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Monday, August 28, 2006

101 things update

Five hundred and ninety-five days ago, when I was still using Diaryland and when my husband was doing a very dangerous job and risking getting himself killed because his boss said to and I needed to distract myself, I came up with this list of 101 things to do in 1001 days. It has been well over a year since I've even looked at it, but Kiwiria posted about her list today and that got me thinking about mine. It's not a project that I'm really into at this point, but I thought it would be interesting to go through and see how many things I'd done and how many I'd completely dropped the ball on. Yes, I know I just ended a sentence with a preposition. So shoot me.

Warning: Dude, this is LONG.

For my spirit:

1. Read through the Bible.
2. Attend a Christian ladies' retreat. -- and will again in less than a month. Six meals, no cooking! woo hoo!
3. Read the Bible every day. -- have completely fallen off the wagon on this. This will change. Now. Today.
4. Have private devotions every day. ditto as above

For my body:

5. Achieve and maintain a weight between 140 and 150. -- Ack! All the guilt right at first! Honestly, though, I am working on this again and have been since last Thursday, because see, I had a teeny weeny little heart thing on Wednesday. It wasn't even a full-blown attack but it was the second almost-attack in three days after a series of weeks of noticing more thuddy extra heartbeats. Up until recently I'd been fine since the hysterectomy magically corrected my iron levels. I think the increase in VERY SLIGHT problems is because I'm eating very stupidly and gaining weight. So I made a deal with T: I don't have to go back to the brusque, unkind doctor who wants to put me on medicine with side effects I don't like if I a) lose weight and get in better shape and b) don't have any attacks between now and Thanksgiving. So. I think 150-160 is a better idea, though, for my frame, height, and mentality. A perpetually hungry Mommy is a grumpy Mommy.
6. Spend half an hour at least five times a week in some kind of exercise. -- does typing count? Or reading for Librivox? Seriously, since T's back problems I haven't even been able to go for many walks, and with his later workdays it's still difficult. Will start taking kids on walks in mornings.
7. Eat enough fiber. -- am doing, I think.
8. Eat enough fresh vegetables. -- yes! thanks to Costco's cheap ready-to-eat broccoli and spring mix.
9. Drink half a gallon of water every day. -- not unless I can count diet Coke. I really should get on this, though.
10. See a doctor about the tachycardia thing.
11. See my GYN about my weird periods.
12. Make junk food an occasional treat instead of a regular dietary occurrence. -- I had done this for a long time. I'm still not as bad as I used to be (a candy bar a day doesn't keep anything away but wolf whistles).


For my mind:

13. Begin taking academic college classes. -- I am so frustrated that I cannot mark this off. However, since I can't do this yet -- NEXT SEMESTER I SWEAR. Or maybe I'm pushing this too hard and it's Just Not What God Has For Me Right Now.
14. Read chronologically through the works of Dickens. -- you know, I am not so crazy about this one anymore. Who cares if I do that. Maybe next year.
15. Practice the piano at least four days a week. -- HA HA! oh, hee hee.
16. Practice the flute at least four days a week. -- ditto.
17. Read one book every two weeks which I'd never read before.
18. Empty my never-been-read shelf. -- and again
19. Read through this list of books. -- I remember that list although I'm not looking at it right now and I know that I did read a lot of them. Some of them I lost interest in. Some of them I may go ahead and get.
20. Beat my husband at chess. -- Nope.


For my family (and friends):

21. Teach my children to read music and to play the piano. -- I backed off on this because they weren't interested.
22. Learn to use the chainsaw so it's not all up to T and my dad every time we cut wood. -- Decided against this one because I like to have all my limbs.
23. Stop yelling. Ever.* -- This one goes up and down.
24. Establish a cupboard of rain toys while my kids are small enough to enjoy it. -- Not a bad idea. I don't have an empty cupboard, though.
25. On days divisible by 3, don't watch videos; instead, do things from our copy of 501 TV-Free Activities for Kids.* -- Did I write that? How hokey. Not that eliminating excess video watching is a bad idea, don't get me wrong. We don't watch a lot these days as it is -- both kids are crazy about reading and spend a lot of time doing that. So if I die never having stopped yelling, I will at least have not bungled THAT up, eh?
26. Visit T's mother and half-siblings in Washington. -- This is one of those things that we keep saying "maybe next fall. Maybe next spring." It's mostly the expense and partly the time involved that keeps us from doing it. SOMEday.
27. Read a biography onto tapes for my dad. -- I don't remember if I'd done Mover of Men and Mountains for him before I made this list or not. At any rate, I've done one for him, and a couple of other fiction books.
28. Read a series of books onto tapes for my dad. -- No new series since I did Narnia for him years ago. (and I've moved up to CDs now, by the way.)
29. Read out loud to the kids most nights.* -- when they're not reading to themselves.
30. Send at least an e-card, preferably a paper card, to the people whose birthdays are in our family calendar. -- I usually hit most of these.
31. Establish a cozy reading corner in the school room. -- This is now a non-issue since we no longer have a school room.




