Several days ago I saw my friend Kelcie's post on facebook about her 101 things for 1001 days. Intrigued, I had to ask her what this meant, and she filled me in on this trend.
The Mission:
Complete 101 preset tasks in a period of 1001 days.
The Criteria:
Tasks must be specific (ie. no ambiguity in the wording) with a result that is either measurable or clearly defined. Tasks must also be realistic and stretching (ie. represent some amount of work on my part).
Why 1001 Days?
Many people have created lists in the past - frequently simple goals such as New Year's resolutions. The key to beating procrastination is to set a deadline that is realistic. 1001 Days (about 2.75 years) is a better period of time than a year, because it allows you several seasons to complete the tasks, which is better for organising and timing some tasks such as overseas trips or outdoor activities.
I immediately jumped on the bandwagon, thinking it was a great idea to set some fun goals. So, after several days of brainstorming, here is my list! I did try to group them together as best I could, but they are in no particular order.
Start Date: Sunday, March 1, 2009
End Date: Sunday, November 27, 2011
Professional
Pass the AICP exam
Get promoted at work
Find a way to reduce my hours at work
Service and Charity
Donate toys or blankets to an animal shelter
Throw a holiday open house as a fundraiser for the food shelf
Sign up as a HHH mentor
Start a micro-loan through Kiva
Support Heifer International (for myself or as a gift)
Raise $200 for the Animal Humane Society
Foster a dog for ABR
The Simple Things
Roast marshmallows over an open fire on my birthday
Watch fireflies
Wear a Halloween costume
Go stargazing with Matt and Hannah
Go night swimming
Go for a bike ride with Matt
Make homemade ice cream
Bake and decorate a cake
Wake up early enough to enjoy summer breakfast on the back deck, every day for a month
Write a list of 100 things that make me happy
Family
Have a baby
Have a family portrait taken (me, Matt, Hannah)
Take dog training classes with Hannah
Get a second dog
For one year, send every family member and friend a birthday card or call them on their birthday.
Visit Grandma’s grave
Go to the Wabasha Street caves with the Reed family
Take Mom and Grandma to the Arboretum and Minnehaha Falls
Go hunting at a game farm with Adam, Dad, Matt, Hannah, and Molly
Finish scanning the photos from my baby album for Mom
Take Hannah walking on the trails at Minnewashta Park
Commission a painting of Hannah (or receive one as a gift)
Creativity
Write every day for a month (x3)
Complete 20 drawings
Go someplace for an afternoon to relax and draw (x3)
Buy and start anniversary scrapbook
Finish wedding scrapbook
Take the photography class – Photographing the Ecosystems of the Arboretum
Photograph the Arboretum in every season
Take a writing class at The Loft/Open Book
Write 10 essays
Publish an article
Make a new Christmas tree skirt
Play my violin twice a week for a month (x2)
Take the travel writing class
Write a travel article
Create a time capsule
On the To-Do List
Get wedding dress cleaned and mended
Paint the following rooms in our house: guest room, living room, kitchen, our bedroom, our bathroom
Health and Safety
Go the gym enough in a month to actually earn my insurance rebate
Go to the gym enough to earn my insurance rebate for three months in a row
Swim a mile
No cheating on the low-carb diet for two weeks
Try shooting some handguns to figure out what I am comfortable with
Nature and Environment
Take another permaculture class
Go snowshoeing
Switch to natural shampoo and soap
Put our reusable bags/baskets in the car. Use them for 25 shopping trips.
Get a second compost bin
Add 10 new birds to my life list
Get and install a clothesline
Finish the master plan for our yard/gardens
Plant a rose bush in memory of my Grandpa
Grow an espalier apple tree
Cut flowers from my own garden to decorate the table
Take Metro Blooms’ raingarden class
Install a rain garden
Expand the vegetable garden so I can start storing vegetables through the winter
Attend the Arboretum’s plant sale
Join the MN SFA
Travel
Take one of my dream trips (Galapagos, Italy, Provence, Serengeti?)
Spend a weekend in a California coastal town
Spend a weekend in Ely with Matt
Go back to the Boundary Waters
Go to T-Town with Matt (and visit Fred and Hilda and Dave and Judy)
Go back to D.C.
Take a beach vacation (Mexico?)
