List Lover

I know. I can sense the shock from you when you read that title. This is not the usual travel snapshot, giving you a brief insight into my visit to London or Luxor or someplace equally as wonderful. I fully intended to do that too. Then a couple of days ago I got thinking about all the comments left by my lovely readers and I noticed a reoccurring theme of the bucket list. Which got me thinking about the role of lists in my own everyday life. So … no travel today, just a post on the humble list.

I guess you could say I’m a list maker. At least for somethings. I wouldn’t typically write out a shopping list, unless it was for a major grocery shop and I wasn’t certain whether my often distracted mind could retain all the little items I needed to buy. I’m fortunate in that I have a great memory. It irritates the hell out of some of my friends as they know I’m unlikely to forgot much that they say, even when they sometimes wish I would 😉 But that memory comes in handy with the little every day things like groceries. If I’m facing a particularly busy period at work, with lots of unrelated projects for a multitude of clients due to be done, then I may well start out my day with a hastily scribbled out list on a post-it – stuck to my PC screen as a handy reminder. Typically I make a mental list each week of what work I need to do and when I’m going to do it. I’m a planner. I like to know what’s on the cards for the next day, it helps me feel grounded and organised. What about when it came to planning for this blogging A-Z Challenge? Yep. List. In fact, not only did I make a list … I drew up a calendar on a piece of paper, little boxes with the dates, just like a wall calendar, and wrote down what I’d be writing about on each day. Fancy list 😉

Oddly enough though, I will always make a list when it comes to packing for a trip. Always. And usually it’s written about a month ahead of my departure! But I would say that’s just a symptom of being over excited about whatever upcoming trip I have planned. You would think with all the travel I’ve been fortunate to have done that packing would be second nature. And it is. It’s just I have flash backs to that one trip … when I forgot my toothbrush. Granted it’s an item easily bought on arrival pretty much anywhere but still. The horror of it! Then there’s the issue of the thongs (I will remind you all here that I’m an Australian … “thongs” are those things you wear on your feet, the rest of you probably call them flip-flops). I have a habit of breaking or losing a thong on most trips. Once in Thailand, stepping out of a canoe in Khao Lak, I remove my foot from the muddy river bed … the thong has vanished. Stepping off a plane in Singapore’s Changi International Airport – the bit between the toes snaps (barefoot in an airport is most embarrassing folks!). Then there was walking around the street-side markets in Botswana  – thong explosion. Barefoot in Botswana. So … based on that, my travel packing list always includes at least two pairs of thongs (preferably to be carried on me at all times!). Oh & then there’s the tweezers! Show of hands, who never remembers to pack tweezers? I was guilty of that as well, until I put my hand through a cactus plant in the office of an adventure tours company in Swakopmund, Namibia. Nothing like the pain of cactus needles in your thumb and no way to remove the f**kers (excuse the language but … ouch!).

Which brings me to the trigger for this post. The Bucket List. I have a menu heading on my blog site with that very heading, listing all the places I’ve been and those I’m yet to visit. It’s not a concrete list by any means. It’s fluid and changes (and probably needs updating again). But why make such a list? Am I, are any of us for that matter, likely to forget the big ticket things we want to do in life? I’m not just talking travel here. Maybe your bucket list contains activities, like sky diving or running a marathon. If those are your passions and goals, are you likely to forget? In reality I think the answer is “yes”. We become so distracted by the every day demands of life that the dreams of what we’d like to do can get left on the sideline. The humble list serves as a tiny reminder not to forget about the extraordinary things outside the routine of daily life. So … tell me. Are you a list maker? For everything or somethings? Do you have a Bucket List for places you want to visit or things you want to do? 

This post is part of my contribution to the April 2017 A-Z Challenge

For a list (haha! I know right?) and links to my other challenge posts, click here

For those interesting in revisiting my 2016 challenge post for “L”, here’s the link: LIFE LESSONS