The Generous Wife
a daily reminder to grow your marriage
Rethinking Our Bucket List + a Giveaway
At the beginning of the year, Paul and I talked about things we wanted to do – our bucket list. Most of those things involved getting out and about, something that’s a no-no right now.
Our challenge is to create a new bucket list (cause we’re not going to sit around being bored) that is stay-at-home compliant. Yes, it’s going to be a challenge.
We can still forage for mushrooms on our property (the first morel has been found!). I was thinking about “going to Italy” one day by fixing Italian food, watching a movie situated in Italy, etc. We may have to stay home, but we can still “travel” the world in our imagination. We could set ourselves a challenge like make the world’s best coffee creamer. We have several projects we’ve dreamed about but felt we didn’t have the time. They might make the list.
What do y’all think? What activities and projects could make a stay-at-home bucket list and keep life interesting?
It’s time for a giveaway.
Share your stay-at-home bucket list ideas as a comment to this post. Next Friday I will pick a random number and the commenter in that spot will win a free copy of Get Your Life Back by John Eldredge (or the book of their choice from the Marriage Book Library).
I’m looking forward to hearing your ideas.
Imagination is everything. It is the preview of life’s coming attractions. Albert Einstein
- Prayer Prompt: Ask God to help you and your husband come up with fun things to do in this stay-at-home season.
- Come Home for Comfort: Cooking in Quarantine: Simple Snacks Now I have the munchies.
- Facebook: Ben Marsh This is what happens when you’ve been at home too long. :)
This post may contain affiliate links. Please read my disclosure for more info.
Image credit © Magdalena Smolnicka / Unsplash
Shop & Support TGW Thanks!
We’re Donation Supported
17 responses to “Rethinking Our Bucket List + a Giveaway”
Leave a Reply
❤ CONNECT
❤ COMPANION BLOGS
❤ SUPPORT TGW
❤ GREAT RESOURCES
We do puzzles, walks in the neighborhood, roast hotdogs in the backyard, movie night, play table games, make meals together, let the kids make the meal, help child doing online school, email friends, house projects, and our latest, play computer games against each other (Settlers of Catan, Kahoot.it, Othello, etc.), .
My stay at home bucket list-
– paint the kitchen( the painting might continue if this goes on for awhile!)
– finish a baby afghan for grand baby # 8
– crochet an amigurumi lion to go with the baby afghan
– learn how to use my design n cut to make cards
– make more cards
– work with honey to figure out what is best to plant on our backyard slope that only seems to want to grow weeds!
– edge our garden with rocks
– go through and clean out photos on my phone.
– come up with some date night ideas. I loved your idea about visiting Italy!
We’ve gotten some of our decluttering done that we’ve talked about for over a year, we’re trying to try a new recipe every week [though that can be challenging right now depending on the content of your grocery stores] and we fix more meals together, we’ve revived playing some board games and card games and since we both enjoy video games, we’ve been trying some older ones that we haven’t played in years.
We aren’t empty nesters, so our current bucket list revolves around family time with two remaining teens at home. They are back to school (virtual for 2 weeks now) but we’ve managed some seldom done things without full-tilt schedules:
** more prayer time and spiritual feeding — besides live streams from our church, ligonier.org has encouraging and meaty teachings for our times, thousands of topics offered free through June 30 via app or website. With more time together we are watching them for nightly devotions and discussion.
** classic & family-friendly movies (like Gone with the Wind, Fiddler on the Roof, Shirley Temple in “Little Princess,” The Blind Side, Haley Mills flicks, older Pixar) while munching takeout buttery popcorn from a local theater trying to pay salaries through curbside concession sales. “Son of God” tonight for Easter!
** homemade treats–Chex mix, cookies, cinnamon rolls, guacamole–plus some different healthy dishes (I’m starting to view an inexpensive Great Courses cooking series). Some home exercise videos for me, to fight back added pounds.
** sewing– daughter has made fleece pads for her guinea pigs’ cage and finished a cross-stitch, husband made face masks for work
** son learned wood-burning to decorate a ready-made birdhouse
**weeding & mulching beds around the neglected yard, trimming branches, enjoying the fresh look AND blooming plants around the neighborhood
**making cards– since our church can’t continue twice a month chapel at a local nursing home, we are preparing these for a drop off to try to still encourage them during lonely hours of lockdown
** virtual site-seeing — found video tours of Mount Vernon (with lamb camera) and Williamsburg. There are others offered by world famous museums… I’d like to combine one of those with your THEME meal idea for a date night!
Rotate the tires! Doesn’t require going to a store and can be done in your driveway together.
We are seniors and our children have “strongly” encouraged us with much love and wisdom to stay homebound, except for sitting on the porch and going for a walk in our country neighborhood. My husband has been amazing in the midst of biting at the bit to go to work at our family owned trucking business! He’s now diverted his energies to join with me in enjoying the birds and squirrels in our huge yard. He’s rigged poles and ropes for the squirrels to get on to my “squirrelproof” bird feeders!! It’s such fun to sit and laugh together watching their attempts (not always making it to the feeder!!) The busyness of life had turned our focus onto seriousness, and rarely laughing and enjoying each other. Now we’re going to make sure these precious moments become MANY!!
We are cleaning out the freezer. Not an exciting task but good for the freezer, and we find items that have gotten hidden away and devise a way to use them (what can you not use as a pizza topping???) It has also given us the opportunity to search for new recipes that include some of what we have, and that has been great – some of them are going to be recipes that we make again and again.