Go to the Celestial Seasonings factory in Boulder
Visit two new states
Food and Entertainment
Try 50 new wines
Go on five picnics
Eat at 112 Eatery
Get a Blu-Ray disc player that is Netflix compatible
Host fondue dinners for friends x3
Go to one last Twins game in the Metrodome
Go to a Twins game in the new stadium
Get a video camera
Start a reading log
Complete the puzzle Matt gave me for Christmas
Read one book a month (x33)
Eat on the back patio at W.A. Frost on a nice summer night
Go to 3 outdoor concerts
Try a new recipe every month (x33)
Buy a new iphone (more space!)
Financial
Contribute to the shack fund each year (x3)
Refinance our house (if it proves to make financial sense)
Open “travel fund” savings account
Spiritual
Spend one day a month away from the computer
Meditate every day for a month (x3)
101 Things
Document the 101 things in a scrapbook
Throw a party on November 27, 2011, to celebrate the 1001 days
Friday, February 27, 2009
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Jenn's Driving Adventures
I've prided myself this winter on being a better winter driver (due in part to the awesome new tires I have!). But today I met my match.
Weather wizards were predicting this huge spring snowstorm, 6"-8." I planned to leave work mid-day before the snow got bad. I kept watching the skies, and waiting ... and nothing seemed to happen! The storm started two hours later than predicted ... and when it did, full force! When I left work I didn't think it looked too bad. I cleaned off my car, got on the entrance ramp to 494, and within a few miles realized I was driving INTO the storm, which was getting worse, and that I couldn't see even two cars in front of me. Still, I'm calm, I'm a good Minnesota driver, I follow the tracks and drive slow, and everything's fine.
At least on 494. By the time I get to the Eden Prairie exit for Highway 5, though, I realize that my windshield wipers are collecting ice FAST, and that the heat of the windshield is only causing all this collecting ice to simply melt into water streaks every time the wipers brushed the windshield. You'd think it'd all melt into water and run off, but the snow was coming too fast for that to happen. Still, perfectly calm. I move my head around looking for a clear spot, and I'm pretty familiar with the exit, so I can intuit my way around the curve.
By the time I get to Prairie Center Drive, where I figured I'd stop and clear off the wipers, all hell has broken loose. I can no longer see AT ALL. Sticking my had to the windshield to clean off ice gobs has not helped. So I'm trying to drive with my head out the window to see ... except it's hard to reach my head out the window enough and still have control of the car! I put on my flashers and, I have no idea how, make it into a parking lot. Somewhere in my head there was a voice laughing about how I was like a dog with my head out the window, snow falling everywhere.
Somewhat shaky, I do a kick-ass job of cleaning off the windows. I clear off every bit of ice, even down along the bottom of the windshield, and shake off the wipers. By this point, my gloves and sleeves are getting wet from the snow, as are my feet (soaking!). But it's ok, I'm halfway home, and once there I'll have a puppy and lunch waiting!
I don't even make it down the freeway ramp before I realize I can no longer see ... again. This time, I'm shaking and scared shitless. I slow way down, and frantically wrack my brain to try to figure out what to do. I mean, I can't very well stop on the freeway with cars going this fast, not when I can't even tell where the shoulder is. I just keep trudging forward, trying to look at street lamps and guessing where the road is. By following the street lamps, though, at some point I realize I have just passed a freeway exit sign, and now I'm no longer on the freeway but on an exit ramp.
Which is probably a good thing. If I can figure out where I am. My brain thinks "well naturally it must be Mitchell Road" ... except that Buca is on Mitchell, and I can't see Buca anywhere. So I make a right hand turn (safest turn since I now have all windows open and can see out the windows) and see a BP up ahead. It's clearly down a hill, so I somehow figure how where to turn to navigate down the hill, hitting only a few curbs along the way.
I slide into a spot and this time, call Matt. And, typical pathetic female, start bawling into the phone! Oh boy, thankfully I can laugh at myself. But at this point I'm freaked out and not sure what to do. He suggests that the temp inside the car is too warm, that I should try turning it down a bit. By the time I get off the phone with him (again feeling determined) there is already half an inch of new snow on the car! So I get out again, now even more wet from driving with the windows open, and proceed to clear everything off again.
Walking around the car, I realize too late that there is ice under the snow, and fall face forward. I'm covered and wet head to toe. I'm so wet I'm actually able to wring out my gloves, and watch water fall to the ground. I bet gas station patrons had fun watching the Jenn show!
Get back in the car, start heading to the highway ... and don't even go a block before once again, ice is glommed onto my wipers and my windshield looks like it's made of liquid glass. Why is this happening - I don't see other cars with the same problem? I do a 180 in the road to navigate my way past the gas station, to Buca. I figured if I'm stranded, might as well be at a place where there's food, right?
