December Year-End Recap

Not Started: 50
In Progress: 25
Completed: 25
Missing: 1

Days remaining: 842
Days passed: 159

(if anyone wants to find the missing one, go ahead)


December was a good month, I accomplished several of my goals.  As it stands I have about 1/4 of my goals completed which is pretty great considering I'm only slightly more than 15% of the way into my time period.  Another 1/4 of my goals are in progress, some are well on their way to completion.
As is the popular fad, I am planning to go on a new year's diet/fitness thingy so I'm looking forward to my stretching, pull-ups and push-ups goals making significant progress in 2014.  My 365 photoblog has been going strong since its revival a few months ago and I look forward to its completion in 2014.  I think I will try to continue it past the "end."  In 2014 I hope to accomplish many more goals, I think this list is easier (and more successful) than New Year's resolutions.

I invite all of you to make your own lists!  Perhaps when I complete this list I will make a 365 in 365.  What are your thoughts?

Tie dye rainbow cake

Today I learned why you are only supposed to fill cake pans halfway...
This qualifies for rainbow cake but not for pretty.

Bunny Mansion

My dad was pretty intent on making it a square. I was pretty intent on making it big enough. Should have stuck with 2ft x 3ft. 30in square is plenty big but guess what is smaller than 30in... (a door frame)

The rabbit loves it though.

Cookies

As promised, here are the gingerbread men (and moose and giraffes and wrenches...) made and decorated with friends!

November Summary

Not started: 54
In Progress: 27
Complete: 19

Still not sure which one is missing....

My sister has gifted me with this journal and I have been using it as directed.  Basically each day has a question/prompt and a short space in which you can write one or two sentences.  Small enough to spend 2 minutes on daily but still technically a journal!
I have been very busy this month (and expect to be pretty busy in December too) so I haven't made huge progress but that's ok!
I made Nessie a new cage with my Dad over the Thanksgiving holiday but have not had a spare minute to assemble it again back home.

I'm looking forward to visiting MN for the Christmas Holiday and hopefully sending out cards on time *fingers crossed!*

October Recap

Hello everyone
Here's my October recap.
I again did not spend an hour with my camera but I'd already failed that one so I'm not going to stress about it.  I did drink plenty of beers in October and I am rapidly approaching the halfway point.  In case you are worried, I don't think I am drinking more beers than I did previously, I just make an effort to choose different ones each time.  Instead of grabbing a case of Sam Adams Boston Lager, I'll grab the seasonal, and instead of getting the same seasonal again because it's so darn good, I try to pick something different each time.  I am probably rambling about beer because I am currently enjoying one while attempting to make a significantly sized blog post.  I also had shift for IMAlive the other night so I got some hours in for that.  In October I did two shifts which is less than ideal but better than nothing.  I also gave blood in October and I am eligible again in December.  I think I met one of the goals I designated for the month and the car-cleaning and espresso-making fell by the wayside.  I am starting to wish I'd put different things on my list (like fix my damn laptop charger pluggy area).
I accomplished all of two goals in October but in the first few days of November I've gotten two more done and have plans for a third.

Days left: 896

(As of writing this which counts some)
Not started: 55
In Progress: 27
Complete: 18
(still haven't found which one is missing but I can't honestly say I looked)

September Roundup

Well here's my September Recap:

Not started: 63
In Progress: 23
Complete: 14

Still not sure which one is missing....


Things I completed this month:
Walk across the GWB Took some nice pictures for that one
Hang lights under my bed
Install Linux again (Linux Mint!) This one was a huge disaster at first but at least I learned some lessons without losing data.
Reduce GMail storage to 10% or come up with a good justification for the things I saved (I came up with an excuse)
Use my dremel for something: It came out pretty lame or I'd post pictures.  If anyone has beginner dremel project suggestions, I am all ears.


I drank several beers, read portions of many books, painted my nails, wore a dress (actually a few times).
I did fail to actually take photographs for an hour so it looks like at least $100 is going to go to charity.
This month I am going to set some suggested goals for myself.  I'm picking:

• Learn to use an espresso machine

• Fully clean and vacuum the inside of my car

• Dry clean my jacket from London

• Have zero unread emails in Yahoo account

Walked Across the GWB

It was very windy.  It was not as long as I thought it was (under 1.5 miles each way).  There was some bike thing going on so tons of bikes.  Most of them were incredibly polite.  I didn't know what to do when I got across so I figured I'd go to the bus station and they'd probably have some sort of bodega or starbucks or something selling beverages but in fact all of the stores in the bus station were closed and not closed like for the day but closed forever and looked like they had been for years.  I could have taken the subway somewhere but I didn't really know where to go so I just walked back over the bridge and went home.

