A confession: I've spent the last 2 days completely absorbed with another man. I've been reading "The Last Lecture" by Randy Pausch, a book he wrote for his children to remember him by after being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. A chapter of the book is called "Really achieving your childhood dreams," where he breaks down his own dream list and relates how each one has impacted his life for good- whether fulfilled or not. Randy, who passed away in July, accomplished great things with his life as a professor/researcher, but I think the most compelling thing about him is that he was just an ordinary guy; he worked and played hard, loved his wife and adored his children. His story has had extra impact on me because my energetic, full-of-life sister-in-law is now thankfully recovering from her own cancer scare.

So, in light of all this, I decided to list my own childhood dreams and see how I've made out so far.

1. Get married and have babies. Since I was just a little girl this was my goal. Babies, babies, babies. I wrote lots of stories of moms having babies 10 months apart. I knew it took 9 months, so I gave an extra month for my story moms to rest a little. I soon realized I'd personally need a little more time than that.

2. Get discovered. I had heard stories of Hollywood actresses or models that were discovered, just going about their lives, maybe, say shopping at the mall, when some agent approached them and signed multimillion dollar contracts with them on the spot. I liked to think that could happen to me. I had a few things going against me with this dream. The mall I usually frequented was in Idaho Falls, Idaho. Not exactly prime agent-hopping locale. And there's the fact that I'm not built anything like a model/actress should be, but it was a fun dream to dwell on anyways.

3. Do something cool after high school. Like travel somewhere. An LDS Church history tour? New York? Jerusalem? I had vague ideas but I knew something great should happen then. It had to be then because I knew I'd soon be married and having all the babies. My mom was all for this (thanks, Mom!) and with her encouragement, and a fun friend to accompany me, I attended two semesters of BYU-Hawaii. Here's a small, fuzzy picture of me in the banyon trees. (Blame Blogger, it's the best it would do.) Classes until noon, the beach in the afternoons. Studying sometimes. I even had a job at the Polynesian Cultural Center (one semester as a waitress at the fancy buffet, once at the Crystal Gallery cashiering for a glass-blower) so I got into the park whenever I wanted. My GPA dropped a half-point or so but it was definitely worth it!

4. Write a book. This one has yet to come to fruition. What's holding me back? For one I'm really hard on authors, and am terrified I wouldn't like my own book. And my million-dollar idea hasn't occured to me yet. I thought about writing a book about vampires, but it's been done already. Or wizards? Oh wait, done. Maybe after Holland goes to school I can focus on writing, take some brainstormy classes or something. But I will write a book someday. I will be discovered as a promising author. Until then I will have to be content being a published author on my blog. My 17-24 readers a day need me.