Matt calls, tells me that their work is being let out early, I again am bawling on the phone, and he tells me to wait, because he's headed my direction and will come find me. Thank god! I have this mixture of relief, embarrassment, disappointment that I had to call him, and frustration. While waiting, I walk into Buca - what a sight I must have been, red eyes and red fingers! Thankfully, this amazing hostess, super friendly, is right there, and she offers me coffee on the house. At first I thought, "no she doesn't need to go out of her way" but then I realize how welcome hot coffee would be. She brings me coffee, cream, sugar, whatever I want. She is a true angel!! I had already made up my mind to order food to bring home for dinner, but now I do something I rarely do for take-out: I add a tip for my angel. To top it off, as she's getting my bag ready to go, she reaches into the oven and takes out a loaf of freshly baked, hot steaming bread. A large loaf. Serious godsend!
My second godsend, my husband, arrived as I was starting to clear off the car for like the fifth time. At this point since the car had cooled off, I figured maybe this time I'd have better luck. Together we clear everything off, he suggests how I should set my defroster, and we head down the highway with me following him very closely. It's strange what faith I had following him down the road. I knew that if I ended up in a ditch, he'd be right there, which automatically made me feel so much better. All the way through Chanhassen, the snow was so deep it was dragging along the bottom of my car. I could feel the drag slow me down and a few times wondered if I'd get stuck. I just kept putting my tires in Matt's tire tracks, and although the windshield wipers froze again, at least it only left those water streaks on the bottom half of the window - leaving me plenty of room to navigate my way home.
So, it took me a total of 2 hours to get home, and about five hours to fully feel warm and dry. Needless to say, I did not get as much work done this afternoon as planned!
Tomorrow is a new day!
Weather wizards were predicting this huge spring snowstorm, 6"-8." I planned to leave work mid-day before the snow got bad. I kept watching the skies, and waiting ... and nothing seemed to happen! The storm started two hours later than predicted ... and when it did, full force! When I left work I didn't think it looked too bad. I cleaned off my car, got on the entrance ramp to 494, and within a few miles realized I was driving INTO the storm, which was getting worse, and that I couldn't see even two cars in front of me. Still, I'm calm, I'm a good Minnesota driver, I follow the tracks and drive slow, and everything's fine.
At least on 494. By the time I get to the Eden Prairie exit for Highway 5, though, I realize that my windshield wipers are collecting ice FAST, and that the heat of the windshield is only causing all this collecting ice to simply melt into water streaks every time the wipers brushed the windshield. You'd think it'd all melt into water and run off, but the snow was coming too fast for that to happen. Still, perfectly calm. I move my head around looking for a clear spot, and I'm pretty familiar with the exit, so I can intuit my way around the curve.
By the time I get to Prairie Center Drive, where I figured I'd stop and clear off the wipers, all hell has broken loose. I can no longer see AT ALL. Sticking my had to the windshield to clean off ice gobs has not helped. So I'm trying to drive with my head out the window to see ... except it's hard to reach my head out the window enough and still have control of the car! I put on my flashers and, I have no idea how, make it into a parking lot. Somewhere in my head there was a voice laughing about how I was like a dog with my head out the window, snow falling everywhere.
Somewhat shaky, I do a kick-ass job of cleaning off the windows. I clear off every bit of ice, even down along the bottom of the windshield, and shake off the wipers. By this point, my gloves and sleeves are getting wet from the snow, as are my feet (soaking!). But it's ok, I'm halfway home, and once there I'll have a puppy and lunch waiting!
I don't even make it down the freeway ramp before I realize I can no longer see ... again. This time, I'm shaking and scared shitless. I slow way down, and frantically wrack my brain to try to figure out what to do. I mean, I can't very well stop on the freeway with cars going this fast, not when I can't even tell where the shoulder is. I just keep trudging forward, trying to look at street lamps and guessing where the road is. By following the street lamps, though, at some point I realize I have just passed a freeway exit sign, and now I'm no longer on the freeway but on an exit ramp.
Which is probably a good thing. If I can figure out where I am. My brain thinks "well naturally it must be Mitchell Road" ... except that Buca is on Mitchell, and I can't see Buca anywhere. So I make a right hand turn (safest turn since I now have all windows open and can see out the windows) and see a BP up ahead. It's clearly down a hill, so I somehow figure how where to turn to navigate down the hill, hitting only a few curbs along the way.
