A Happy To-Do List: 40 Things To Do In My 40s

Number #13

1) Learn Spanish. (Again.)
2) Read everything by the beloved Nora Ephron.
3) Write a full-length play.
4) Visit Austin, Texas.
5) Eat fresh feta cheese on a Greek isle.
6) Visit Copenhagen.
7) Learn how to make that elusive, acid yellow-green glaze I have in my head.
8) Bake a fresh, not canned, sour cherry pie.
9) Make a REALLY massive clay piece that has to be fired in stages and then assembled.
10) See Mudstar featured in a magazine/article.
11) Own a chalice by Beatrice Wood.
12) Take the kids to London.
13) Have my own hut.
14) Own the Crosby Library table from Dwell Studio.
15) Watch the film Norwegian Wood.
16) Live in a beach house all summer.
17) Build a house with Habitat for Humanity.
18) Visit the Vitra Museum in Germany.
19) Take a slipcasting class.
20) Make Easter bread like my Mom-Mom.
21) Visit Block Island.
22) Re-read A Swiftly Tilting Planet trilogy by Margaret L'Engle.
23) Kayak in the tidal pools on Martha's Vineyard.
24) Watch Twelve Angry Men.
25) Learn how to make fresh mozzarella.
26) Do a walkathon for a good cause.
27) Learn to enamel.
28) Clean out the attic.
29) See the Gaudi mosaics.
30) Stop complaining about the size of my butt.
31) Mount a small show of my own.
32) Teach my boys how to cook.
33) See sculpture from Ann Hamilton and Anselm Keifer in person.
34) Bike from Washington's Crossing to Frenchtown on the D&R Canal.
35) Write an anti-50 Shades romance novel, with a real woman as the protagonist.
36) Spend the day in the new Asbury Park taking photos.
37) Have a vacation, with just my husband, in a Caribbean sort of place.
38) Learn to drive stick.
39) Try Reiki.
40) Plant Allium.

Oh, It's A Pig Cake Throwdown.

My little fellow turns 10 tomorrow.  Double digits.  Colin's first day on Earth began in exactly the same manner as he now greets every day: with vim and vigor, excited where the day will take him, and in a hurry.  The doctor missed the birth because it took her too long to get from the parking garage.  Seven minutes too long.  I asked the young nurse at the bottom of the bed what her name was.  She replied: "Heather."  I said, "Heather, you're catching this baby."  I saw her looking at the empty doorway, praying the doctor would appear.  "Um...okay...."  Two pushes and two minutes later, Colin came into the world.

Colin's nickname, to all who love him, is: Conna-do, because when he was little, he wanted to do everything himself. "No, Mommy, you NO do it.  CONNA do it!"  So when Conna-do turns double digits, you sorta have to make it a sassy special day, which means a couple of best buddies, Six Flags Great Adventure, and a Minecraft Pig Cake. (Throwdown challenge from Conna-do: C'mon, Mom, I KNOW you can make it!!)

One very dirty apron, a sink full of dirty knives in all the wrong sizes, and my very pores smelling of sugary frosting (and by that time, not in a good way...)  Voila!  A Minecraft Pig Cake and the satisfaction of hearing a table full of cute boys saying: "WOW..."