28 Things to Do Before I Turn 28

(Two other posts under this one. I'm on a roll today!)

Here is my list for this year, since it was so much fun to try this last year:
First, repeats from last year or things I didn't finish:

1. Write a book review and submit it to an academic journal.

2. Find a dentist here and make an appointment to get my teeth cleaned. For real this time!

3. Get caught up with my personal journal project and print and bind the past three years (I'm beginning to think this will always be a work in progress. Every time I get caught up I stop writing for a few days and get behind again. I'm closer to being caught up than I was last year, but I still have dates where I just made a list and now need to go back and fill in details. Maybe instead of catching up my goal should be to get to a mental place where I'm comfortable just listing things some days and not writing an actual entry).

4. Buy a printer (I can't complete #3 until I do this, actually).

5. Go here.

6. Attend at least six live productions, not including concerts (classical music counts, though; I feel bad making this highbrow/lowbrow divide here but the fact is we attend concerts almost monthly but spend much less time going to plays/operas/the symphony).

7. Cross at least one more country off my list.

8. Cross at least one more state off my list (only 17 more to go!).

Now, new things to do:

9. Print the best of the pictures I've taken during the last couple of years and organize them into photo albums (anyone else paranoid about the internet just disappearing one day and taking all your pictures with it?).

10. "The unwillingness to give a hearing to contradictory viewpoints, or to imagine that one might learn anything from an ideological or cultural opponent, represents a departure from the best side of American popular and elite intellectual traditions."-Susan Jacoby. In the spirit of this quote, I'm going to attempt to read--with an open mind--a book I'm inclined to disagree with. And I'm going to try to find at least one piece of the book that I can agree with.

11. Go on a 20+ mile-long bike ride.

12. Finish a Seasonal Reading Challenge on GoodReads.

13. Visit Monticello.

14. Check out this place. (Isn't that cool? The only problem is that we may have to pretend we're planning an event in order to get a tour...of course, I suppose we could wait until we actually are planning an event...;-)).

15. Take advantage of City A's Restaurant Week to try a well-reviewed restaurant I normally wouldn't be able to afford.

16. Go to one of the local historical jazz clubs.

17. Read the Dark Tower series (I joked to Penn that he had to read the Harry Potter series or we couldn't stay together, so he retaliated by insisting I read the Dark Tower series. He's about to finish Harry Potter, so I figure I should humor him and attempt to fulfill his request).

18. Take the Meatball to a local basset hound event (I haven't been to one of these in over a year, and it's always so hilarious to see dozens of basset hounds together).

19. Eat here, here, and here (FYI, that second link plays The Chicken Dance, so you may not want to click on it if your volume is turned up).

20. Watch a Supreme Court hearing.

21. Buy new ski clothes so I can quit wearing the ski pants I've been wearing since the '90s, then ski at least seven times this winter.

22. Take a trip to Pittsburgh and visit Penn's college campus.

23. Go here.

24. Buy a new comforter for the bed.

25. Go to the local fish market.

26. Take a trip to Philadelphia to research a bar for my dad (seriously, he has requested we go to Philly and check out a bar for him since he is thinking of modeling something on it).

27. Take a trip to Vegas with Penn.

28. Make the list of 30 Things to Do Before I'm 30.*

*For the record, I'm well aware that 29 comes after 28. However, as I get older I think it makes more sense to make these lists every few years as opposed to every single year. I mean, can you imagine 62 Things to Do Before I Turn 62?