I slide into a spot and this time, call Matt. And, typical pathetic female, start bawling into the phone! Oh boy, thankfully I can laugh at myself. But at this point I'm freaked out and not sure what to do. He suggests that the temp inside the car is too warm, that I should try turning it down a bit. By the time I get off the phone with him (again feeling determined) there is already half an inch of new snow on the car! So I get out again, now even more wet from driving with the windows open, and proceed to clear everything off again.
Walking around the car, I realize too late that there is ice under the snow, and fall face forward. I'm covered and wet head to toe. I'm so wet I'm actually able to wring out my gloves, and watch water fall to the ground. I bet gas station patrons had fun watching the Jenn show!
Get back in the car, start heading to the highway ... and don't even go a block before once again, ice is glommed onto my wipers and my windshield looks like it's made of liquid glass. Why is this happening - I don't see other cars with the same problem? I do a 180 in the road to navigate my way past the gas station, to Buca. I figured if I'm stranded, might as well be at a place where there's food, right?
Matt calls, tells me that their work is being let out early, I again am bawling on the phone, and he tells me to wait, because he's headed my direction and will come find me. Thank god! I have this mixture of relief, embarrassment, disappointment that I had to call him, and frustration. While waiting, I walk into Buca - what a sight I must have been, red eyes and red fingers! Thankfully, this amazing hostess, super friendly, is right there, and she offers me coffee on the house. At first I thought, "no she doesn't need to go out of her way" but then I realize how welcome hot coffee would be. She brings me coffee, cream, sugar, whatever I want. She is a true angel!! I had already made up my mind to order food to bring home for dinner, but now I do something I rarely do for take-out: I add a tip for my angel. To top it off, as she's getting my bag ready to go, she reaches into the oven and takes out a loaf of freshly baked, hot steaming bread. A large loaf. Serious godsend!
My second godsend, my husband, arrived as I was starting to clear off the car for like the fifth time. At this point since the car had cooled off, I figured maybe this time I'd have better luck. Together we clear everything off, he suggests how I should set my defroster, and we head down the highway with me following him very closely. It's strange what faith I had following him down the road. I knew that if I ended up in a ditch, he'd be right there, which automatically made me feel so much better. All the way through Chanhassen, the snow was so deep it was dragging along the bottom of my car. I could feel the drag slow me down and a few times wondered if I'd get stuck. I just kept putting my tires in Matt's tire tracks, and although the windshield wipers froze again, at least it only left those water streaks on the bottom half of the window - leaving me plenty of room to navigate my way home.
So, it took me a total of 2 hours to get home, and about five hours to fully feel warm and dry. Needless to say, I did not get as much work done this afternoon as planned!
Tomorrow is a new day!
Monday, February 23, 2009
“Crazy.”
That’s what I thought when my parents admitted they weren’t crazy about Costco’s chocolate chip cookies. I can understand how they didn’t like my Low-Carb Brownies but these cookies? Chewy, soft, with tons of chocolately chunks. Delicious!
Thankfully they have excellent taste in other food. While they were here over the weekend, we cooked a wonderful dinner Saturday night (free-range grass-fed hamburgers with Swiss cheese; oven roasted vegetables), a treat of a breakfast Sunday morning (homemade waffles with pepper bacon) and a delicious salad on Sunday evening that has become a recent specialty of mine: spinach, roasted chicken, pepper bacon, avocado, grape tomatoes, chopped cucumbers, and gorgonzola cheese, topped with a homemade honey-lime-tarragon vinaigrette. Mmmm! My parents also brought some of their favorite Gevalia coffee to share. After being by myself for over a week, it was nice to share meals!
Hannah also loved having the family here, of course! They stayed two nights, and every morning she would run out the bedroom door, anxious to see them and get doted on. Her mother was thankful that Hannah had new people to see and new things to do – after being very naughty last week, I decided she must need more things going on in her life! So today I shipped her off to daycare. My dad, knowing Hannah’s separation anxiety, started teasing Hannah about how “awful” it was going to be, and how I was sending her to “CCC,” for “Canine Concentration Camp.” We all howled at how funny my dad was doing a dog’s imitation of the Nazi salute. But don’t let my dad’s shenanigans fool you – Pampered Pooch Playground is the exact opposite of a “concentration camp,” and I wish I could spend the whole day there with Hannah!