Lights under the bed

Installing Linux part 2

Sorry to leave you all hanging.  I was actually able to use a recovery disk and get my computer back to its previous state.  Then I just installed Linux with the default settings instead of custom and it worked just fine.  I'm not sure why people told me to do it the other way but so far it seems to be just fine.  (And yes, I made sure it still boots to Windows too)

Installing Linux again

I think I deleted the master boot record on my computer.  Good job DJ, good job.  Now it doesn't boot.

Book #2 Finished

New Brunswick, New Jersey, Goodbye: Bands, Dirty Basements, and the Search for Self

I liked this book a lot because I am interested in/care about many of the bands and places it discusses.  If you have no interest in the subject matter you will probably find it boring.  It makes me want to visit New Brunswick more, it makes me want to go to basement shows more, it makes me want to pursue more artistic endeavors, it makes me want to support basement musicians.  It makes me wish I had been able to do that when I was in high school or college.

August Recap

So as I had expected, the excitement and motivation wore off.  I accomplished 7 things this month for a total of 9.  I have many things in progress.  Part of the issue is that nobody is around to come to dinner parties or tea parties or wine and cheese parties :(.  Believe it or not I have actually started cleaning my room and it is significantly improved!  I have ideas about things to sell on Etsy but I'm waiting on a tool to be un-sold-out.

Not started: 69
In progress: 22
Completed: 9
I'm short one..... I'll find it later
Days left: 962

I strongly encourage everyone to make a list and print it and hang it in their room (or if you enjoy the tedium of handwriting each goal onto a sticky note be my guest but you probably don't.  Really helps with the boredom and the feeling of purposelessness.

Sticky Notes

I'm going to probably make them into a header at some point but not right now. They are vaguely grouped by perceived difficulty and effort with green being easy, blue medium, and purple hard. I have moved the in progress ones down to a blank space on the wall so I can track progress better and the completed ones are on the side of my desk no but this picture was taken prior to that. 
Here they are:

Duck Egg

Here is a picture of the duck egg I prepared for myself!  I got it from Whole Foods and it cost $1.99 which is quite a lot for a single egg of its size.  The unbroken egg is slightly larger than a chicken egg with a more translucent almost greyish looking shell.  The shell seemed to have a bit of flex to it when I broke it open whereas regular chicken eggs tend to be much more brittle.  Duck eggs are also slightly bigger than large/x-large chicken eggs that I normally get.  The egg tasted exactly like an egg.  It was a bit richer than a chicken egg but the best way I can describe it is "a really good egg"

This past week

I feel like I am slowing down a bit.  I am not quite as excited about this as I was when I started but really I expected that to wear off a bit.  Last weekend I made the soft pretzel mix just to cross it off the list.  I have now made two different pretzel mixes and neither one was anywhere near as good as when I make them from scratch.

I am getting a new phone this week so that is going to be complete soon.  I'm also making slow progress on the Linux thing.  I am reading about three books at once, hopefully I will finish the short one this weekend.  I might have to get a library card.  I asked my facebook friends what books I should read and was very surprised with the people who answered!  Some of my well-read college friends were expected but some people from high school came out of the woodwork to make some very surprising suggestions!  People should really stop dissing facebook.  If I had to write letters to everyone I wanted to keep in contact with, my "friends list" would be way smaller.  I love how it allows users to post anything and then if their friends find it interesting or have something to say, they will.  If one were to write a direct letter to a friend they would be somewhat more obligated to comment on the things you write even if they are of no interest to them.

​

Book #1 finished

Coming of Age on Zoloft: How Antidepressants Cheered Us Up, Let Us Down, and Changed Who We Are

I liked this book because it put words to a lot of ideas and thoughts I have had. I did not learn as much as I had hoped, though I think the author did a good job of rounding up and discussing many of the issues surrounding antidepressants with just enough of a scientific background.

Check it out! I made a graph! Thanks Google!

​

Observations

Despite so many of my tasks being easy, I find myself a couple weeks in with only three things crossed out.  I feel better about it since I have so many things "In Progress" but man, I thought I would be like 10-20% done by now.  Strange because I've been working on it every day and none of the tasks are particularly challenging.  Good thing I have 988 days left.
So far I have been pretty motivated by this whole project.  I have been in fairly good spirits and tend to bounce back from my low points pretty well.  Which may or may not be relevant at all.  Definitely I have found myself less bored and less lazy?  Lazy is not really the right word so let me try to explain.

