I LOVE LISTS

I love making lists and I'll tell you who's Queen of them: Barbara Ann Kipfer. This amazing woman has advanced degrees in linguistics, archaeology, Buddhist studies, and physical education. For more than 30 years, she's been writing and editing dictionaries, thesauri and other word books. Here are some of her gems:

• 14,000 Things to be Happy About
• 5,001 Things for Kids to Do
• The Wish List
• 8,789 Words of Wisdom
• 4,000 Questions to Ask Anyone and Everyone
• 201 Little Buddhist Reminders: Gathas for Your Daily Life
• Instant Karma: 8,879 ways to give yourself and others good fortune right now

I'm also a big fan of Jeffrey Yamaguchi's 52 Projects: Random Acts of Everyday Creativity.

Project #3: "Get your camera. Get on the train. Take the train to the end of the line. Take photos."

To view more projects and submit your own, go to What's Your Project?

Here's Project #100, submitted by Jeffrey himself:

"Make a list of 100 things. It can be a list about anything, but it should be personal. 100 books you'd like to read. 100 things you'd like to do before you are 40. 100 things that define who you are as a person. 100 people in your life. 100 things to do before the summer ends. 100 places you'd like to visit. 100 loose ends you'd like to wrap up. 100 questions about your family history you'd like to find the answers for. 100 ways to make your life better. When you first start out making your list, it will seem like it's going to be very easy to get to 100. About halfway through, though, you'll wonder if you are actually going to make it. As you get closer to 100, you will start to get very selective and contemplative with your choices, realizing you only have so many more spaces to fill on your list. Reaching 100 is a celebratory milestone, but of course, doing everything on your list is the time to really break out the champagne."

There's also the fun 'n' funky website 43 Things, where you can list your goals, find other folks who share those goals, and publicly chart your progress. Goals include: learn how to drive stick shift, visit China, play the piano, learn the Thriller dance, and sleep under a palm tree.

Finally, there's David Silberkleit's A New Adventure Every Day: 541 simple ways to live with Pizzazz.

Adventure #390: "Randomly give small anonymous gifts to strangers, simply to loosen up the hold that money has on youf life. Pay the highway toll of the car behind you. Leave one dollar inside a returned library book. [...] You mights even find that more money comes back to you than what you gave away."