What’s On Your Military Spouse Bucket List?

Nothing makes you take stock of your life’s goals like a big transition – and if your spouse is heading off for boot camp or deployment, chances are, you’re wondering how you’ll fill a lot of that extra time. Instead of a New Years Resolution this year, make a Military Spouse Bucket List. It might even take you a few years to check them all off, but that’s okay. It’s a great distraction from worrying about being lonely, when you’ll move next, or whether your spouse is getting enough sleep.

Here are 99 ideas to get you started:

• Swim in both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.
• Donate blood or join the bone marrow registry at Bethematch.org.
• Take a sign language class.
• Learn how to do one really cool magic trick and have a party trick for life.
• Build a house with Habitat for Humanity.
• Go camping (or glamping) and learn how to start a fire with sticks.
• Go parasailing (or hang gliding).
• Go on a hot air balloon ride.
• Wake up for the sunrise.
• Crash a wedding with a friend.

• Go screen-free for an entire day.
• Plant a tree.
• Visit the house you were born in.
• Go on a trip by yourself to the one place you’ve always wanted to go.
• Write in a journal every day for a year.
• Learn an entire choreographed dance.
• Open your own Etsy shop.
• Don’t buy anything except food and gas for three months and use the savings to pay down your debt.
• Pay for the meal of the person behind you in the drive through.
• Run a marathon or do a triathalon.

• Set a Guinness record.
• Do glass blowing.
• Learn calligraphy.
• Go to trapeze school.
• Audition for a play.
• Win the old Super Mario Brothers game and rescue the princess.
• Go to Mardi Gras.
• Get a tattoo.
• Spend a whole day at the spa.
• Spend a rainy day in a cozy library.

• Have a staycation by yourself in a hotel, order room service and watch movies all night.
• Have breakfast outside Tiffany’s.
• Learn to bake bread.
• Go to a movie theater and watch two movies in a row.
• Host a party and replicate all the decorations and favors from Pinterest.
• Become a Yelp elite reviewer.
• Learn the Japanese art of flower arranging.
• Learn to scuba dive.
• Matchmake two of your friends.
• Recreate a childhood picture with your siblings and give it as a gift to your parents.

• Make a time capsule.
• Declutter your entire house – every room.
• Buy yourself flowers.
• Ride a Segway.
• Visit a national park.
• Get an online degree.
• Fly in a biplane.
• Visit a real haunted house.
• Go to a new city for a weekend without making any plans in advance.
• Paint a self-portrait

• Make a mood board.
• Sponsor a child with Compassion International or another organization.
• Ride in a submarine.
• Go to an all-night diner in the middle of the night and people watch.
• See all 50 states.
• Go to Atlantic City and find all the streets on the Monopoly board.
• Roll down a hill like you did when you were a kid.
• Learn how to type on a typewriter.
• Ride a mechanical bull.
• Eat a hog dog at Coney Island.

• Camp in your backyard.
• Run in the rain on purpose.
• Learn the constellations.
• Sleep on the beach one night.
• Learn to surf.
• Be in a flashmob.
• Buy a meal for a homeless person.
• Learn an instrument
• Throw someone a surprise party.
• Swim in a fountain.

• Learn a martial art.
• See a TED talk.
• Be an extra in a movie.
• Go back to your college and visit all your favorite places.
• Go to a rodeo.
• Go to a film festival.
• Take a makeup lesson.
• Plant a garden and have an entire meal with only the food you grow.
• Drink only juice for a day.
• Go on a wellness retreat.

• Start a blog.
• Write a children’s book.
• See a Broadway show.
• Build something.
• Sew something.
• Get your photo professionally taken.
• Learn how to use a DSLR camera.
• Research your family history.
• Make a cookbook of old family recipes.
• Restore an old car.

• Brew your own beer.
• Post a video on YouTube.
• Make a quilt with old t-shirts.
• Learn wood carving.
• Get your fortune read.
• Make your own board game.
• Learn how to French braid.
• Learn how to read Tarot cards.
• Learn how to compost.

The 100th is your own…

Feature photo courtesy of Mike Libecap, U.S. Air Force