The countdown is on

6 days and counting.

Monday is my birthday. Big deal. The older I get, the less amused I become with my birthday. Don't get me wrong - I'm not that old, I'll be 34. It's just that with each year that passes more and more things that I wanted to do or have done aren't. Then, as the list of things I wish I'd done continues not to be done I give up on them ever being done.

Here's a perfect example: I wanted to have 2 kids by the time I was 30 so I could be "done" having kids. I had my first, and likely only, child 4 months before I turned 29. I've mentioned to my husband several times over the course of the last 5 years since our daughter was born that I'd like to have one more. You know how it goes, we don't have a big enough house (we don't) we don't have enough money, we're done with diapers - why start that all over again.......on and on and on. I've always said, if you wait for the perfect time to do things, like when you have saved enough money, bought a big enough house, etc, the time never comes. So, here I am - 33 years and 359 days old with one kid, giving up on my wish to have another.

I wanted to have my bachelor's degree by the time I was 30. I know, a shocker, don't have it and I've pretty much given up all hope on that one too. I need to find an online college that will take all my credits in miscellaneous areas and give me a liberal arts degree. It would also be a bonus if they gave you "life" credits, you know - where they take all the jobs you've worked in your lifetime and do some strange mathematical equation and come up with credit hours toward a degree. Good luck finding that. I'm just too old to go back to college, and besides that I can't afford not to keep my full time job. Yep, another one to cross off the list.

One that I might actually be able to keep on the list and cross off as accomplished is that I'd like to get another tattoo. I have one I got in 1996 and ever since then I've been trying to find something else I'd like to get placed permanently on my body. I have this idea with my daughters name and birthdate or her little foot prints from when she was born. I don't know. Someday I'll figure out what it is I want and I'll just go do it. That's what happened with the first one.

So, as I get ready to cross another year off the calendar of my life....I've decided not to make any more lists of things I'd like to do. It's too depressing when I think back and realize that none of it has been done and by the time I get to the point where I want to do something about it - it'll be too late.