101 goals for 1001 days

2009-05-22T05:44:00.001-07:00

Alright, finally lots of stuff to report...

Goal 1 - Adopt 2nd child. We're done with our homestudy and now we're raising money to proceed with the agency. We're hoping to be done with this by the end of the year.

Goal 2. Pay off 1st adoption debt Slowly but surely. The plan is to have this gone with our next year's tax return.

Goal 15. Watch AFI's top 100 movies Watched the following - The Deer Hunter (weird), Rocky (fell asleep half a dozen times but wanted to see the ending so I also rewound it half a dozen times), American Grafitti (great music), City Lights (Did not know that I liked Charlie Chaplin), Dances with Wolves (different from when I remember seeing it as a kid), Gold Rush (sort of kinda fell asleep), and now working on Ben Hur - holy cow that movie is 5 hours long! It may take me a week to get through that one!

Goal 17. Read 100 best novels I've been doubling up, no, tripling up on these. One in book form, one on the iPod, and one in the car. Here's how I've done so far... _Light in August_ (William Faukner) was okay. I have to go back and read a summary b/c I think I missed some major plot point. But it was interesting anyway. _Beloved_ (Toni Morrison) was good but strange. Not what I expected. _The Fellowship of the Ring_ (Tolkein) - I'm 90% done with but I had to return it for the library. I got a silly grin when I went to check it out - I love this series so much! I can't wait to move on to the next one. _The Hunchback of Notre Dame_ (Victor Hugo) I am listening to as I type. I like the book, but whoever thought this would make a good kids movie I think was stretching it a bit (or a lot). I haven't seen it but I think it's on Andrei's Netflix, so I'll have to see how in the world they made that work! _The Handmaid's Tale_ (Margaret Atwood) was amazing. I really loved it, but I also loved _1984_ and it reminded me of that. I raced through that one in a week and a half. Currently just started _Persuasion_ (Jane Austin) and _Love in the Time of Cholera_ (Gabriel Garcia Marquez). So that makes 10 finished, 2 almost finished, and 2 just starting.

Goal 23. Take a picture every day for a year and post on Flickr Well I know I said I was doing this in 2009, but I got very sick for a week and let it slip. So we'll have to complete this goal in 2010

Goal 26. Make $1000 doing graphic design work I made $50. And I have more work on the way :)

Goal 37. Read Chronicles of Narnia to/with Andrei We finished _Prince Caspian_ and we're about to start _The Voyage of the Dawn Treader_. We're reading one per school term so we should be done in fall of 2010.

Goal 42. Take bellydancing class - DONE! My workplace was offereing free classes at the gym this past week and one was a bellydance class. I really enjoyed it, and when talking to the instructor, I found a regular evening class that works with my schedule. So I will be attending that when I have the time :)

Goal 49. Go without soda for one month The attempt at doing this during Lent failed as my birthday fell right in the middle and Andrei bought me a soda for a present. How could I turn down a generous gift like that! He sure knows me! But, a few weeks later, I was enjoying a Diet Coke and got a severe headache and was sick for 2 days. So I've sworn off it totally. I don't know exactly the last date I've had soda, but it surely has been a month, or at least I will have completed this by the end of May.

Oh yeah, and DH bought me a coffee on my birthday and I haven't completed the month-less-ness on that yet either.

Goal 70. Eat 5 types of fruit that I have never had before The third was kumquats. But we didn't really like them and I had bought a whole pint. I couldn't let them go to waste, so I blended them up with a banana and some yogurt and Andrei and I enjoyed a nice smoothie.

Goal 85. Make all of the 50 best cookie recipes on the internet I stalled on this one for a while. The next one on the list was checkerboard cookies and I didn't want to do the work so I just kept putting it off. Finally I was home one Saturday all day so I tackled them. I started at noon and wasn't done baking until 6 PM. Most of that was not active, but passive waiting for them to freeze, but still. They were not good enough to justify the work. Next was Lemon Crumb Bars which were so so good and they disappeared quickly in our house. After that was Cranberry Decadent Cookies which were okay but Andrei loved them. Next I have to make is Brown Eyed Susans. They look easy but I have to get almond extract which I keep forgetting. Maybe next week. I've completed 8 from this list.

