…sharpen my mind:
24. Take 2 CLEP’s.
25. Learn Spanish. (Be able to read Esta Patente Oscuridad.)
26. Read 4 “classics” I haven’t read before.
27. Compile new “to read” list.
28. Finish listening to the entire “Listen” series (excluding the icky turn-of-the-century dissonant stuff) with Ariel.
29. Find a good violin repertoire list.
30. Write at least one whole chapter each of health book and homemaking book.
31. Complete anatomy & physiology book.
32. Re-memorize “Paul Revere’s Ride.”

This section of my 101/1001 list includes several things which have been on my “I want to do someday list” for a long time, or which are steps toward larger goals from that list. Beginning with number 24, the two CLEP tests. I did not attend college (except for a voice lesson and a violin lesson one semester) prior to getting married. I don’t regret this decision but, in hindsight, I do wish I had taken the CLEP tests for all of the general education subjects. There is a health degree program I’m interested in (simply for my own enjoyment; I don’t need a degree for anything), but it’s a master’s program, so I will need to get a bachelor’s degree before it will be an option. I have sorted out that I can CLEP out of all of the general education requirements through Thomas Edison State College and be halfway there. Unfortunately, I don’t have the extra cash now that I did when I was single, so this is going to be more of a process. But they store the test scores for twenty years (I think that’s the right figure), so I can take them a couple at a time and be taking steps in that direction. Completing my anatomy & physiology book (#31) is part of this, as well.

Learning Spanish (#25) has been on my “someday” list for a long time, as well. I wasn’t sure how to make this goal measurable; hence the parenthetical. That will be my measure of success or failure. (Esta Patente Oscuridad, by the way, is the Spanish translation of This Present Darkness.)

Numbers 26 and 28 are just “well-rounded” things. (“Listen” is a music appreciation course.)

I need a new “to read” list (#27) because it’s scattered. I have a bunch of books here waiting to be read, and a bunch of books on my PaperBackSwap wish list, but I can’t remember what they all are, so I need a single clear list to help me keep track.

I need a good, graded violin repertoire list (#29) to resume my studies in that area.

And re-memorizing Paul Revere’s Ride (#32) is just because a) it frustrates me that I can’t remember something I used to have memorized and b) it’s a story I could tell to my girls in the car if I could actually remember it!