I like lists. I make them in my head, on post-it notes, on scraps of a paper, on my computer, on my iphone, in fancy notebooks, in plain notebooks, in the margins of books. I make teux deux lists where I write down tasks I’ve already accomplished just so I can cross them off. I’m sure you do this too. I think it is a natural human behavior, like avoiding the chatty check out clerk at Target.

Yesterday, in the midst of my great purge and organize of every space in my house, I came across a list I made when my daughter was an infant of 54 items I’d like to accomplish in my life. Considering the list was numbered to 100 and it was tucked in with a similar version from my husband (he only had 10 written down). I can assume that the lists were some sort of ill planned reconnect with your spouse night written around the time our oldest child was six months old. Those of you with children will recall how insane you felt the first year of your first child’s life. Marriages go through accelerated change during that time and it can be scary and provoke all sorts of ridiculous behavior–like making bucket lists with your spouse.

At the top of my list is take a trip to Italy. Can’t say I can check that one off and unlike some of the other items on the list (find the perfect shade of lipstick) it is still an accomplishment I want to have under my belt. I can’t even comprehend what state of mind I must have been in to have written down the bit about lipstick. I haven’t worn lipstick in twenty years. I don’t like it. Charlie doesn’t like it. Then there were the accomplishments that are entirely out of my control (be surprised by a surprise party). Think about it. In order to be surprised I have to know nothing about the party. I might as well have written in number 11 on Charlie’s list: surprise wife with surprise party. It would have spruced up his list a bit, which starts with wear a tie and a hardhat and ends with write a book.

Reading over the list I was able to cross out about ten items–the highest ranking of which was No. 2: write a novel. That is a little more than an item a year, which given my family history is not too bad of a pace. I think I’ve got at least another 44 years left. Of course there’s a good chance I’ll never learn how to do a proper dive (no. 20) or own a small newspaper and be the editor (no. 27). This year, though, I plan on taking care of number 5 (invent a new cookie) and number 22 (ride a horse on the beach).

And maybe, just maybe in 2013 when my book is released in Italy, I’ll have a reasonable excuse to visit.