Goal 89. Have a garden with 8 types of plants The garden boxes are made and we're waiting for the rain to stop to order the dirt. I forsee a planting frenzy on Memorial Day :)

Ok that's it for now - I'll be back sooner than 2 months - I promise.

2009-03-12T14:37:00.000-07:00

Goal 15 - Watch top 100 movies. Lessie, how far have I gotten now.... Well, I watched The Wild Bunch - if by watch you mean surfed while it was on. I sorta watched it. I have The Deer Hunter now waiting for me to have an evening to myself - that's a long one!

Goal 76 - Make a successful pie crust. Complete! I have done it! I used my Joy of Cooking book, and I think I figured out the perfect amount of kneeding and water and all that. Yay!

Hm, that's it. I thought there was more. Oh well.

Oh yeah, I made another cookie from the 50 best cookies list - this one - Hazelnut Ganache Cups They were good but not awesome. DH liked them though. I had to keep them frozen to make them hard enough to eat, but even then they were pretty soft. I think too much vanilla.

I didn't take any pics :( I think I will make the next cookie on Saturday and I'm looking forward to it!

2009-02-26T06:53:00.001-08:00

Just plodding along on my goals. I think I'm doing okay, although I'm questioning some of my choices for goals. Oh well - we'll see.

Goal #1 Adopt 2nd child - we are started with our homestudy and have a potential referral - it won't be for sure until we send our paperwork to Thailand and that is months away - but we're praying and hurrying as best we can

Goal 2 - Pay off Adoption debt - we have paid off the smaller of the two debts, and if everything works out correctly, we should be able to pay off the larger one with next year's tax return. That will be such a huge weight off of us - I am putting every extra penny into that loan to get it over and done with (then we'll also be completely debt free!)

Goal 15 - Watch AFI's top 100 movies - I can't remember the last time I posted (I'm at work so I cant' check) but I've now watched Mutiny on the Bounty (pretty good - interesting trivia), Duck Soup (DS loved this one), Fargo (not at all what I thought it was about), Platoon (made me cry), Giant (long, but interesting), Modern Times (I like these old timey silent films), and the Apartment (that girl has issues). Frankenstein is coming with Netflix today. With todays, that will be 20/100 movies.

Goal 17 - Read 100 best novels - I read Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy last week (out of order) because we owned it and it's a favorite of mine - it will never get old! I also just finished The Trial (Frank Kafka) on audio book. Bo-ring. I'm so glad that is done with. It made no sense and the main character was annoying. Sorry, K! Next is Light in August (Faulkner). So far I've done 7/100 - yikes, I have a ways to go!

Goals 48 & 49 - go without coffee/soda for one month - Well, it's Lent and I've decided to give them both up. So in 40 days I'll come back and check those off. :)

Goal 72 - Make Seitan - COMPLETE! I did this and I didn't like it at all. I thought it tasted burnt and threw most of it away :( Oh well. Maybe I'll try again someday - it was pretty easy.

That's it for today. A lot of the other goals are very slowly progressing and someday I'll post about them, but right now I should probably get back to work. I'm already starting to make a list for next time, and have 12 ideas written down. I should probably focus on finishing this list first though!

2009-01-23T05:43:00.001-08:00

Finally finished _For Whom the Bell Tolls_. It was amazing and I loved it. I'm so glad I didn't give up on it and got the audio book. I already have _Atonement_ (Ian McEwan) in audiobook form downloading onto my iPod to start on later today. I promise this one won't take me 2.5 months to get through!

2009-01-08T07:14:00.001-08:00

Not much of an update, but I havn't written in a bit, so I thought I could put down *something*.

Goal 1 - Adopt 2nd child. Well, we sent in our application for our homestudy, and the main goal for 2009 is to adopt. Or at least be paper ready and waiting.

