Welcome to our blog.

This was our original purpose for creating this blog:

We are both baby boomers fast approaching sixty. This blog will chronicle the time leading up to reaching our significant day. Our mutual goal is to complete sixty specific tasks each by our 60th birthdays, and to both celebrate our experiences and our accomplishments.

We are "the fabled tortoise" in this effort. Our blog will begin with a slow start, so we ask for your patience. We are aiming for a strong finish, so we ask for your encouragement. We invite you to join us on our journey, laugh and cry with us, and celebrate with us. We encourage you to leave us your comments and feedback. Most of all, we hope you become inspired to perhaps create and complete your very own "___ by ___ list."

We borrowed this idea from a blog one of our nieces told us about: http://makingitlovely.com . The author is working on her list of "30 Before Thirty."

As we progressed we continued to reflect on the process and the progress:

We would like to make a point of clarification. Because we did not begin our endeavor until April that left us both with less than a year to complete all 60 tasks on each of our lists. Actually, JR has about four months and CEA has about seven months. For that reason we agreed that we would both use CEA's birthday so that we both have the same amount of time to complete our tasks.

Now we are both 60 and moving forward. We have decided to continue the blog, setting goals and celebrating our accomplishments, sharing our experiences and voicing our thoughts, and enjoying life by making the most of every day with which we are blessed.

CEA's List

Janet finished her list at least a week ago, but I've been dragging my heels even though this was my idea!  I finished up today, two days before the deadline.  I may have repeated myself, but since we've reserved the right to edit as we go, I'll publish my list as it is today:

1. Challenge Janet to join me in creating 60 by 60 lists.
2. Learn how to send photos via e-mail, maybe as Joan does with Smilebox.
3. Learn how to bake artisan bread, specifically the no-knead, 14+-hour rise method.
4. Really, truly get all of my paperwork handled.
5. Clean out my e-mail inbox and keep the number of e-mails below 20.
6. Lose 15 pounds.
7. Clear/organize the workshop.
8. "Shell" my fireplace.
9. Tile my fireplace hearth.
10. Fertilize the olive trees.
11. Learn to trim and propagate the olive trees.
12. Buy and plant (in pots) lemon trees.
13. Listen to classical music once a week. Renew my passport.
14. Bake a cake from scratch.
15. Buy wildflower seed from Wildseed Farms and plant by Halloween.
16. Get my windshield repaired.
17. Make pesto from my backyard herbs.
18. Cancel memberships in diet site and book club.
19. Complete laying the stones in the back yard terrace (phase 2).
20. Paint black iron chairs.
21. Paint green bistro chairs.
22. Repaint black breakfast tray.
23. Finish stripping fold-up tray table, paint and decoupage.
24. Buy cowboy work boots.
25. Scan old family photos, have Kinko's print them as posters, frame with black frames from Michael's, and hang in cottage.
26. Take a half day off each week. Go to a day spa for a day of treatments.
27. Scrapbook our NYC trip.
28. Learn how to use PhotoShop.  Organize my digital photos.
29. Produce this year's Christmas scrapbooks for my siblings (by October end of October).
30. Plan weekly menus with an emphasis on vegetables, fruits, legumes, and whole grains (see the DASH diet) for one full month.
31. Cook from a "found" recipe once a week.
32. Repaint the checkerboard "patch" in the kitchen floor.
33. Bake the rosemary rolls from the Pioneer Woman blog. Retile my grandmother's small black iron table.
34. Clean out the front flower beds, cover with cardboard/newspapers, cover with mulch, and replant with Knockout roses and Texas hardy lantana.
35. Finish filling the "Secret Garden" bed with gravel.
36. Get the bats under control: short and long-term solutions.
37. Reorganize the barn potting shed.
38. Find out how to get the heavy duty trimmer repaired. Order a Ryobi leaf blower. Learn how to operate the edger and the existing leaf blower.
39. Get back on a good vitamin regimen.
40. Use my Resperate three times a week minimum.
41. Make yogurt at least once a month. Replace the wood border around the swing set and rose bed with concrete "stones."
42. Wear my pedometer daily. Buy a new pedometer! [one that clips to my shoe, so I can stop dropping and breaking pedometers]
43. Buy a dollhouse leopard undies for my birthday present.
44. Get Janet to teach me how to handle our blog.
45. Post on the blog at least twice once a week.
46. Drink green and/or hisbiscus tea daily.
47. Order book boxes from Amazon (through the Golden Girls website) every other month with a mixture of topics (fiction, organizing, decorating, poetry, memoir): April-June-August-October.
48. Set up the paperwork notebook I read about on http://smallnotebook.org/.
49. "Craft" something once a week, minimum.
50. Buy flowers every chance I get.
51. Clear/reorganize my tiny closet [and purchase a "working" wardrobe].
52. Give mother and me a weekly manicure/pedicure and facial. Replace my cosmetics.
53. Observe Sunday as a day of rest. Update my planner.
54. Review my toiletries and cosmetics, toss as necessary, and replenish as necessary. Dispose of 60 items by throwing away, recycling, or donating.
55. Purchase the gift-wrap cabinet I crave, decrease my gift wrapping paper to four rolls, and stock the cabinet with my other wrapping supplies. Improve my magazine storage.
56. Add a rod to the linen closet for broom and mop storage. Book a trip to celebrate my 60th birthday.
57. Paint the linen closet. Go visit friend Joan.
58. Organize mother's paperwork files.
59. Paint candlesticks black and glue gorgeous shells to the tops.
60. Clear out my city storage unit!












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