101 in 1001...

Day ONE.

So it begins, my 1001 days of goal accomplishing goodness. BIG, small, fabulous, not so fabulous - all things that I've been meaning to achieve or would like to jump into. The list filled up fast! Some I know I can achieve easily and want to be motivated by crossing them off, others will obviously take longer and be more challenging. I didn't want to set myself up for failure - REALISTIC goals - I know my limits.

I also made a section of repeating things in hopes of creating great habits. Why only do something for two months? Well, because it's unrealistic to make myself do it the entire 1001 days, and if I can do it for two months I may want to continue it regardless of the list. WHAT A JOURNEY this will be. I ran the list through #75 because I wanted to leave some space for growing with new loves and goals in the next 2.75 years. Who knows, I may even fill it up by the end of September. And I reserve the right to add new goals in place of ones completed. ;)

Check out the home of the 101 in 100 list, mucho cool.

Let's get to THE LIST! I'm posting it here to read, and will post about the completion stories here, but will be keeping it up in my Google documents because it's way easier. I'll put a nice link in the sidebar, though.


BEGIN: September 01, 2007
END: May 28, 2010

REPEAT SIGHTINGS

1. Complete at least one scrapbook page a month
2. Bring out the old yoga mat - do once a week for two months
   
3. Blog once a week for two months
4. Hang out with Sheri once every three months
   
5. Hang out with Mandy once every three months
6. Hang out with Rob once every two months
7. Throw a party at our place once a year
8. Sort the mail upon walking in the door - do for two months
   
9. Participate in two church activities each year (not including Thanksgiving food drive)
   
10. Have date night with hubby every other week
11. Create a habit of only snoozing my alarm once in the morning
12. Create a habit of getting eight hours of sleep every night
13. Take a photo of myself everyday for a year
14. Join Dan twice a year in something he enjoys (hiking, skiing, etc.)

SINGLE SHOWINGS

15. Get shelf put up to display wedding things
16. Have select wedding photos printed for each set of parents - give in albums
17. Make guestbook - find and fill an album with wishing well cards and guest photos
18. Make our wedding photo album - find and fill an album after printing all wedding photos
19. Make our honeymoon photo album - ditto above
    
20. Finish making photo DVDs for families and attendants that want copies
21. Make video DVDs for families and attendants that want copies
22. Have select wedding photos printed to fill our wall frames
    
    
23. Visit with Bev and Jenny for dinner and their wedding gifts
24. Have family(ies) together for a photo shoot
25. Have my grandma fill out a question/answer book about her life
26. Put together a rough draft of my family tree
27. Make a cross-stitch of Dan's and my immediate family tree (like Sheri's)
28. Find a balance for visiting both sets of parents each month
29. Take Alex and Jared out for a day (nephews)
    
30. Take Megan, Brittany and Bo out for a day (nieces and nephew)
    
    
31. Have a picnic outside
32. Go out to have dinner and see a play
33. Go to The Beach Waterpark and reminisce my teenage employment
34. Go camping and don't forget the s'mores
35. Go to Disney World with my hubby
36. Go on a weekend road trip
37. Go on vacation to a place I've never been
38. Spoil myself with a day at the spa
39. Go to the WEBN Labor Day fireworks in 2008 and 2009 (time to catch up)
    
    
40. Read the rest of the Harry Potter series (#4, 5, 6, 7) and see available movies
41. Finish crocheting the purple and green blanket I started in college
42. Finish crocheting the winter scarf I started for myself
43. Setup the beginnings of my dream craft studio when we buy a house
44. Get my piano moved from my parents' house to our new house - have it tuned
45. Learn a new piano song
46. Create/stock up on cards for all occasions - with divided storage container
47. Organize photos and scrapping kits on my external hard drive
48. Finish backing up my laptop and synchronize it with my external
49. Help Rob with the vacation scrapbook he wants to create
50. Become better at drawing with my Wacom
51. Buy a digital SLR camera
52. Learn how to use Adobe Lightroom with the new camera photos
53. Take a digital photography class to learn the new camera (or take advantage of Sheri)
    
54. Create some personal art for our walls (digital or not)
    
55. Get out my acrylic paints, oil paints, and pencil crayons - use them!
    
56. Do something crafty with the 365 photos of myself (see repeat goal above)
    
57. Attend a craft industry trade show (or other art/craft event)
    
    
58. Get rye-designs.com to a launching/opening point
59. Put together a sample book of invitation paper weights, enclosures, etc.
60. Design eco-friendly business philosophy (digital invoices, minimal paper waste, etc.)
61. Read three books that will help with our business
    
