Winter 2026 Bucket List and Goals: Final Update

 

Hey friends, thanks for visiting.  I think it is safe to say that winter is behind us, here in El Paso.  We have had a couple of chilly mornings this week but we are looking at 90+F/32+C highs for this weekend.  And with that it is time to do a final update on my winter 2026 bucket list and goals.  

So, let's have a look, shall we?

Winter 2026 Bucket List

To be honest, I have been in a spring mindset for weeks.  Glad to bid farewell to Old Man Winter and move on.

I have always used the key below to identify my progress - or lack there of!! 

Completed  ✅

In progress ⌛

Not started or not completed  🛑

Taking the fail ❌

• Attend one public library activity (plant swapping, Spanish, crochet): pretty self explanatory, our library branch has some wonderful, free classes and I would like to try one:  ok, this is a fail ❌.  I have purchased my crochet needles and was planning to go last Friday but I was pooped.  Didn't feel like trying to concentrate enough to learn something new.  Been wanting to learn to crochet after seeing the beautiful things my friend Deb at Deb's World has created.  Bumping to spring 🐣

• Brainstorm and implement ideas for my online book club for 2026:  for this new year, I would like to shake things up a bit for Come Read with Me.  Interested in a no-pressure online book club?  Give me a ring!!:  ❌ haven't had a single bright idea for this.  Maybe sending seed packets to each other to plant? For now, though, this is a fail.  Bumping to spring 🐣  

• Buy googly eyes and put them on products in stores:  is this illegal?  PC and I saw it somewhere for a quirky date night idea and thought it could be fun.  But hopefully not land us in the pokey:  nope.  This update is not starting out well at all. ❌ Don't think I will bump this to spring.  Might be more of a fall or winter activity.  Will take the fail.  

• Complete scrapbooking our Alaskan Cruise, use CVS mini-photos:  I have begun Day 3 of our 7-day adventure.  Need to finish:   ⌛ I am mid-way through scrapping Day 5.  And Days 6 & 7 won't amount to much.  Bumping to spring.  🐣

• Durango New Year’s trip with the Buendias:  we will be spending a week in this beautiful winter wonderland...except their temps have been almost as unseasonably warm as ours:  my first green checkmark. Oh, we had such a good time.  And we were even blessed with fresh snow everyday.  Not a blizzard by any means but a dusting.  ✅

• Eagles tribute band at the Plaza 02.16.26, 7:30 PM for PC’s birthday:  this activity will be a few weeks shy of the official birth-day but this will be a fun way to celebrate my Prince Charming:  wound up making this a Valentines activity.  We enjoyed dinner at Great American Steakhouse beforehand.  The concert was really, really good.  If Take it to the Limit tribute band is ever in your area, please go see them!  ✅

• Enjoy game night with the Buendias: we have done this once before and the girls loved it.  Hope to make it an annual event:  we had several game nights while we were in Durango.  Played a game where we tried to pick up Christmas bows with a pancake turner, and another game where we tried to knock marshmallows off Solo cups with feathered party noisemakers.  Another night, we played Lotteria and Chutes and Ladders.  ✅

• Hike: somewhere!!:  we did take 2 hikes in Durango, along the Purgatory Trail.  The path is heavily forested and winds beside a creek that was almost completely frozen while we were there.  Going to give us the green checkmark for this but we need to do a local hike in the near future, too.  ✅

• Paint mini-nativity “Love Came Down” workshop: with Tricia Robinson:  didn't get to this before Christmas but want to make this happen before I pack away my holiday decorations:  well, decided to postpone this until next fall.  Instead, I painted "Bold Watercolor Wildflowers" with Tracy Weinzapfel.  My sister Valerie and I did this together over 5 evenings.  It was very relaxing, no pressure for perfection.  Just fun.  Giving myself the green checkmark for this even though I kind of switched things up.  ✅

• Put together new Christmas garland:  girls, I think I am losing it!!  A few years ago, I made a lighted rag garland for our banister.  This season when I got all of our decorations out, I couldn't find the garland or a very old stocking my great aunt made for me or a Santa my sister gave me.  Have looked all over but they are nowhere to be found.  Want to make a new garland while I mourn the loss of my stocking and Santa:  ❌  Fail.  Maybe for next fall in time to complete by Christmas??  🎄

• Register for the Goodreads book challenge:  I have done this for several years.   Along about October 2025, when I tried to delete one title from my list of books 'currently reading,' I wound up deleting everything I had read all of 2025.  Grrrr.  After fuming for a few weeks, I went back through my Audible and Kindle libraries, and my orders on Amazon and reentered all of the titles I could.  Everything is always an adventure with me!!:  YES!!  Finally something I can say an unqualified YES to doing.  Are you participating, too?  Please friend me here.  ✅

• Treat high school kids to a breakfast bar or cocoa on first day back:  we have over a dozen high school kids who wait for the bus on the corner of our yard.  They are so sweet and polite and friendly.  Would like to make their first day back to school in January a little brighter:  so this didn't happen the first day back to school after the winter break.  Decided to do it the last day of school before spring break.  Bought individually wrapped Madelines and gave them to the kids while they waited for the morning bus.  ✅

• Try at least 2 new restaurants:  maybe in Durango!!:  if I had an extra million dollars or two, I would open a good, homestyle family restaurant in Durango.  I tell you, the city is limited in what they have to offer.  At least near the Purgatory Ski Resort.  We did eat out several times but none of them were much to write home about.  ✅ 

I need to not beat myself up for any 'in progress' or uncompleted activities.  Have to remember this is just for fun, to give me suggestions of things we can do during the season.  There's always next season, right?

