To Do 191-200

191 - motorcycle across Nevada's desert flats
192 - spend a summer and fall eating only what I've grown in my own garden
193 - learn to draw
194 - observe an American bald eagle in the wild (done)
195 - build a room of my own
196 - eat Oregon apple pie in Portland, then drive north for Washington peach pie in Seattle
197 - be able to help my teenage son with his homework
198 - overcome my shyness (done)
199 - take a bubble bath in Raffles Hotel in Singapore
200 - have an astrologer cast my chart

Complete #85 - Bid at an auction

I first started going to auctions when I was a kid. I'd go with my mom and aunts to one which had nice overstock merchandise. My first purchases were a walkman (yeah, it was that long ago) and a leather jacked. I loved the live bidding. It was so much fun. The last live auction I went to was 4 years ago on a cruise ship. It was an art auction and I ended up purchasing 3 pieces of art that I got for a steal.

These day I use ebay for my auction activities. I've gotten some great deals on that site on everything from concert tickets to books. I love ebay!

To Do 181-190

181 - see Haleakala Crater on Maui
182 - stand at the foot of K-2 in the Karakoram Mountains of northern India, the world's second-highest peak
183 - have lunch with my best friend from elementary school (done)
184 - visit the National Aviation Hall of Fame in Dayton, Ohio
185 - sleep till noon every day for a week (done)
186 - spend a stormy night in a lighthouse on a rocky coast
187 - visit every one of the national parks (in progress)
188 - dog-sled across Alaska
189 - visit all 1,000 Places to See Before You Die (in progress)
190 - start every new year with a clean house, an uncluttered desk, and a new date book

Complete #77 - Live without television

I'm really not a fan of TV in general but I find myself watching anyway which annoys me to no end. I used to be a TV addict. I would come home from work, flip on the TV and be a veg for the next 5 hours.

Then I moved to Europe. We had a TV but it was pretty much hidden away and anyway, it was only in French, Italian or German. On Mondays they would show English movies so that's the only time I'd watch. I loved it.

For my first year back I didn't have a TV and it was great. Then I got one to watch movies and eventually it got attached to the cable and eventually I got addicted again. I'm moving soon though and I'm hoping to break the habit again. I'm going to leave my TV in storage for a while which should help.

So, while I have already done this, it's something I'm going to do again.

To Do 171-180

171 - take charge of my own contentment
172 - explore West Africa
173 - bake scones
174 - work in flextime so I can balance career and family
175 - visit Utah's Bryce Canyon (done)
176 - store snowballs in the freezer and pull them out for a summer party
177 - overcome difficulties in a relationship
178 - redecorate my home from top to bottom
179 - walk the fabled Bund in Shanghai
180 - spend a weekend in Atlantic City

Complete #73 - Cook pasta that's perfectly al dente

I love to cook. And, as is fitting my Italian heritage, pasta is one of my favorites. I don't eat it as often as I like due to it's negative impact on my waist line, but when I do, it's always cooked perfectly. There's nothing worse than soggy pasta. It will never be as good as my grandma's pasta but it's not too bad if I do say so myself.

To Do 161-170

161 - visit the restored buildings of Colonial Williamsburg (done)
162 - drink chilled Manzanilla accompanied by olives and almonds
163 - hit the road for a year in an RV
164 - live and work in Beijing for a year
165 - spend a day watching the sun move across the sky
166 - live in a villa on the Italian Riviera
167 - mud slide in the rain
168 - watch a bud open
169 - see summer arrive in Antarctica
170 - visit Louisiana's Oak Alley plantation to imagine antebellum life