Thankfully they have excellent taste in other food. While they were here over the weekend, we cooked a wonderful dinner Saturday night (free-range grass-fed hamburgers with Swiss cheese; oven roasted vegetables), a treat of a breakfast Sunday morning (homemade waffles with pepper bacon) and a delicious salad on Sunday evening that has become a recent specialty of mine: spinach, roasted chicken, pepper bacon, avocado, grape tomatoes, chopped cucumbers, and gorgonzola cheese, topped with a homemade honey-lime-tarragon vinaigrette. Mmmm! My parents also brought some of their favorite Gevalia coffee to share. After being by myself for over a week, it was nice to share meals!
Hannah also loved having the family here, of course! They stayed two nights, and every morning she would run out the bedroom door, anxious to see them and get doted on. Her mother was thankful that Hannah had new people to see and new things to do – after being very naughty last week, I decided she must need more things going on in her life! So today I shipped her off to daycare. My dad, knowing Hannah’s separation anxiety, started teasing Hannah about how “awful” it was going to be, and how I was sending her to “CCC,” for “Canine Concentration Camp.” We all howled at how funny my dad was doing a dog’s imitation of the Nazi salute. But don’t let my dad’s shenanigans fool you – Pampered Pooch Playground is the exact opposite of a “concentration camp,” and I wish I could spend the whole day there with Hannah!
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
New Trash Bin
This may not sound like a very exciting subject, but for me, this was an all-consuming project for about a week!
Our plastic garbage can had given out ... after years of good use, the plastic pedal mechanism had broken. Matt barely had to utter the words "new garbage can someday" and I was online researching! Our garbage can sits in a very visible spot in our kitchen/dining room/family room area, and I admit I wasn't a fan of the blue plastic. I have long admired the stainless steel cans, so I set about finding the perfect one for us.
The search didn't yield promising results. Cheaper ones had poor reviews - though stainless steel, apparently the pedal mechanisms were made of plastic and broke easily. The "nice" ones were from simplehuman ... but were $125 - $150!! I couldn't believe people would spend over a hundred dollars for a place to put their garbage, especially when it would eventually still break, and was probably made in China or something.
So I started thinking of other options. We don't have a spot in our kitchen cupboards, which was a nice idea to keep the garbage hidden. One thing led to another, and finally I became obsessed with having someone make us a new trash cabinet out of wood - especially when we had this big empty spot in our kitchen that would be perfect for a new cabinet. After a lot of google searching, I found Tom Miller, a local woodworker, and contacted him. He made us this cabinet, out of solid oak!
It took him about three weeks. He matched the stain in our kitchen. Since we were having it built, I asked him to include two bins - one for garbage and one for recycling:
There are so many great things about this trash bin. It's handy (obviously). The wood is solid enough that there is no way our dog can get into it. If we move to a new house with different color cabinets, the wood can be stripped and restained. It's easily repairable, unlike stainless steel. And down a long, long road, if it is no longer functional, wood biodegrades quickly! Plus, even though this cost us more than even the spendy stainless steel garbage cans, I felt really good about supporting someone local.
Our plastic garbage can had given out ... after years of good use, the plastic pedal mechanism had broken. Matt barely had to utter the words "new garbage can someday" and I was online researching! Our garbage can sits in a very visible spot in our kitchen/dining room/family room area, and I admit I wasn't a fan of the blue plastic. I have long admired the stainless steel cans, so I set about finding the perfect one for us.
The search didn't yield promising results. Cheaper ones had poor reviews - though stainless steel, apparently the pedal mechanisms were made of plastic and broke easily. The "nice" ones were from simplehuman ... but were $125 - $150!! I couldn't believe people would spend over a hundred dollars for a place to put their garbage, especially when it would eventually still break, and was probably made in China or something.
So I started thinking of other options. We don't have a spot in our kitchen cupboards, which was a nice idea to keep the garbage hidden. One thing led to another, and finally I became obsessed with having someone make us a new trash cabinet out of wood - especially when we had this big empty spot in our kitchen that would be perfect for a new cabinet. After a lot of google searching, I found Tom Miller, a local woodworker, and contacted him. He made us this cabinet, out of solid oak!
It took him about three weeks. He matched the stain in our kitchen. Since we were having it built, I asked him to include two bins - one for garbage and one for recycling:
There are so many great things about this trash bin. It's handy (obviously). The wood is solid enough that there is no way our dog can get into it. If we move to a new house with different color cabinets, the wood can be stripped and restained. It's easily repairable, unlike stainless steel. And down a long, long road, if it is no longer functional, wood biodegrades quickly! Plus, even though this cost us more than even the spendy stainless steel garbage cans, I felt really good about supporting someone local.
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