“See, I have this theory that…”

Cue groan from whomever has the misfortune of being the innocent bystander to yet another one of my random, unanticipated rants.  My favorite theory goes like this, “…that if we could just use another 5% of our brain, we would need less sleep, less food and less talking.”  (In case you’re wondering, the decrease in verbal communication comes from gaining the ability to read minds.  Uh yeah…duh. Well, maybe not hearing every word of our thoughts, just getting more of a stronger read on people, a la Deanna Troi from Star Trek Next Generation.)

But then all that time saved from sleeping, eating and talking begs the question, “And then what would we do?”

My turning-on-of-wasted-brain-space theory was created at a time when my life was playing at warp speed (yes, another Stark Trek reference).  It was more of a fantasy born of exasperation than hope for what might actually be one day.  I could have answered the question with an infini-list of things like reading from my dusty stack of books, playing with the kids more, getting the tattoo of my ex-husband’s first initial finally redone, or catching up on Oprah.

Well, lately I’ve had enough time for all those usually neglected things, and I’m feeling somewhat, dare I say, balanced.  Egad!

Not me

This shouldn’t be too surprising.  How else could I endeavor to start this blog?  Hey man, these posts don’t just jump out of my head and onto the page without long sessions of pacing the floor around my desk, staring blankly at my computer screen, and not to mention the requisite drinking of wine. But I digress…

What would our lives look like if we didn’t have the excuse of being too busy?  Let’s assume that you’re not a workaholic, so you can’t say “I love my job so much, I would work more.” You’d have to consider your life outside of the productivity of your career or job.  If you can’t do that, then good for you for doing what you love.  No really, good for you.

Most of us have never imagined a life without limits.  There’s always the matter of finishing college, or staying with the kids, or minding the budget, or getting vested for our pension.  Heck, I’ve never REALLY tried to access my innermost Life-Without-Limits Wishlist.  But now seems like a good time.

So this is the beginning of my Bucket List, and a new blog category.  This list will be a work in progress until I do actually Kick The Bucket, because I fear if I were to ever check off the last thing, a freak lightning storm would zap me into a crisp cadaver as I took out the garbage the next day.

I’ve taken some helpful advice from lifehack.org and will make my first list item part of a larger context.

1.  Take my daughter (“PF” for PureFabulosity) to Paris.

Joy

- My husband and I share a passion for the restaurant industry which my daughter has inherited.  PF is 5 now and has seen the Disney movie, Ratatouille, many times.  If you haven’t already seen this movie, it’s a sweet story about a rat turned chef extraordinaire, and in the self-empowering style of most contemporary children’s movies, it teaches us “Anyone can cook.”  It’s set mostly in a Parisian restaurant kitchen with beautiful graphics that sometimes look so real, you feel as though, if you stretched your arm out you could actually julienne the vegetables yourself. One day about a year ago, she asked me if she would ever go to Paris, and I said I really hope so.  “But I want to go with you Mommy.  That would be the best dream of my whole life.” Then my heart exploded into a sparkling mess of love shrapnel.