haven for the children and my husband to remember for years to come.
I would like to minister to moms and encourage them to be the mom God desires them to be. To encourage moms in the training and teaching of their children.
I would like to help women reach their full potential in health. I would love to be Christian health coach!! The Lord would have to open doors for that, plus help me reach my own health goals, first.
I would like to KNOW Jesus MORE!
I would like to learn to speak a foreign language!!
I would like to live in a warmer climate for a year (or longer!) to see what it was like.
Lastly, I would really like it if I could get my youngest two to learn to read!
Cindy, I would also like to see your list – LOL!
Annmarie Rozelle
First and foremost is to see my children come to the saving knowledge of Jesus–really all of my family but especially my little ones.
Travel this beautiful world the Lord has created
–see the Grand Canyon
–walk on a glacier
–visit Ireland, Scotland, Holland, Italy,Greece,Israel,Australia & many more places =)
Assist at a birth–truly I’d love to be a midwife, but for now I’d love to be at a birth where I am at the other side of things. I’ve only been at my own
Learn to knit–and make a cute pair of socks like the $20 pairs @ Gander Mtn =)
Learn to crochet
Complete a quilt
Attend a cooking school–learn how to really use a knife
Know photography so I can take more than snapshots
Be caught up on the scrapbooks for my children
I knew how (never very well)to play a few musical instruments in school, would like to again–perhaps the piano
Ride in a hot air balloon–although I am terrified of heights
Speak a foreign language reasonably well
Be the woman the Lord wants me to be
Thanks for another great, thinking topic. Now to make plans to accomplish some of these things!
Blessings!
Hillary in Indiana
I was talking to my husband recently and explained to him the one thing I really wanted to do with what ever is left of my life or rather not do … it is very simple.
You see one day either my husband or myself will be gone from here and the other will be left behind and I don’t want the one who is left behind to live with any regrets………,
Thinking of all the moments we should have shared and did not. Of all the opportunities to laugh together over the silly things that we missed. Of all the kisses that never happened. Of all the words of comfort, encouragement or appreciation that never passed our lips. Of all the times we could have gone that extra mile for the one we loved, but were preoccupied with other things.
There are so many wonderful experiences that we can have in life, but missing out on any of them pales into insignificance for me compared with the thought of not only loosing the one I love, but realising that I had wasted the gift of time together that the Lord had blessed us with.
Love and Blessings
Angela Marchington
Well, Cindy, this is a timely topic for me personally….I turned 40 yesterday and have been reflective upon doing so. I woke up Wednesday thinking of the adventures my thirties held and wondering what this next decade will be like. There have been many things I’ve crossed off my bucket list this past ten years and it has been fun thinking back through each adventure. Now it is even more fun to think about what I would like to cross off my bucket list in the future. Without further ado, here is my list (in no particular order):
1. Travel through the West….I want to: stand at the bottom of the Grand Canyon and shout “Hello” and listen to my voice echo, gaze upwards from the base of a Giant Redwood and try to wrap my arms around it all the while marveling at the sheer size of it, watch the sun drop into the Pacific and imagine that there is a mom in China looking my way as the sun rises on her, listen to the waves crash against the rocky shore, pretend Old Faithful is blowing just for me, and finish the trip off witnessing the salmon’s migration upstream in Alaska.
2. Live long enough to see my oldest daughter find her way back to Jesus and live for Him. (Carolyn, who wrote her list above, I am walking the same path with you concerning our children, except when our oldest turned her back on us she also turned her back on our Lord.)
3. Visit Scotland and run my fingers over ancient walls of a castle while trying to imagine what life was like for the first inhabitants.
4. Spend more time reading in the sun with my daughter who still lives at home. Maybe reading aloud, maybe each of us reading silently. Either way, I’d fall asleep and nap in the warmth.
5. Make it a priority to go to the beach just because I can and live so close to it. Then finally figure out something to do with the pounds and pounds of shells we collect/have already collected.
6. Restore my Mustang and take it to car shows.
7. Lead a Women’s Bible study where I am the one who does the actual teaching.
8. Own a log cabin in the middle of 50 acres of land, all bought and paid for, where I can seek solice from the busy-ness we tend to call life.
9. Be married for another 40 years so I can call my husband an Old Fart, and he really will be one!
10. Have no more debt so we are free to do more for God.
This is an interesting topic to have come up because I was thinking about this very thing recently.
1) Have a real family vacation – never had one because we’ve always lacked either the time or the money to do so
2) Spend more time on the things that really matter: family
3) Love my children better
4) I’d love to travel to areas of the world from which my ancestry hails, of course, bringing my children with me
5) Finish the quilts that I have started, including the several quilts that I have in mind for all the scrap material that I’ve accumulated
6) Write special letters for my children and my husband
7) Go to a beach, walk in the water and watch a sunset on the beach
8) Clean up all my papers/organize/scan them/through them out
9) Get a house of my own with lots of land to garden on with orchards and a greenhouse (big) (so that we can live year round out of it). But as this is a “If you had a year to live” scenerio, this one wouldn’t matter much. In it’s stead, I’d learn something new that I haven’t learned as of yet… although I really don’t know what I’d learn right this moment.