Goal 17 - Read 100 best novels. I'm still working on _For Whom the Bell Tolls_ but I did get the book on CD and I'm listening to it every day when I do my chores. I should be done sometimes next week. The book is pretty good but I'm ready to move on to the next one.

Goal 23 - Take a picture every day of the year and post on Flickr. Well I've been doing the every day thing so far in 2009, but I forgot about the Flickr thing. I'll do that this week sometime.

Goal 28 - DONE - Digitize all of Andrei's paperwork. Well I didn't actually do this - I changed my mind about that. But I DID organize it all into one folder, instead of strewn about my office in various boxes and files. So all of his adoption stuff, his records, and our information is all nicely in one (very fat) manila folder.

Goal 91 - Do NaNoWriMo. Well, does this mean do it, or finish it? Cuz I started and only got to about 4000 words. It fell apart in a matter of days. So I guess I did participate... but I'll still try in 2009 and 2010 to actually finish.

Goal 92 - Floss every day for a month. I'm well on my way. I would have made December but I fell apart during the holidays when I didn't have to work. But I made up a new morning routine and now I am in the habit. I just have to remember on the weekends. But hopefully the end of January I will be able to mark this as done!

That's it for now. I'm torn about goal 18 (move bed into basement) because Brent and I decided that we didn't want to do that anymore. I guess the big part of that goal was to make the basement liveable, so maybe that will be the revised goal. I'll have to figure out how to make it measureable and then update it.

2008-12-10T07:53:00.001-08:00

I may have been slacking writing on here, but I have not been slacking on my goals.

Here are some updates:

Goal 15 - Watch AFI's top 100 movies

Well I've now seen My Fair Lady, The Jazz Singer (awesome), Patton (most of it - very sleepy that day), and Easy Rider (which solidfies my stance to never use illegal drugs). I've taken a short sabbatical because I wanted to watch Christmas movies this month, but I'll continue in January - they're all lined up on my Netflix list.

Goal 18 - Read top 100 books

I'm having such a hard time with this one. :( I can't make myself sit down and read, escpecially since I have so many Christmas projects to work on. And I'm not a big fiction reader - I can't follow who is who. I think I may look for books on tape for the car or when I'm cleaning -that may make it bearable. (still stuck on For Whom the Bell Tolls)

Goal 29 - FAIL - Ride bike 100 miles in 2008

Well, I made it to 87.9 miles. Next year I will have to try again (for 110 miles)

Goal 81 - DONE - get my crown done.

Close enough on this one. I've done the drilling and have the temporary one on now. It was not very fun, but at least it's over. On the 22nd I have my appointment for my permanent crown. Although the dentist said I'll need another one sometime so maybe this one will show up on my next list also....

Goal 94 - DONE - Complete Fallout III - December 1, 2008

Awesome game - I had a lot of fun :) I took the cowards way though, if you have played and know the ending. I did save earlier so I can go back and play more side stuff, but I've not had the time lately.

Tis it for now. Budget and time crunching has been hindering all my cooking exploits, but I expect to be back into that as the long boring winter slogs on.

2008-10-18T12:38:00.000-07:00

I've been putting off writing because I have so many things to ad and pictures and what-not. I don't particularly like adding pics so I keep procrastinating. So now I'm just going to do a long post and too bad about the pics :P

Goal 15 - Watch top 100 movies. I've watched The Searchers, Pulp Fiction, and Goodfellas. I'm watching A Place in the Sun as I type this. I've liked all of them so far. Pulp Fiction I'd seen already but I didn't need an excuse to watch it again. :) It seems I've passed over The Apartment and it's not on Netflix so I'll have to see if the library has it.

Goal 17 - Read top 100 novels. I finished Doctor Zhivago and really liked it. I think it helped that I had been in Russia - so I sort of had a picture reference in my head when I was reading. I have just started the first few chapters of For Whom the Bell Tolls. Not bad so far.