Winter 2026 Goals

Moving on, let's do one last check on my winter goals.

• Clean out photos through March 2019-March 2024: this has been an ongoing project.  I am deleting them from Google photos:   ✅  Going to say I completed this goal although this is an ongoing project.  Will continue this spring.  🐣

• Clean, organize and purge all closets:  somehow they are all stuffed to the gills.  Time to get a grip!!:  ✅  Going to call this done.  But will get into my closet again for a thorough going over this spring.  🐣  All of the other closets look pretty good!!  

• Complete 100% of my memoir course on Daily Om:  ⌛  Currently at 76% so I have made forward progress. I will bump the last 25% it to spring. 🐣  Can surely get it done before summer, right?  🏖️

• Complete first draft of “Dots and Crinkles”:  this is my latest story or children's book idea (that will never be published).  I have the outline down on paper and the story started.  Now to finish:  ⌛ Not much to brag about here.  I have written on the story and I have shared with my writing group.  Now to FINISH.  That means you will see this again on my spring goals list.  🐣

• Donate blood:  need to do this every season: ❌ how sad that I haven't done this simple act yet.  Fail.  Spring? 🐣 We'll see.  

• Finish scanning all our family pictures to Photomyne, begin work on anything Paul wants scanned, Mom’s recipes:  ⌛ this absolutely takes forever to do.  But I am back at it again.  Just not finished.  Hesitate to think I will finish this spring.  🐣  Fingers crossed.  🤞🏼

• Hang bathroom hand mirrors:  I have several hand mirrors in different sizes that I would like to hang in our little WC - toilet room: ⌛ Well, PC is finally on board with helping me do this, I think.  So, yup...bumping to spring.  🐣

• Implement Japanese Walking Wednesdays at the gym or on treadmill at home:  read about this today and it sounds like an alternative to running for this grandma.  Hope to do it once a week starting in January:  I have been doing this.  Alternating between the Japanese Walking workout and the 12-3-30 workout. ✅

• Lose weight to 138 pounds, track Weight Watchers:  always ongoing.  Need to get more serious about tracking my points.  Haven't weighed in weeks.  Will get on this next year!! Ha!! First thing in 2026:  have been much more faithfully track my WW points.  Hovering around the same weight - which is not 138 lbs!!  But my clothes feel good and I feel good.  Happy for now at 140.  ✅

• Pay off Amazon to $500:  one step forward, three steps back.  Christmas.  Birthdays.  Christmas.  Got to get this paid off once and for all:  ⌛ Marking this as 'in progress.'  Have done very well about not using my card and have worked extra sub jobs to make this a reality.  Bumping to spring to finish, I hope.  🐣

• Purge 26 things from my closet:  a few weeks ago, I rid my closet of 47 items.  Check me out!!  But there are still plenty of things to examine and reconsider.  Want to get this done before spring: ⌛ got all of the closets cleaned but just started on mine.  I have several things purged but not 26 items by any means.  You will see this again for spring.  🐣

Hmm, I certainly have more work to do but there's still a month to do it in!!  And I am already thinking about my spring bucket list and goals.  Will be sharing that on 03.21.2026.  Want to join me with lists of your own?

The Math

Let's do the math to see what percentages of my bucket list and goals I tackled this winter.  

There are 13 (why 13?) items on my winter bucket list.  I completed 8 of them, so over 61%.  

Yikes!!  Out of 11 (and why 11?) winter goals, I have completed a pathetic 36%, or 4 items.  Didn't exactly set the world on fire!!  Lots to bump to spring!!

Your Turn

How did you wind up on your resolutions, bucket list or goals for this season?  Our goal is just to make headway on things.  If we accomplish anything we are ahead of the game!!  

If you have a final update post to share, please link it up below.  I am joining some of my longtime blogger friends:

• Joanne at My Slices of Life
• Mireille from Chez Mireille:  fashion, travel, mom
• Bojana blogging at Bo's Bodacious Blog
• Marsha coming to us from Marsha in the Middle

Will also be joining them for my upcoming spring 2026 bucket list and goals post.  Hope to have it published this weekend.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Thank you for stopping by to visit.  Hope you can have some fun this weekend.  Do something for YOU!!  My Ft. Worth family is visiting and we are going to do a whole lot of snuggling over here.

Hugs and kisses,