We are reading, watching movies, doing puzzles, catching up on yard work, sewing masks, sending care packages to the grandkids, walking, and exercising together. Sewing, decluttering, and small building projects are on the list for the future.
-Taking a walk everyday is wonderful! Fresh air, sunshine, and movement makes EVERYONE feel better. Each week seems to bring a new migratory bird home, a new plant waking up, and the appearance of a family of insect or arachnid! Springtime is full of so much hope and new life. Being reminded of this is very encouraging and refreshing.
-This is also time to watch a long, classic movie (the kind with 10 minutes of music before the movie starts and an intermission) that you always say takes to long! (Ben Hur, Sound of Music, Around the World in 80 Days are a few we have enjoyed)
-Make something from scratch that you normally buy prepared or with a box mix (Bread, Brownies, Pudding/tapioca) and enjoy the adventure and the many conveniences we enjoy on a daily basis!
We are doing LOTS of painting! So far we have done 3 rooms and are getting ready to go upstairs and start there. We are also doing some decluttering…wow do we have some old junk!!
I have thoroughly enjoyed reading everyone’s lists! Being on lockdown actually gives me time to do this, so thank God for the wider time margins.
We are a blended family with five teens in virtual school. Here is our list in no particular order:
–Sewing/craft projects via online purchase. (The girls fell in love with the sewing kits and looming kits.)
–Cooking, baking, trying new cuisine.
–Reorganizing closets, getting rid of old stuff, putting in shelves & bins, and generally making storage more efficient. (Make use of that vertical space!)
–Taking the kids up to our cabin in the CO Rockies and drive the UTV around.
–Giving the dogs a bath in the yard with the hose (big dogs!). Water fight ensuing…
–Giving the cars a bath in the driveway.
–Having family devotions after one of the day’s main meals. We started following a little devotional guide given to us by our pastor. It prompts the kids to pray out loud on their own. Loving it.
–Assisting kids with sending cards and little goodies/crafts to their school friends.
–Playing lots of family games. (We just got Telestrations–so fun! Highly recommend.)
–Special prayer for one of the kids each day of the week, Monday through Friday, since there are five of them. I go from youngest to oldest.
–Setting up a Zoom call with extended family. This worked great on Easter. Everyone was able to figure it out after a bit of collective trouble shooting, which provided great interaction and collaboration in itself.
Stay safe and healthy everyone!
Scrape the old paint off the side of the house so it can be repainted
Shop from my pantry to avoid going to the store.
Continue to declutter.
connect with at least one person outside of the household everyday.
Post on Facebook a daily scripture that points others to Jesus
What a great idea! My at-home bucket list is to make some progress on things I didn’t take enough time for before, like:
1. Fill in blank spots in our front yard garden berm with some pretty annuals or part-sun perennials and herbs. This is enjoyable for me, and I know it also benefits my neighbors as several have commented on how much they love seeing the flowers I already have there.
2. Make some masks for our family and a few neighbors who don’t sew. (Checked off already!)
3. Get at least 5 new “complete guide” type posts up on my mushroom/foraging blog, as well as a couple new recipe posts as soon as hosting migration is finished this week. (Also, congrats on finding the morels on your property! It’s killing me that we probably won’t be able to visit the mountains for the season this year and may have to content ourselves with the few morels we can find down here in the city.) I have a huge post on my blog about how to find and identify morels here in Idaho (which will also apply to many parts of the world) if anyone is interested in making that a bucket list item. =)
4. Get my first digital products set up and selling for both my freelance business site (virtual assistance and marketing consultation), and my foraging blog. Been researching long enough! It’s time to pull the trigger.
5. Get my daughter a larger bike and start a regular family bike trip – even if it’s just around the neighborhood right now.
6. Make a traditional Black Forest Cake from scratch for my husband’s birthday on Friday!
Krista Willmorth recently posted…MORCHELLA FAUXRELLE ~ AKA THE FOOLS’ MOREL
I have enjoyed being home with my family. We are taking turns cooking, getting to know the things that my husband likes/dislikes, playing card games, trouble, connect four which I cannot beat my son, up at six in the morning working out with my husband what a great bond (walking away the pounds), these may not be bucket list ideas, but I am enjoying every moment, thank you God to be able to do this with my family. Stay safe and have fun with your family. Pray that we all continue to do these same things when we are allowed to get out and return to work don’t STOP!
We are studying Spanish on-line, taking walks on the beautiful college campus close by, reading, playing lots of Scrabble, cooking. A friend delivered ten pots of hyacinths to elderly couples – what a nice idea! I can’t find yeast for bread baking, so started some sour dough (recipe on line).
I love reading everyone’s ideas! We’ve been as busy as ever (maybe more so because the current world situation has complicated some of our regular activities and obligations) so there’s not much extra time to do a bucket list. Nonetheless I’m aware I need more self care than ever, so I’ve tried to
–take more walks,
— watch encouraging videos from ministries I follow to stay connected and deepen my relationship with God, and
— take advantage of free streaming offers of craft classes to improve my knitting and crochet skills.
My husband and I have been playing relaxing background music, which we spontaneously started dancing to one day (not like us at all) and we realized we liked it, so that’s a fun new thing to help keep us connected!
We just had our 50th anniversary and decided since my husband’s stroke that it was time to start dance lessons. We found some online, and it is going better than I thought. We are hoping to keep practicing!