Goal 32 - Make meals from 30 different countries. A week after we did Turkey, I was looking up recipes and realized I had everything we needed to make the next country; Zimbabwe. I made Dovi (peanut butter stew) and sweet potato cookies. I also tried to make cornmeal cake but it inedible. I baked it for hours and it still was runny. :/ Oh well.

Goal 80 - Go to the Jelly Belly Museum in Kenosha, WI. Last Sunday I went there with my son, mom, sister, and niece. It was great fun and I ate too much candy. :)

Goal 86 - Make 50 best cookies. I've made the Petit Lemon Curd Cookies, Chocolate Chip Cookies, and today the Heath Bar cookies. It's not really helping my weight loss goals, but they taste so good. I try to make them before going to a party or somewhere so I can bring them all along to share. :)

I think that's about it for now. NaNoWriMo is coming up soon but I'm not sure I'll be able to this month. I suppose I'll try anyway tho.

2008-10-01T13:45:00.001-07:00

Goal 44 complete: Fly a kite with Andrei.

It only lasted for a few minutes, but it was fun anyway. Maybe tomorrow will be windier.

2008-09-30T16:04:00.000-07:00

Lots of little updates today

Goals 12&13: Do 100 consecutive pushups/situps. I've been following this plan and I'm on week 2.

Goal 15: Watch top 100 movies - I watched Unforgiven, did I write about that? I also put all the rest on my Netflix so they'll be coming automatically.

Goal 17: Read top 100 novels - I finally finished As I Lay Dying. Well, sort of. I read 3/4 of the way through and then realized I had no idea what was going on, and I couldn't follow the story line to save my life. So I put it down. Now I'm on Dr. Zhivago. I'll finish this one, I promise.

Goal #29: Ride 100 miles in 2008. I'm so close! I'm up to 87.9. I try every day to think of places I could ride to, but the weather is not cooperating, and DS always wants to go with me which hinders where we can go. I'll try and make it.

Goal #70: Eat 5 types of fruit that I've never had before - DH, DS and I all shared and Ugli fruit the other day. It tasted like an orange, but had an underlying taste of garlic, of all things.

Goal 32: Make dinners from 30 different countries. Tonight we had Turkish cuisine. We had Shepherd's Salad, Lentil and Mint Soup, and Cream-stuffed Apricots. I got the recipes here.

I didn't think I'd really like any of it, but it was all super! I've never cooked with mint before, and that was a nice surprise to a soup. The only thing was that the apricots were really very sweet. But all in all it was a good dinner. :) (even tho my food pictures never look good at all)

2008-09-24T18:20:00.000-07:00

Goal 75 done - make a key lime pie from scratch :) The picture may not look so appetizing, but I assure you, it was delish. And I even squeezed all those little limes - I didn't even use bottled juice. So worth it. I had better grab that last piece before DH does.

2008-09-24T13:53:00.000-07:00

Goal #24 completed! - have a conversation in ASL without an interpreter.

It was a slow and arduous conversation, but we managed.

Let me give a little background. My niece is deaf and DS and I have been trying to learn sign language. We have a few deaf people at our church, and I sit near them and try and watch the interpreter to learn that way. More recently I have gotten the guts up to talk to them and now one of the moms (deaf) and an interpreter are hanging out for fun on Wednesday evenings while our kids are in church.

This past weekend I invited their whole family to have lunch with us, sans interpreter. We got along. The dad speaks a little, so he helped when we were really stuck. It was fun.

So this goal really was to get me on the way to learning ASL, and making friends with the deaf couple in our church.

yay :)

2008-09-07T06:07:00.000-07:00

Goal #85 - Finished the 2nd of the best cookie recipes - Oatmeal Cookie Sandwiches with Nectarine Ice Cream

Goal #15 - top 100 books. Finally finished Uncle Toms Cabin. It got a little dry in the middle and I put it down for a while. I was determined to finish last night, so I picked it up again and the story was much more interesting in the end.
Now I have As I Lay Dying.