For others:



32. Get my iron levels up so that I can again give blood. -- did it, and will give platelets next time I'm going to Fresno.
    
33. Give platelets. -- see above
    
34. Register as a bone-marrow donor.
    
35. Write regular letters, with the kids, to our three sponsored Compassion children. -- actually, we just started doing this this year. It's been nice.
    


For myself:


36. Own a dress in which I look stunning, and wear it. -- This is dependent on the weight-loss bit.
    
37. Get a haircut that flatters me. -- not yet, but I'm gearing up my nerve.
    
38. Get contact lenses. -- tried them. They didn't work right. I give up.
    
39. Give myself a makeover day.
    
40. Watch a movie in the theater by myself.
    




For fun:



41. Have a bonfire, complete with hot dogs and marshmallows.
    
42. Take a trip where at least half the time I am looking at scenery I have never seen before.
    
43. Travel to a foreign country. -- Ha ha. Hee hee hee.
    
44. Get a bigger Christmas tree. -- when we gave up the school room we lost living room space so this idea got shelved.
    
45. Have another family (aside from extended family) over for a meal every two months. -- gave up on this. I am too antisocial. And too embarrassed about my house.
    
46. See the Nutcracker in San Francisco. -- I still want to do this. I don't think it's a trip we'll be able to afford this winter, but maybe next year.
    
47. Buy a good digital camera and learn to take good pictures with it. -- I think they're good anyway. :)
    
48. Transfer the last two years' camcorder cassettes of family movies to VHS. Watch them while we're doing it. -- Did this one!
    
49. Look at the lights of our town from the mountain that overlooks it.
    
50. Climb the "mountain" near my parents' with T and the kids. -- It'll be a while before T is up to a project of this nature. I did climb it with my mom and LT but I think that was before I made this list.
    
51. See my friend Susan and her family in person. -- I wish. :(
    
52. Stomp in rain puddles with the kids. Don't just let them do it.
    
53. Get a tan on my legs. (one year out of my life won't kill me.)
    
54. Take the same trip we did on our honeymoon, except stay to the coast rather than driving through LA on I-5. -- We've done bits and pieces of this but not the whole thing and certainly not all in one trip.
    
55. Do an overnight hike/campout. -- ah, no. Maybe when C is a wee bit older and past the my FEET hurt. When will we be DONE? stage.
    
56. Visit the Monterey Bay Aquarium. -- Twice in the past six months.
    
57. Renew our zoo membership. -- And let it expire again.
    
58. Go to Storyland -- with T this time, who's never been there. -- Did this one this year.
    
59. Take the kids on BART (LT's wanted to do this for years). -- Well, T took LT yesterday, to go to the Oakland Colosseum for some Raiders Day thing that T's dad had given them tickets for.
    
60. Find a hedge maze and go through it. -- It was rather cheezy but it WAS a hedge maze (at the Dennis the Menace park in Monterey
    
61. Have a spring picnic in Yosemite Valley. -- The kids and I have done this several times now.
    
62. Do family portraits ourselves, outdoors in a place that we love. -- never all of us at once. Yet.
    
63. Go camping in a place we've never been. -- we are sticks in the mud. I am finding this out.
    



For my home:


64. Rid my house of things we don't use and figure out storage for the things we keep. -- This is done. The problem is that we use a dismaying number of things.
    
65. Frame the prints we've had sitting around rolled up for six years. -- kind of gave up on this one. However, I've framed a few of my pictures and put them up.
    