Let's say it's Sunday.  I spent all day Saturday hanging out with people doing fun things until late hours of the night so I've permitted myself to sleep in (until 9ish but usually not past 10).  I roll out of bed and take a shower, my roommate is probably not out of bed yet so I find myself something in the fridge to munch on and watch tv or catch up on the facebooks.  Roommate wakes up, we sit around for a while.  He showers and makes coffee.  We sit around drinking coffee.  I think about what to make for lunch and dinner.  Still watching tv or reading or something dumb.  Pretty soon it's like 2pm and I've managed to shower, dress myself, drink a cup of coffee, and if I'm really on top of things I've done the dishes.  I still have laundry to do because I only have enough work clothes to get through the week (I hate work clothes) and I still have to go buy groceries so I can cook whatever I decided lunch and dinner was.  Lately my roommate has been picking salads to make for weekday lunches.  This is awesome because he makes a big batch on Sunday and we just have to scoop out what we want in the morning and now there's no more scrambling to throw together a lunch and make it out the door in the morning.

Actually maybe having lunches in advance is what is helping me be more on top of things.  It lines up pretty well.

Anyway, pre-project I would usually spend the majority of the afternoon thinking about what to make for dinner and then going to the store and then cooking.  Then I'd do my laundry at the last minute and go to bed having accomplished almost nothing, basically only the essentials.  Now when I'm bored like this I look at my list and pick something.  I have lazy things I can do (reading, playing okami) and more challenging things (making a souffle).  I have things that require planning (tea party, dinner party) and things that I can make progress on in only a few minutes (freerice, push ups, walking).  My list has such a diverse list of activities that I can fit something in to my day every day.  I don't think there has been one day where I have not made any progress at all.  If I have done nothing at the end of the day I can always log into freerice and answer a handful of questions or go for a walk or do some pushups.  Small progress is still progress.

I really encourage anyone who might be following this to make their own list.  It is quite a lot of fun and if you are someone who procrastinates or feels like you have a tendency to waste your time, it can be quite helpful.  You can put anything you want on the list (the "rules" say that you have to be able to quantify your results somehow which helps prevent debate over what is "good enough") This is one of my favorites that I came across while trying to make my list.  Look at all the stuff she has!  It seems so fun!  Also in researching my list I realized that the vast, vast majority of list-makers are female.  Not sure why that is.  My guess is that the type of blogging that is conducive to this type of project tends to be primarily female?  Anyway bonus points if you make a list as a male.  I would love to see what things you come up with since a lot of the lists I have seen have more "girl things" like getting a manicure and not a lot of "guy things" (like.... sports? what even is a comparable guy thing?)  Also most of the lists had few or no tech-y goals (a couple "redesign my blog" type things but no building robots or stuff).

July Report 2013

So.  I've completed two tasks so far (zero emails unread in gmail, zero emails in yahoo inbox).  99 left.

I've started a bunch of things and realized that most of my easy things are things I have to do over and over again (push-ups, drinking beers, painting nails, shopping with reusable bags).  So I've made progress on a whole bunch of things but only two are really completed (and no I don't have to maintain that state but I certainly intend to try).  If you're interested, I've created pages that are linked at the top of this page to track things I am in progress with and things I have completed.  I intend to keep them fairly up to date though things like freerice change more often than I care to update (I haven't yet found a way to embed my score).

Since starting this project I've been on a very productive kick.  I think actually starting slightly before it, but this is lasting much longer than usual.  I've been waking up earlyish (finally found an alarm system that works) and I've been better at knocking out chores when I get home at night.  I'm hoping this motivation continues!

August begins the month I have to start doing "every month" things.  I don't think that will be a particular challenge but I am semi-expecting myself to procrastinate and find myself wearing a dress, taking pictures, and writing a blog post on the 31st.

One down, one hundred to go

Yahoo inbox is down to zero!

More clarifications

Month things are going to start in August and go with calendar months.
Proof will be posted if possible or reasonable.
The books have to be chapter books that I haven't read before (no Cat in the Hat) but I can count books I started prior to the challenge as long as I finish them after today. Ebooks are fine too.

Also: if anyone wants to help with things (which is as easy as coming to a tea party or gingerbread decorating or book lending) you would be most welcome

The Master List

Ok, here's my list.  You can google 101 in 1001 if you want to read the rules and stuff.

All of these are things I can accomplish

Some of them are easy.  You try coming up with 101 things you think you can definitely do in 1001 days.