Hmmm, what else.... I biked to the grocery, and a couple of other close places, so I'm up to 84.7 miles. Almost there! I'm watching Unforgiven right now. I tried to watch it two times already with Brent, but fell asleep both times. So now DS is watching Sunday morning cartoons, and I'm watching it on the computer. That will be #4 movie?

DS and I started school so we're on our way to that goal. That's it for the day.

2008-08-27T17:26:00.001-07:00

First cookie of the 50 best cookie recipes is made.

:groan: They are so so good.
Whoopie Pies

For some reason I can't post a picture so you'll have to take my word for it.
Well I suppose I could do this - http://twitpic.com/99a0
Yum!

2008-08-26T04:05:00.000-07:00

Goal 37 - Read all of the Chronicles of Narnia with Andrei. We started that last night. I was a little apprehensive because he doesn't do well with chapter books yet - his listening and language skills are just not up for it. But he has seen the 'Lion Movie' about 10 times so I knew he knew the story.
He loved it and remembered what was going on and was able to listen. :) I was so proud. He was really upset that there were no pictures, but then I told him he should make the pictures in his head and remember the movie. When the kids got to the room with the wardrobe he got all excited and said it was magic :) So we're going to try and read it every night.
He's seen Prince Caspian once but maybe we'll rent it before venturing into that book. Otherwise I hope his listening skills are improved by the time we get there.
Yay! I love these books and it's so cool I'm sharing them with my boy! :)

2008-08-18T05:48:00.000-07:00

Sitting in the Sacramento Airport now so that means I've worked on Goal #5 - Travel to 25 US states. I have been to California now, even if I only left the hotel to go to the grocery store and airport. It was gorgeous, I must say. I never really understood the term 'dry heat' until I left WI. It was 100+ a couple of the days, but still perfect weather. Very nice

Goal #15 - Watch AFI's top 100 movies. On the flight to CA, I watched Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942) and on the way back I have Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967). So there's two. Yankee Doodle Dandy was really good, actually. I thought it sounded kind of lame, but it was funny with some slapstick and quite a bit of puns and wordplay, which I love. I was smooshed between two older gentlemen and I caught them both looking over my shoulder watching along with me. I offered to unplug the headphones so we could all watch but it was a late night flight so they both slept instead. I've decided that laptop movies are the best way to waste time on a flight.

The reason I was in CA was for Goal #19 - Homeschool Andrei for one year. I was at a homeschool conference, and it was wonderful. I intended to read some of my book list there but was too busy learning and relaxing and meeting people and having fun.

Now my flight is boarding so I had better post this and get in line. :)

2008-08-14T05:09:00.001-07:00

Goal 1: Adopt 2nd child. I called a homestudy agency yesterday and they're sending us an application packet. So I guess that means we've started. Yikes.

Goal 2: Pay off 1st adoption debt. We're paying off our car loan today, so next is the adoption loan(s). Hopefully small loan will be paid off in a matter of months, and large loan will be paid off before the end of this challenge. It's a big one.

Goal 5: Travel to 25 states: I was at 19, and today I'm going to California - so that will be my 20th state. I'm going to a conference, and probably won't have much time for sight seeing, but it still counts :)

Goal 17: Read 100 best novels. I've packed Uncle Tom's Cabin and hope to finish that up this weekend. Also I'm finally getting into the plot of Tale of Two Cities. I think I may be liking it. I don't have a whole lot of time to listen to books though, because if I'm cleaning, DS comes up and talks to me, and if I'm working, I can't concentrate on both. So I listen to a chapter each day when I'm doing mindless reports. I'm getting there. Maybe I'll listen some on the plane too.

That's it for today. I've been thinking about all of the other goals, but have not done much worth writing about. I keep thinking I have to finish them all this year, instead of remembering I have a while to work on them.

