WHY IN THE WORLD AM I DOING THIS ANYWAYS?

You know the longer I have worked on this "bucket list" idea of mine, the more intrigued I have become about what one REALLY is.  The popular notion of a bucket list being a grouping of things you wish to do before you "kick the bucket", is the one I believe to be held by most people. But in the days, weeks, and months since my own list was devised, I have started to look at bucket lists in a somewhat different manner.  More on that in a bit.

I'm soon to be a 57-year old "very grownup" (my new term for "old") woman who has seen a lot of changes in life as the years have gone by.  Many hopes and dreams have been shattered by circumstances totally out of my control and yet many other blessings and gifts have come to me totally unexpected and most certainly undeserved.  I'm going to guess that you all have had similar experiences, right?  Whether it be serious illness of some sort, the loss of a job or financial worries, divorce or the death of a spouse or close family member, or even just the sad and uncertain state of affairs that you read about on the front page of the newspaper, life just sometimes sucks and there's no way to get around that realization.

I am not sure why this "drive", this "need" to accomplish certain things before I should die has taken the twists and turns that it has.  Certainly, 10 years ago I had no desire to learn how to swim, heck I wouldn't even get close to the water, let alone dare to put my head under it. A dear friend's insistence and persistence changed that for me.  The thought of me driving a 4,000 mile round trip to Maine "solo"?  If you would have told me in my 20's I'd be doing that some day in the future, I would have thought you were crazy.   AND I would have told you so!  Although I love riding motorcycles so very much, the experience of riding on the back of one "very, very fast and living to tell about it" never even entered into my thinking until a couple of years back.  And by the way, I may have been 56 years old at the time I did that motorcycle "ride" but I'm sure glad that my mom wasn't around to see it.  Can you "ground" an adult daughter?  If so, my mom would have taken care of my indiscretion to speeding along the highway barely holding onto to anything.  :)

The Hutch News obituary page is daily filled with notices of folks who have left this life and gone on to the next.  Many times, in sadness, I read of young people, babies and little pre-schoolers that have died. I have read notices of children the age of my own students who have passed away  and it makes me want to get to school and seek out certain kids and check to see how they are doing in life.  The ultimate realization for me is this~ More and more it seems that the average age of death is getting precariously close to my own age and if that's not a somber, "wake the heck up Peggy Miller" moment, then I'm not sure what is.

So friends, I guess I say to you what I know I have said before in this blog~My bucket list is NOT a death wish but rather a wish for "life" and to do what I can with it in whatever days remain to me on this earth.  I have been so blessed to have made it this long here on earth.  If there is a "guardian angel union" in Heaven, then I am sure that there has been much discussion as to whether or not to continue providing benefits to a certain girl named Peggy.  Thank goodness I have run out of bones to break on my body's left side and have no real plans to start working on the ones from the right.

In anticipation of surgery on "old lefty" once more on October 4th, I came up with a very short version of "Peggy's quick 5" things to do before then.  Having been without full use of my left arm for 8 months, I decided to think of some fun things I could do before being confined to an "exoskeleton" for another month or so.  My original bucket list still stands ready and waiting for the time when I am fully healed up and can do so.  Hoping there will be time to canoe down the Ark River again, power parachute once more, and learn how to sew something for the very first time.  But until then~"If today WERE my last day" I'd know what I'd want to do.

BEFORE OCTOBER 4TH~
1.  Ride my bike on a 35-mile bike ride on an early morning autumn day. (hey, I think that's TODAY)
2.  Go to the gun range again to practice target shooting and even try my hand at shooting a shotgun or rifle.  (I have the promise of doing that next weekend and I probably won't even shut my eyes this time.)
3.  To go to McPherson and see the Scottish festival for the first time in my life.  With a maiden name like "Scott" you'd think I'd have done that before but I haven't.  For crying out loud, Mac is just the next county up from here, such a LONG ways :) (heading there tomorrow with a friend)
4.  To finish up what I can in the backyard in order to make it "user friendly for an older person" (that's me)  I've been planting like crazy and I'm actually kind of shocked at how nice it already looks.  It's a work in progress, to be sure.
5.  To continue to connect with all of my facebook friends in some way, meet them and sit down with them to talk about life and how they are doing in it.  Hey, don't be surprised if I call you to say, "Meet me at Bogey's?"

5:24 in the a.m.  Time to get ready to leave for my ride.  Praying for a safe journey, no stupid dogs chasing me, and that "Miller's uncanny luck" and "Murphy's Law" don't collide today.  My wish for you all is that you enjoy a great day today in the company of friends and family.  Don't give up on this life and don't let the paper's headlines determine how your day is going to be.  I've done that before and I'm here to tell you, it doesn't work out so much.  So get up, get out and enjoy this wonderful day ahead~September 22, 2012, the very first day of autumn and TRULY a great to be alive in!

                                               It changed my life, but it didn't stop me :)

I learned the value of the "meager and lowly" 40 percent on the day that I could FINALLY take a photo showing that my last two fingers could bend down and touch the inside of my cast.

It was a "great day" when I was able to hang my own laundry out "one handed" last fall.  My dear friends, Craig and Dennis, were certain after seeing this photo that I truly was a short person.  Of course, I'm sure that they didn't take into account that I had to "throw" the pieces of laundry halfway over the line before I think of clothes pinning them on.   They may tease me about my challenge in height but they still care, I'm pretty sure.