Start Date: 7/25/2013
End Date: 4/21/2016

1. Write each goal on a sticky note
2. Try five new foods
3. Try 101 different beers (they can be beers I have had before but I have to drink them during the 1001 days)
4. Make a souffle
5. Make the soft pretzel mix that's been in my cabinet for a while now
6. Make Jam
7. Make pasta from scratch
8. Make a rainbow cake (or similar thing)
9. Bake sugar cookies and decorate them beautifully
10. Make and decorate gingerbread men from scratch with friends
11. Bake a cake and decorate it so that it looks actually nice and not just ok
12. Pretend I am on Chopped and make a meal using four surprise ingredients
13. Eat at Butter in NYC
14. Find (or valiantly attempt to find) a taco place on the east coast that is comparable (or close) to west coast tacos
15. Learn to use an espresso machine
16. Join a CSA
17. Buy a silverware set made only of metal 
18. Host a dinner party
19. Have a wine and cheese party
20. Have a tea party
21. Complete the 365 photo project
22. Send a postcard to PostSecret
23. Participate in Postcrossing
24. Send mail to 5 friends (not counting birthdays)
25. Send at least 5 birthday cards/gifts/etc. on time
26. Send fortnightly emails to my dad for three months straight (or call just to talk)
27. Send my mothers day cards so they arrive before mothers day
28. Send my Christmas cards so they arrive before Christmas
29. Put all of my friends' birthdays on my Google Calendar
30. Inventory my craft supplies
31. Enter a contest that requires actual effort (sweepstakes where you just fill out your info don't count)
32. Sell something on Etsy
33. Finish (and mail) my sketchbook project sketchbook by the deadline
34. Crochet an entire blanket
35. Use my dremel for something
36. Finish all repairs in my sewing queue
37. Make my "you are here" shirt
38. Spend at least one hour a month with my real camera
39. Build a new cage for Nessie
40. Compile and print a list of safe/unsafe foods for Nessie
41. Reach level 10 in DuoLingo for both French and Spanish
42. Read 50 books
43. Memorize all the elements in the periodic table in order
44. Install Linux again
45. Learn to decently play at least one song on guitar
46. Get back the stuff I left at my mom's house when my dad made me empty my room.
47. Have my room look nice enough I am not embarrassed to photograph the whole thing and post it online
48. Fully clean and vacuum the inside of my car
49. Have zero unread emails in GMail account
50. Have zero unread emails in Yahoo account
51. Reach zero emails in my inbox on my yahoo email (I can move them to other folders, I don't have to delete them)
52. Reduce GMail storage to 10% or come up with a good justification for the things I saved
53. Use only reusable bags at the grocery store 50 times
54. Write a living will and have it notarized
55. Go to the damn dentist
56. Have no dishes in the sink when I go to bed for 30 consecutive days
57. Get to work before 8:25 for 30 consecutive work days
58. Don't complain (out loud or online) about anything for 5 straight days
59. Stretch every day for 30 consecutive days (at least 5 minutes per day)
60. Get a car emergency kit (jumper cables or whatever) for my car
61. Visit family in MN again
62. Visit Seattle
63. Attend a dance performance
64. Achieve my Left and Right splits (center is bonus but not required)
65. Do 1001 pushups (that's an average of one per day)
66. Do 8 pull ups in a row (might change this to a higher number if I get to 8 early on)
67. Walk a total of 101 miles (by the end of the 1001 days)
68. Walk across the GWB
69. Watch the movie Brave
70. Finish Okami
71. Paint my nails 50 times (can count current polish if I start while my nails are painted)
72. Wear a dress or skirt at least one day per month for a year
73. Buy a winter jacket that is both very warm and very stylish (or move to a location that is never colder than my London jacket can handle)
74. Dry clean my jacket from London
75. Fix or get rid of all broken shoes with the exception of the pair I wore in my dad's wedding
76. Get a new phone
77. Get a less crappy EZ-Pass than the VA one I have
78. Invest in at least one more stock
79. Frame my Gaslight Anthem, Every Word Handwritten, and Gay Blades posters
80. Buy something in which to organize my many show wristbands etc.
81. Purchase something in which to file my important documents and file them.
82. Get a chair for my desk
83. Set up my laptop and hard drives on my desk
84. Hang lights under my bunk bed
85. Unbox everything that doesn't belong in boxes
86. Contribute 2+ more recipes to RIBSless
87. Restart the Oats4Breakfast blog
88. Write and post monthly recaps of this list
89. Complete or make a habit of some sort of journal
90. Do an experiment (an actual experiment with a control and data gathering, not just trying something new)
91. Do at least 10 things tagged to_do on my pinboard
92. Make at least 10 untried recipes from my pinboard
93. Contribute to fixing or replacing the WRPI soda machine
94. Donate to 5 charities
95. Donate blood at least five times
96. Pass 200 IMAlive Volunteer Hours
97. Donate 101 items
98. Donate 100,000 Grains of Rice on FreeRice.com
99. Volunteer at an animal shelter
100. Put $10 into savings for every goal accomplished.
101. If at the end of the 1001 days I have not completed the other 100 goals, give $100 to charity for each one.  If I have completed all 100 other goals I can spend $100 on something of my choice.

Rules:

• I am the ultimate judge of whether or not I have completed a task
• If I think of an exception I forgot to note while making the list it can be added on as long as I would have noted it if I had remembered
• Should disaster befall me (such as job loss or serious injury) I am not required to hold true to my donation threat/incentive
• I do not have to complete #101 within the 1001 days if it requires donating more than $100 to charity
• If something on the list becomes impossible I can substitute another similar thing
• Failing to maintain a streak does not count as becoming impossible if it was my fault