2008-08-12T18:33:00.000-07:00

Goal 32 - Make traditional meal (3 courses) from 30 different countries. Tonight I cooked Ethiopian. It was yum, but I never knew how far just a half teaspoon of cayenne pepper would go. Wow! I added some sour cream to cool it down, and DS wouldn't eat it at all. DH of course loved it.

Here's what I made -
Chickpea Wat and Injura
The Injura is a really big pancake type thing that is set in the middle of the table and then the Wat is like a stew and put on top of the Injura. Then everyone takes pieces of the Injura and dips it into the wat and eats it that way.
We had individual plates because I could not make an Injura that big. I'm not sure my Injura turned out exactly right. It was very fluffy and not good for eating stew with. It tasted good though. DH had a second helping in a tortilla and he said it was perfect that way. There is a little left, maybe I'll have it for lunch tomorrow.

Then we had pineapple for dessert. Delish!

2008-08-10T15:04:00.000-07:00

Next goal made!
This was another easy one - Goal #78 - Order something new from the Thai place. I always have Peanut Curry Loves which really is Loves... mmmmm. But today I had Yellow Curry. It was also delicious.

2/101 done :)

2008-08-09T20:38:00.000-07:00

I finished my first goal! :)

Goal #79 - Fix everything in my mending pile.
It was a big pile on the cabinet, but it turns out that only two things needed mending - the rest were to be consigned but were lumped all together. So it took about 15 minutes, and DH and DS have their sweaters back. I'm sad that the first one that I completed was so lame, but those sweaters have been sitting on the cabinet for months, and I finally got around to it, so that's a good thing. Hurray!

Other news:

Goal 29 - Bike 100 miles in 2008 - DS and I biked to the video store so that added 1.5 mies to my tally (now 78/100). Also, DS's training wheel fell off during the ride, and he fell - but I had him get back on and try again and he rode the rest of the way with only one wheel. Yay for him!

Goal 17 - Read the 100 best novels - Still reading Uncle Tom - it's pretty good actually. I guess I shouldn't be surprised, huh? But I normally don't read fiction so it's different from what I'm used to. I also downloaded A Tale of Two Cities from Librivox and listened to the first three chapters. I can't figure out the plot yet - that one might be a little tougher to get through.

That's it for today. :)

2008-08-09T04:09:00.000-07:00

It's Saturday and I'm working. I keep reminding myself that a few extra bucks will help with a myriad of goals - esp. #1 and #2, but it will probably just go to the CC bill for my trip to California. Oh how I wish I didn't have to charge that. But it's either use my next paycheck for the hotel, or use it to completely pay off our car. Interest-wise, the CC is higher, but psychologically, paying of the car will be a huge thing. :)

Goal #29 - Ride bike 100 miles in 2008. I rode again yesterday, brining my total to 76.4 miles this year. Almost there!

Goal #61 - Take 250 Navy Showers. Well I did the first one. This will be a bitch in the wintertime. But if I take 2 every week, I should be good.

Goal #96 - Finish bottle of calcium. It's a big bottle, and I've been working through it for a while, but the last three nights I remembered to take it because of this challenge. I think it will take me about 2 months. Then hopefully I'll be in the habit.

Gotta go to work. Still reading Uncle Tom's Cabin, and one of the top 100 movies is coming in Netflix. :)

First Post

2008-08-07T10:23:00.000-07:00

So here's my list of 101 goals. I hope I can complete at least half - I'd love to do all of them.
I'm going to try and post daily or weekly stating my progress

So here's what I did so far:

Goal 29: Bike 100 miles in 2008
I already had 64.4 miles under my belt for this year, so this will be an easy one. I biked to work today so that will be 70.4 miles total. I have to get the last 30 miles in soon though, because in a few weeks it will be too dark to bike to work. I don't have any lights or reflectors or whatever, so I don't think it will be very safe.

Goal 17: Read 100 best novels
I got "Uncle Tom's Cabin" from the library yesterday and started it last night. I figure I should read one book per week if I want to complete this with some leway. Ouch - that will be hard. How will I get any other reading in? Maybe I can listen to some of these on my iPod. Hm.