Slice of Life

So I didn’t complete any other things on my 54 lists. I had to focus on school and work. But I did learn a lesson. The things lists are a lot longer (I’m a lot older), so I need to make the things easier. I carried forward some things but also removed some things that had been on the list for years and apparently aren’t very important to me. I broke down things into smaller tasks, making them easier and faster to accomplish.

So here is my 55 Things list. I will take pictures of the tasks as I complete them and post them.

Yesterday was my two Nephews’ birthdays, and Collin had asked for a three-layer Tie-Dye cake. Friday night, my sister realized she wouldn’t have time to make the cake before dinner on Saturday night, so she asked me. to make it. It seemed simple enough, so I happily took it on so Bridgette could focus on all the other party preparations.

I started working on the Cake Saturday morning around 10 am and finished around 3:00 pm. A number of things happened that made it take 5 hours. First, Bridgette had given me the cake mixes and the food coloring gel, but I didn’t have all the ingredients, so I had to go pick up the eggs and butter from Bridgette’s. Then, I added too much butter and ruined the batter, so I had to go to the store and buy new cake mixes and all the other ingredients.

I made all 6 rainbow colors for the batter. Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Purple. (That took way longer than you would think.) Then plopped some of each color around the 3 pans. I forgot to take a picture of the batters, but I got one of them in the oven, almost cooked.

Once they cooled, I took them to Bridgette, and we frosted them and added the sprinkles on top. It doesn’t look like store-bought, but it looks great and tastes awesome!

Here are some additional pictures of the kids. I can’t believe they are 17.

Q: If I won the jackpot today how would it change my life and what 10 material things would I buy.

A: The Powerball jackpot today is $195 million, so after tax, that would be about $5 million a month. Or $50 million if you take the immediate payout. So that kind of money would change my life dramatically. I think I might stay in my current house and just do a big remodel to make it perfect for me. It would drastically change the lives of my family, also, since I would definitely share the wealth.

1. New wardrobe
2. New Couches
3. New front lawn
4. New Car – probably Rivian
5. Great Art to decorate house
6. Custom cute shoes that fit my WW feet
7. Vacation with Family to someplace with a great beach.
8. Self Driving car for Mom and Dad
9. Murphy Bed for 2nd guest room
10. New Hot tub

It is actually hard to come up with a list. I know that if I had a lot of money, I wouldn’t have any trouble spending it, but it’s hard to imagine actually having it.

Note: The home remodel would be the biggest thing initially but I will make a different post about that another time.

10 favorite bands of all time (in no particular order)

1. Dixie Chicks
2. AC/DC
3. Beatles
4. Go-Go’s
5. Aerosmith
6. Peter, Paul & Mary (are they a band?)
7. Bon Jovi
8. Fleetwood Mac
9. Journey
10. Maroon 5

Also 10 favorite individual singers because I kept thinking of them as I thought about my favorite bands

1. Amy Winehouse
2. Taylor Swift
3. Etta James
4. Nora Jones
5. Pat Benator
6. Prince
7. Madonna
8. Carole King
9. Ray Charles
10. John Denver

This is redo of old list from 6/27/07

I have not done too well 54 things. Not very long until my birthday and I have finished 11 and started 12.

So 31 things have not been started. If I spent ALL of my free time until my birthday, I don’t think I could get them all done. And a number require money I don’t have in my budget.

So we are going to set realistic expectations for what I can get done in the next month or so. The blue things below are what I am going to try to finish and the Red things will move to next years list (or not).

So there are 14 things I think I can get done. That leaves 29 things I can’t finish. Not a great showing, but I did finish a lot of things I have had on my list for years.

