519: 31 wishes

We spent the weekend in Duluth, and my cake was my favorite: carrot cake. And it was a beautiful weekend--perfectly peaceful and cozy and I must have gazed moony-eyed at my husband and said, "I feel so content, don't you?" a half a dozen times.

I've started my 31st year, and I've been thinking about my hopes for the year ahead. Here are thirty-one of them:

1. I hope my daughter's birth is gentle.
2. I hope my grandmother can meet her too: the baby will have her first name as her middle, and I would love the Marjories to meet.
3. I hope our decision for me to stay at home with baby will come more from personal freedom and not financial restraint.
4. It would be lovely to read half as many books as I did this year. I'm working towards beating last year's list of 220, which has a meager chance in 2010. Next year, I'm afraid my reading time will be limited, but I hope to not lose it all together. I love the way you can figure out when I learned I was pregnant; there was a bit of a distracted gap where not much reading went on.
5. I hope that my mother, her sister, their mother can find peace in saying good-bye to my Uncle Rob. He has lived HIV positive for over twenty years, and is now leaving this world with pancreatic cancer.
6. I hope that my younger sister finds herself on a career trajectory that contents her. She has such talent and is allowed to present it to the world in a limited capacity.
7. I also hope her summer wedding goes as she dreams and her marriage is as lucky and blessed as mine has been.
8. I hope my thesis manuscript finds its way into being a palatable book I might be able to send out to publishers one day. As of this writing, it's potential, but a delightful and neglected mess.
9. I hope Penelope's legs strengthen and she finds herself not desperately limping after her romps on Memorial Bluff and Hay Creek.
10. I hope we can get new carpet. That's been a long-time hope.
11. I hope to make tackling a thick Russian novel a winter-time tradition around here.
12. I hope to find time to continue to practice communal yoga after the baby is born, but if not, then I hope I feel confident enough to practice at home.
13. I hope my skin thickens at any reviews that might come out in connection to the chapbook. I hope I remember so much of it is individual taste.
14. I hope to break away from my own individual taste when evaluating books for awards or reviews. I hope I grow in the ability to appreciate a piece of literature outside of my own preferences, which are for lush figurative language, a clear setting, compelling characters. In poetry, I do have a fondness for lyrical and narrative both.
15. I wouldn't mind losing this pregnancy weight and then losing that PCOS weight.
16. I hope for another summer garden, this one with a new crop of asparagus and carrots.
17. I hope to find ways to rest and relax more. I hope to repair the whirlpool tub upstairs before the baby comes.
18. I hope the transition of bringing Sophie home will be smooth, that the pets, including the baby of the family Zephyr, adapt and grow to love her as much as I have the past few months.
19. Through knitting, sewing, letterpressing, etc., I hope to make art a more regular part of my life.
20. I hope to go camping in the summer, more than once.
21. I hope Ryan and I and the baby can go on a 'big trip' this summer, one that perhaps doesn't hinge on visiting family so much as going on a vacation together.
22. I hope she's healthy. And happy.
23. I hope my thesis defense in the spring will be full of strong and helpful suggestions and will indeed feel like a celebration.
24. I hope health care improves.
25. I hope the economy unslumps. I hope my loved ones are no longer battered from the consequences of a bad economy.
26. I hope to learn to identify more wildlife--both of the plant variety and the creature variety.
27. I hope to pick a classic author and read through the entire oeuvre, in order, back-to-back, marathon-style.
28. I hope to see all the organizations I support (and that, in turn, support me) continue to thrive. I hope to not see another bookstore close.
29. I hope to start the year with good thoughts and end it there as well.
30. I hope to improve my time management and goal setting.
31. I hope I am as lucky as I am now: my heart is full and blessed with a husband who startles me with his love every day, a circle of girl friends who hold me up when I am down, two sides of the family that make me feel loved and accepted, a wee chapbook that feels like the start of something good, a final year in the MFA program, a home full of books and pets and memories. I hope that blessed is a word I carry with me all year.