Forty by 40

Birthday picture with the kids...

December 30, 2011: Today is a special day!  I've been preparing for this for several months and can't believe it's finally here.  Here's the story of how I got to this moment...

Mid-way through our Florida vacation this past summer, we got a call.  It was the kind of call that none of us ever wants to get. "There's been an accident and the news is not good..." my dad told me.  My uncle had been jogging Sunday morning before church and was struck by a truck and killed instantly.  In one instant, the lives of my aunt, cousins, and extended family were drastically changed.  My Uncle Garry's funeral was so deeply impacting to those of us who were there.  There was story after story about his sense of humor, his business skills, his generosity, his humility, and the way that he used his strengths and gifts to help others.  In the following days, Matt and I had many conversations about what we had learned from Uncle Garry's life.  Above all, we want to be people who, like him, finish well the race we are running in this life.  I want to live out 2 Timothy 4:7 which says, "I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith."

In the days and weeks that followed, I found this verse directing me in different decisions I was making.  It was shortly after the funeral when a friend mentioned to me an upcoming mission trip to India that our church was taking.  I had been looking for several months at the different mission trips offered, but always seemed to find a reason that it wouldn't work.  This time, though, I had a new perspective.  If this was something I felt that God wanted me to do, I needed to find a way to make it work.  Matt was in whole-hearted agreement with me taking the trip (he will get his turn next year!) and I signed up to travel to Orissa, India where we would work and teach in The Shelter, an orphanage for girls.  The trip was scheduled to leave on my birthday...December 30.  At first I thought that was a bummer, but then I started thinking more.  What an incredible way to mark my birthday--and what if I created a "bucket list" of sorts?  Forty things that I'd like to do or accomplish between by 39th and 40th birthdays?  The more I thought about it, the more I fell in love with this idea.  And so my 40 by 40 list was born.  It was more difficult than I thought it would be.  Practically speaking, not all 40 things could cost a lot of money--after all, we are a family of six!!  But I wanted to make a list of meaningful things that I would complete in this next year.  So...without further ado, my 40 by 40 list:

40 by 40

Forty things I’d like to accomplish in my 40th year...

____ 1- Trip to India

____ 2- Go on a date with Quinn

____ 3- Go on a date with Clara

____ 4- Go on a date with Zane

____ 5- Go on a date with Millie

____ 6- Finish the quilt for our bed...that was started in 2004

____ 7- Spend a weekend away with Matt

____ 8- Take a photography class

____ 9- Read the whole New Testament

____ 10- Spend a week at Bearskin

____ 11- Take a cooking class

____ 12- Paddleboat on the canal downtown

____ 13- Visit the Indianapolis Museum of Art

____ 14- Make 40 valentine cards for the University of Michigan Cancer Center

____ 15-Visit a new winery

____ 16-Go to a Chicago Symphony concert

____ 17-Do a service project together as a family

____ 18-Read a marriage book that I haven't read before

____ 19-Learn a new piano piece

____ 20-visit Lisa (my college roommate)

____ 21-Learn to play the hammered dulcimer

____ 22-Read Pilgrim's Progress

____ 23-Shabbat--one day of solitude to read/pray/etc.

____ 24-Grow a garden with Clara

____ 25- Visit the Garfield Park conservatory

____ 26-Read a biography

____ 27-Go see the Shackleton exhibit at the Indiana State Museum

____ 28-Re-watch all of LOST

____ 29-Go duckpin bowling

____ 30-Eat at Bub's burgers (not the Big Ugly, though!)

____ 31-Paint living room

____ 32-Have at least 40 people over for dinner/get togethers

____ 33-Go see the Sandhill cranes in Oct/Nov

____ 34- Weight loss/fitness goal 

____ 35-Take a class at Archiver's

____ 35-Go to the Chicago Art Museum

____ 36-Take Zane and Millie to the Robie house (Frank Lloyd Wright)

____ 37-Have family portrait taken

____ 38-Memorize Barb May's 10 verses (my MOPS mentor in MN who gave

us a challenge to memorize these verses one summer)

_X__ 39-Go to an IU basketball game with Matt (thanks to Matt's boss for AWESOME tickets on 12/22, and I got to check one off early!)

____ 40-Celebrate my 40th birthday with my family!!

We would love it if you would pray for us while we're gone.  We are leaving early on December 30 and will get home the evening of January 8.

Janette, Stephenie, Amy, and Sierra