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Holy Crap My List Is LONG

So….my list is growing longer by the day. I have added 5 additional goals in the past day, some hard….some super easy.

      26. Learn sign language

      27. Make all 2013 Christmas gifts by hand

      28. Take a glass blowing class

      29. Tip someone $100

      30. Find my family’s heritage

#26 is inspired by my Grandmother Francis. Frances Francis was actually her full name (married into it, of course). She was one of my favorite people in the entire world and I consider her to be my hero. She was always looking out for my sister, my cousin Anna and I, especially when it came to my grandpa. He was always a bit strict with us and would try to monitor our food intake and limit our toilet paper use. I guess that’s what you can expect from someone who lived through the Great Depression in rural Alabama. She would always look at him and say in a low voice “Thommmasss.” He would go back to drinking his coffee or reading the paper and she would give us a small smile as if to say “It’s okay, you girls do whatever you want.” We would have grape fights in her kitchen and would enjoy peach ice-cream on her back porch. She always smelled like peppermint and mothballs and would keep strawberry chapstick and small strawberry candies on hand for when we visited. She was a very small, quaint women with many hidden talents, one being that she was fluent in sign language. Both of her parents were deaf and when she was younger she taught at the Alabama School for the Deaf and Blind. As a kid, I remember going to spend the week with her and my grandpa. She would teach me the alphabet, the signs for boy, girl, run, play….you know- all the simple stuff that kids would want to know or could easily remember. The town they lived in, Heflin, AL was very small and you would almost not even realize you drove through it if you blinked too long.  I remember going to the local Piggly Wiggly with her to do some grocery shopping (she always had Golden Flake Sour Cream and Onion chips on hand) and she noticed that one of the bag boys was deaf. She started a conversation with him and you should’ve seen his face light up. I bet she was one of the only people in the entire town besides his family who had the ability to hold a conversation with him. I always wanted to be able to learn enough sign language to do the same if I ever had the opportunity.

Alright, on to something a bit less heavy…well not really…..Christmas. It’s October 23 and I have already begun to dread the holiday season. The endless commercials, the lists of people you have to buy stuff for just because that’s what’s expected but you really have no clue what they would like/want/use and so you spend way too much money and then in return get a bunch of stuff that you probably don’t like/want/will use. Consider this my “blackheart moment” of the day. My solution to this problem *drumroll* #27 Make all 2013 Christmas gifts by hand. YES, I said BY HAND. I think this gives me more of a purpose and appreciation for the meaning of a gift and even if the presents aren’t tons of money, it’s the time and thought that give them their worth. We shall see what happens considering I’ve never been the most creative person. On the flip side….I’ve been pondering the thought of asking that instead of material things requesting my family to take a look at my list and see if there’s something they might be able to assist me with completing. I’m sure my family has talents or connections I’m unaware of.  If there’s nothing they can help with, that’s fine…but in trying to live a simpler life less focused on material items I figure I will try to minimize the amount of stuff I accumulate this holiday season and focus on experiences instead.