2017 Fall Bucket List

About 18 months ago, I began planning out my blog posts on a calendar. It has helped immensely in organizing my ideas, planning out certain series’ (like our Love Story series), and keeping on track. The beauty of the schedule though is if I wanted/needed to postpone a certain post to write about something more relevant – I could!

If there was any way I could postpone today’s post, I totally would.

I feel like, yes, summer has flown by. And yes, it seems to go faster than usual every year. But, as much as I was in a “bring on fall” mood 2 weeks ago, I’m back into summer mode this week! The end of August was downright October-like. It was cold & rainy and simply felt like fall. Then, suddenly, summer returned this past weekend! We’ve been back in shorts, spent our afternoons outside, and had the AC’s back on in the inside.

So, even though today is technically the last day of summer, and today is officially the day I need to revisit my summer list to write my fall list, I’m just not ready! So, this is me, throwing a mini-temper-tantrum (as long as Braelynn isn’t around – she copies everything we do now)!

Regardless of the temperature outside & my current state of mind, here is what we accomplished (and didn’t accomplish) this summer.

2017 Summer Bucket List

1. Invite at least 3 different couples over for dinner* – COMPLETED (Had my family over one evening, Ellen & Jonathan over, and hosted Derrick’s Aunt Susie & Uncle Robin, his cousin Kristen & her little guy one night too)
2. Have the last 2 new windows installed so our entire 2nd floor is done* – COMPLETED
3. Insulate the 3rd floor/Turn it into livable space*
4. Lay patio stone & create a fun patio space – COMPLETED (literally by the skin of our teeth – it got finished up this afternoon! Shout out to my brother who jumped in to help his clueless older sister with this project!)
5. Have a Yard Sale (and advertise it)
6. Get back on a meal/grocery plan (instead of flying by the seat of my pants) – COMPLETED (we’ve done a pretty good job of this!)
7. Work with Derrick to write out a business plan for “secret project” (it’s funny how different seasons bring different ideas, the “secret project” I was talking about here has kind of died, but we have other new “secret” ideas in the works! So, I’m counting this as a 1/2 completed)
8. Go swimming in the lake (every time we’ve been to the lake, it’s been too cold to swim – trust me, 45º is way too cold! Even the few extra days we spent there in August, it was cold & rainy! Go figure. Fingers crossed that this weekend will be a different story & we’ll be able to check this one off!)
9. Go to Idlewild Park for the annual Norwin Community Picnic – COMPLETED (blogged about it here)
10. Go to the Pittsburgh Zoo (we decided to wait until it was cooler to go – we have a trip planned in the next few weeks!)
11. Travel to New York to celebrate Derrick’s Grandpa’s 90th birthday – COMPLETED (blogged about it here)
12. Go to King’s Island with Derrick – COMPLETED (I need to write a blog post about it!)
13. Go get ice cream at Kerber’s Dairy – COMPLETED
14. Take Braelynn to go see 4th of July fireworks – COMPLETED
15. Take Braelynn to go see her first movie in the movie theater – COMPLETED (she’s actually seen 2 movies in theaters this summer!)
16. Read 5 new books (I’m so close! But I haven’t quite make it to 5 yet.)
17. Take Braelynn’s 2 1/2 year portraits (since she has a winter/cold birthday) – COMPLETED (another upcoming blog post!)
18. Update website with current images – COMPLETED
19. Finish the business course I purchased & started but haven’t finished (yikes, I can’t believe I still haven’t finished this – I’m thinking it’s going to get moved to my “winter” bucket list as an “off-season” task)
20. Celebrate Abby’s birthday

So, out of 20 items, we completed 12 1/2 items – not the best stats we’ve ever had, but not terrible either!
And here is our list for this fall. It starts today & will end on December 21 – the first day of winter! So, here we go!

2017 Fall Bucket List

1. Go to the Pittsburgh Zoo*
2. Read 5 new books*
3. Continue working on the 3rd floor (cleaning, organizing, prepping for insulation)*
4. Bake an apple pie (from scratch)
5. Decorate the front door/porch area for fall (pumpkins, cornstalks, etc.)
6. Go to Washington DC & tour with Braelynn
7. Have Ellen take our annual family pictures
8. Go to Mom & Dad’s to let Braelynn jump in a leaf pile
9. Have the best 28th birthday ever
10. Attend & photograph Irwin’s Light Up Night
11. Take Braelynn to Kennywood’s Holiday Lights
12. Figure out how to move Braelynn to her own bed for the entire night
13. Get back into crocheting & work on a few specific “secret” projects
14. Get cinnamon sticks & master making the house smell delicious
15. Clean out our closets and dressers & donate unused clothes
16. Clean up & organize my office space
17. Plant bulbs for spring & harvest Zenia seeds
18. Eat pumpkin pie
19. Take each of my siblings out to lunch (one-on-one)
20. Cook a turkey (for the first time – we’ve been married for almost 8 years & never officially cooked a real turkey!)