Happy Birthday to me!  I am 33 today and would like to shout a big “thank you!” to my dear Mutti who birthed me. I think it took giving birth to my own little birdie to realize what a true gift this whole life thing is. 33 is also a really lovely looking number, isn’t it? Furthermore…, 33 is the largest positive integer that cannot be expressed as a sum of different triangular numbers. Whatever the hell that means. Thanks, Wikipedia.

I’ll be celebrating with food and family in our nest. We’ll be ordering in Thai food so I don’t have to cook or clean (much). Yahoo!

So it seems like a good time to make one of those “life lists.” I know these are trite, but also fun so here goes… 33 things I’d like to do before, well, you know.

make a teardrop trailer |  travel to South America |  train travel across India  |  climb a real mountain |  win a race |  bake amazing cakes  |  complete an Ironman-length triathlon | make a film  |  have an encyclopedic knowledge of wildflowers |  play the cello | make cheese | bike across the United States | visit Prince Edward Island  |  have a successful business  |  advance beyond first series Ashtanga yoga  | visit all fifty states  |  raise a strong woman  |  travel across country in an Airstream  | kayak the Outer Banks  |  ice climb  |  design and build our own house  |  live overseas again  |  see the Great Wall of China  |  eat sushi in Japan  |  have a big vegetable garden with enough stuff to give away to all our favorite neighbors  |  grow artichokes  |  go dog sledding  |  Safari in Africa  |  sail the Great Lakes  |  write a book  |  get an advanced degree  |  give  A LOT of money to a charity I love  |  perfect my butterfly stroke  | uh oh! That was 33. I guess I’ll keep going because I hope to live a long, adventurous life… |  replace 90% of the lawn with plants  |  backpack with my husband |  have a dog again | scuba dive | visit hot springs you have to hike in to  | winter camp  | run the entire Pictured Rocks trail  |  have a successful cut-flower garden with lots of Bells of Ireland and big orange and green Zinnias  |  wear an itsy-bitsy teeny tiny polka dot bikini  |  have zero debt to anyone or any institution  |  go to a Craig Ferguson show |  see Madonna live in concert  |  visit Madurodam with Wren  | raise pygmy goats and lots of different varieties of lavender  |  paint regularly  |  have a family meeting like the Cosby Family | celebrate Mardi Gras in New Orleans  |  floss every day  |  sleep under the stars at Joshua Tree  |  race the Vasa  |  run the Boston Marathon  | swim with dolphins |  have excellent posture  |  have a cottage on a lake somewhere  |  do one scary thing every day  |  make great stuff that people other than family and friends want to buy  |  simplify  |  sew well  |  live in Canada  |  sweat daily  |  waste less food  | live big.