My first 3 will be 3) Sew red tablecloth, 14) Fill bird feeder & 45) add doorsweep in bedroom

54 things ( Done , Started *, To Do, Can’t finish ) 

1. Reorganize Family room shelves
2. Make a plant stand
3. Sew Red tablecloth
4. Paint Patio box
5. Re-caulk Kitchen Sink
6. Plant flowers in back yard
7. Replace bush in front yard. 
8. Organize memory stuff
9. Put family/kids portraits into albums
10. Finish Degree – 118 only 3 classes left. 
11. Build raised bed
12. Grow tomatoes
13. Grow herbs
14. Refill bird feeder 
15. Paint laundry room
16. Paint Kitchen/Family Room
17. Trash bin pull out in kitchen
18. Recover files off dead computers
19. Dispose of dead computers
20. Get offsite backup service
21. Repair Jeans *
22. Sew Tshirts
23. Join 200 club
24. Kon Mari Clothes
25. Kon Mari Kitchen
26. Get new (to me) couches for front room
27. Get new Couch in Family Room
28. List Juicer & Drawers online
29. Start using CPAP *
30. New Doorbell
31. Clean out Gutters
32. Replace Patio couch cushions
33. Clean Car Seats
34. Finish Painting Bathroom Cabinets Blue
35. Paint behind Washer and Dryer
36. Clear and Reorganize Craft Supplies
37. Update Safety Deposit Box *
38. Clean out Google Photos
39. Clean out Drop box photos
40. Put up white frames in Front Room
41. Put up Box Trim in Front Room
42. Create Will*
43. Go to Library Sale
44. Start 2nd retirement account
45. Add Doorsweep in Bedroom
46. Replace Tirecover
47. Replace moonstone chain
48. List all Revere ware
49. Clear out wedding/K memorabilia
50. Give away Pottery Barn Kids Bed, Table and Chairs
51. Organize Beanie Babies
52. List all Video Games
53. Host a meetup
54. Reseed Lawns

Favorite Authors / Books – In Alphabetical Order (It was to hard to put it in order by preference)

Fiction 

1. Jane Austin – All
2. Jean Auel -Mammoth Hunter – may just be memories haven’t re-read lately
3. Max Brooks – World War Z
4. Orson Scott Card – Enders Game series
5. Suzanne Collins – Hunger Games & Host
6. Ramond Feist – Empire Trilogy & Rift War Cycle
7. Philippa Gregory – Plantagenet and Tudor Novels
8. Robert Heinlein – Stranger in a Strange World, Friday & Citizen of the Galaxy
9. Frank Herbert – Dune
10. L Ron Hubbard – Battlefield Earth
11. Robert Jordan – Wheel of Time
12. Mary Robinette Kowal – Lady Astronaut series
13. Stieg Larsson – Millennium Series (Girl With…)
14. Ursula Le Guin – Earthsea Cycle
15. Lewis Lowry – Giver
16. George RR Martin – Game of Thrones series
17. Anne McCaffrey – Harper  Hall Trilogy, Pern Novels, Crystal Singer series
18. Colleen McCaffrey – Rome Series, Morgan’s Run
19. JK Rowling – Harry Potter series
20. Kathryn Stockett – Help
21. Dennis Taylor – Bobiverse & Quantum Earth
22. Walter Tevis – Queen’s Gambit
23. Andy Weir – The Martian
24. Connie Willis – Oxford Time Travel series
25. David Wingrove – Chung Kuo

Honorable Mentions – Dan Brown, Nicholas Sparks, Frank McCourt, John Grisham.  Note : Genre’s I’m no longer interested in but these are great authors I really enjoyed.

Non-Fiction

1. Brene Brown – I Thought It Was Just Me
2. Bill Bryon – Short History of Nearly Everything 
3. Charles Duhigg – The Power of Habit
4. Dr. Wayne Dyer – The Power of Intention
5. Malcom Gladwell – Tipping Point, Blink, Outliers
6. Marie Kondo – Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up
7. Jonah Lehrer – How We Decide
8. Steven Levitt & Stephen Dubner – Freakonomics
9. May McCarthy – Path to Wealth

As of 6/18/25