66. Get some kind of enclosed storage (even if it means enclosing the built-in shelves they're already on) for our videos and DVDs.
    
67. Decorate the walls in this house, or in whatever house in which we're living. -- Still this house, and still quite bleak overall
    
68. Get decent living-room furniture.
    
69. Burn the atrocious couch to cinders, and dance ceremoniously around the ashes.
    
70. Get decent dining-room furniture. -- Our chairs are in SUCH bad condition. They're soft upholstered things on wheels and the upholstery is in shreds, literally. It's so trashy. Chairs cost too dang much.
    
71. Make shelves in our bedroom, to hold books. -- Did that one a year or so ago.
    
72. Replace our low dresser with two upright ones.
    
73. Make a door for the cupboard over the fridge.
    
74. Paint our bedroom.
    
75. Perform my chore list every day. -- HA HA.
    
76. Establish a chore chart for my children and use it. -- We did this last spring and we'll start it up again when school starts next week.
    
77. Raise vegetables in the summer. -- Next summer, I swear.
    
78. Fix up our backyard so that it's a pleasant area for playing, relaxing, or entertaining. -- HA HA. Hee hee hee. It has a really... um, creative... kids' fort in it, made by kids...
    
79. Grow my own cooking herbs. -- am doing this. I've been using them, too. Yum.
    
80. Build the kids' play fort. -- They built their own.
    
81. Renovate LT's room.
    
82. Realize that the landlord is never going to finish painting our house, and get him to let us do it ourselves.
    


Crafty things:

(darn, there goes the "For" theme)


83. Transform my box of unused yarn into completed crochet projects. -- I got a really good start on this but I haven't been crocheting much lately.
    
84. Crochet a doily every month. -- or not.
    
85. Make a lace tablecloth. -- This is still something I'd like to do, but it's definitely not high on my priority list. The first time someone spilled Diet Coke on it I'd probably need to be institutionalized. Maybe for a wedding present for C, or something. :)
    
86. Make a tablecloth for family gatherings where each person signs his/her name on the cloth at the end of the meal, and I embroider the signatures for each gathering in a given color. -- I still think this is a good idea, and every time a gathering goes by and I haven't done it I wish I had. I'm hosting Christmas this year... maybe I'll make one then.
    
87. Have a booth at the Christmas craft fair in our town. -- Not something that's high on my priority list at this point.
    
88. Make the sandbag gun rests T has been wanting me to make for months. -- Did those over a year ago, when I still had my sewing room.
    
89. Make a double-bed-sized double Irish chain quilt out of my scrap fabric (yes, I have enough to do this). -- I cut out the pieces and there they all sit in Ziploc bags.
    
90. Make pajamas for the kids every fall. -- So far, so good.
    
91. Make T, LT, my nephews, and my dad matching Western shirts for the fair. -- methinks this is too big a project to undertake with no sewing room, and also with a son who does not care about dressing like Grandpa anymore. :(
    
92. Make C and myself matching Christmas dresses.-- Not yet. Not this year, either.
    
93. Make matching springtime dresses for my best friend's three daughters. -- I still really want to do this. Her girls are growing so fast! Perhaps next spring.
    
94. Finish the 1 Corinthians 13 cross-stitch I started, um, six years ago. -- Nope.
    



Together with DH:


95. Make our wills.-- nope.
    
96. Restore our biweekly home date nights.
    
97. Declutter the outside of our house. -- We made such vast improvements in this arena that I'm going to go ahead and cross it off even though there are still a VERY few things that need to be done.
    
98. Establish a savings account to cover medical copayments. -- We did. It's empty right now, though.
    
99. Establish a savings account for normal use.
    
100. Plan menus and shop from those, rather than running to the store at 2 every afternoon to figure out what to make for dinner. -- This is one of my minor household triumphs. Things go SO much more smoothly on a daily basis because of this.
     

So if I've counted right, I'm now down to about sixty things, give or take, to do in 406 days. If I cared.

Comments

Posted by: debi at August 28, 2006 02:22 PM

Posted by: Kristen at August 28, 2006 05:29 PM

Posted by: Susan at August 28, 2006 08:54 PM

Posted by: Maria at August 28, 2006 11:03 PM

Posted by: Susan at August 28, 2006 11:06 PM

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