10) Finish my college degree that I started 20+ years ago (only I don’t think I’d finish with the major and minors that I had then, it would be something different)
Have a great day everyone!
Cindy Richards
My Bucket List – in no particular order
organize scrapbooks
research my ancestors
graduate ALL my kids
learn to play my Great-Grandpa Bestgen’s violin (its 100 years old this year)
go to Ireland
go to Norway
read more classics
write that book down that’s in my head
start a blog
learn to rebuild an engine
buy a Cougar – not sure on the year yet
run a business with my husband and the kids
have a HUGE garden with plenty of food to share with those in need
grow berries (blackberries, raspberries, strawberries)
keep a nature journal with entries on a regular basis
learn to swim (not gonna happen – deathly afraid of water, but I can wish)
go to Alaska
learn to draw
put my feet in the Pacific Ocean (already been there, done that with the Atlantic)
learn a few languages, thinking Italian, French, German, gee anything I guess
I think I could go on and on. Thanks Cindy – this was a good idea!
Karen Gebes
Ok I have actually thought about this a lot
1. Take the kids to Orlando – do all the theme parks down there
2. Visit Australia
3. Learn to quilt
4. do geneology charts for all members of both sides of the family
5. Go to Hawaii
6. Raise sheep, goats and alpacas for their fiber
7. Get a spinning wheel (I can already spin on a drop spindle)
8. Buy a farm or at least land to farm on (enough for sheep, goats, alpacas, chickens and turkeys)
9. Learn Latin, biblical Greek, Italian, Russian and Polish (dh wants us all to learn Biblical Greek so we will start with that the kids are learning Spanish right now I took it in high school and teaching them is bringing it all back! Latin and Italian because I have always wanted to learn those two and Russian and Polish to honor my family history)
10. Take a mission trip as a family
11. Homeschool my kids through college and graduate them both!
12. Rebuild a classic car as a family
13. Learn to play guitar and piano (I can play a chord or two on the guitar and a couple of right handed things on the piano)
14. Visit Greece and Italy
15. To be the one to lead my kids to Christ and baptize them (our church allows parents ot baptize their kids with the pastors!)
16. Go to Alaska in the summer
17. Go to England, Ireland and Scotland
18. Take the kids skiing in Colorado
19. Make a recipe/family history book for both my kids with all the family recipes in it (I have some that came over from Germany, Russia and Polnad with my great, great grandparents)
20. Get all my scrapbooks caught up
21. Teach my kids all my homesteading skills (canning, gardening, preserving, etc) This summer and fall I will be teaching my niece-in-love, nephew and sil how to do all these things.
22. Take a photography class
23. Learn to do stain glass
24. Travel the whole US with our family
25. Write a novel (I do have one in the works)
Mary Damask
A few years ago I was told that I had cancer and it didn’t know what the future may hold. It ended up the diagnoses was wrong but I was brought face to face with thinking that my life may come to an end sooner than planned. Here is my top items that I would like to be able to do:
1) Draw closer to God
2) Make more memories with my husband
3) Spend extra time with my children and make memories
4) See all my children saved
5) See my extended family be able to become closer and get rid of the rifts
6) Be able to visit some of the different states and see some of the wonders that God has given to us with my family.
7) Do memory books up for my husband and children so that they know my true feelings and remember the times we all had together.
8) Make a music recording as a family
I have actually started working on some of this items but I hope and pray that I have some more years to go before we have to say “good night” for a time. You see I don’t like to say good bye and when I was little my grandmother told us little ones when she was going, we wouldn’t say “good bye” because she planned to see us all in Heaven one day, so it was just “good night”.
This is just a short list but God knows these are the top ones and what I really would like to see done.
Orilla Crider
There are things that I would love to do with my family, like travel and experience so many different things, but reality is a different story! So, these are more like my wishes I suppose!
1.I would hope to see my two younger children come to the age of accountability and accept the Lord Jesus Christ as Savior!
2. Lose weight, eat healthier!
3. Be more fervent in soul-winning!
4. Enjoy each day, without stressing-out!
5. Contentment–with who I am and the Lord’s will in my life!
6. To be more Oranized!
7. To learn new skills: Latin,Greek, and handicraft skills!
8. Learn to play new musical instrument, preferably piano or fiddle
9. Semi-homestead! Grow larger garden, etc.
10. Get in shape–more physically fit!
Tina Ketchens
Life time goals
1. Salvation of children, and living to give glory to God in all they do.
2. To be a better example of a Christian in my daily life.
3. Go to England
4. Go to Rome
5. watch less TV and Read *quality* books rather then trash
6. better healthy lifestyle- more physically active, eating more “whole” foods
7.Gardening- vegs. and flowers
8. Spend the few years I have left with my oldest dd having a more positive influence on her life.
9. Love my family unconditionally daily! So they can know and feel it for themselves.
~Marni Raney