62. Design marketing materials and strategy for distribution
    
    
63. Buy a house in Spring 2008
64. Try to meet other young married couples in our area - have them over
65. Meet someone in person that I know only online
66. Maintain my current weight (or better)
67. Decide on current career
68. Get new prescription glasses (or look into Lasik)
69. Go through boxes of old mail with Dan - sort and shred trash mail
70. Vote in a presidential election for the first time
71. Sort through the clothes in my closet - donate or sell things I don't wear
72. Sort through totes at parents' house to decide what I want to keep/sell
    
73. Minimize clutter - give everything a home
74. Get a new duvet and curtain set for our bedroom
75. Figure out where I want to volunteer bi-weekly at church
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101. ...
     

Appointments, shopping, and lists - oh my!

Appointments

I had two adjustment appointments this week with my chiropractor. I got to see my x-rays and talk about a plan for the next 10 weeks. It seems I have a LOT of rotated vertebrae - lower/middle back rotated left and some upper back rotated right - fun. How the heck did that happen? I really like my doctor and her office, though, so I'm stoked about all the visits. [Sheri: remember "Today I'm feeling... STOKED..."] I was just there yesterday and have to go back Monday... "Didn't I just see you?" So, OUT with the back and neck aches!

Last Tuesday night, Dan and I went to a home buying seminar to learn more about the process. Dan already knew some of it, and I just sat and took it all in. I probably couldn't tell you a whole lot about it now, but Dan is the number cruncher and is figuring out different ways to work the system buy our FIRST house - possibly in the spring. Very exciting and scary at the same time.

On Wednesday after work I went to a new family doc in the area - NOT a big fan. I hadn't been to a doctor since last September, so in the meantime I was falling apart at my old age and had a lot of questions. Questions warrant listening and answers. If you count underlying (with some overlying) tones of judgment and a feeling of being rushed as ANSWERS, then she may be your gal. I'll give you her card! Or maybe it's just my imagination. She might be lucky enough to get a second chance in case I was just off my game that day - or she was off HER game - but for now I'm left with no answers to my questions until I make an appointment for blood work and go from there.

Shopping

I'm now ready to entertain! Since Dan and I registered at BB&B for our wedding (among other places), we got a coupon to save 10% off anything that wasn't purchased by guests. That was A LOT since we also registered at Target. No more explanation needed there. And the coupon was only good for three months past our wedding date, so we went SHOPPING! Here is a glimpse of our loot...

For our Christmas party last year, we had to borrow a lot of things from my mom, including divided servers for fruits and veggies. Now we have our own. I'm thinking we should have bought two...


And for our wedding we got a three-tiered serving thing with square plates that is AWESOME. If we don't want to use it as a tiered server, we can just use the plates alone for serving. Genius. This server is the same deal - from the same designer - we can use it tiered or just the bowls. We got several more things, including an ice bucket and plastic bag holder, but I haven't opened it all yet. I'm still trying to rationalize this spent CHUNK of change. Definitely would be fun to make our Christmas par-tay an annual thing, though. Raise your hands if you would attend! It wouldn't be an "apartment warming" or "bring an ornament" party because we have plenty of that now, but I promise it would be GOOD times.

I also bought some much needed dress pants at this place the other day because I had city cash to spend. I'm also second-guessing them because I'm in between sizes. I could wait and lose a little more weight to fit into the next size down... or hope that I can perfectly shrink two of the FOUR pairs I bought because they're cotton and will stretch out (almost fall off) as I wear them. The other two are mainly polyester and should be better. Sometimes I hate pants. I'll just wear skirts during the winter, how about that?

Okay, so who cares about my pants woes. I think the underlying reason I'm examining my purchases is because THIS is the next big buy Dan and I want to make. Mmmm, 10.1 megapixels of in-between-consumer-and-professional camera goodness. And it would be DARN good to have that puppy in my hands for the holidays. 'Nough said.

Lists

Yep, couldn't get by without mentioning some kind of LIST around here. I'm currently working on my 101 in 1001 list and will have it posted by September FIRST! I don't plan to fill it all up now because I'm sure that more fabulous goals will come to me in the future - I want to leave the possibilities wide open. OH, and how COOL is this?! Starting on 09.01.07 and adding 1001 days brings me to 05.28.10. If it wasn't a leap year in 2008, my 1001 days would be up on 05.27.10. May 27th, 2010...woah crazy. MAY 27TH - THREE years of the married life to celebrate. Soooo, I could start my 1001 days on August 31st and take advantage of TWO big milestones on 05.27.10. Or just have two good days in a row to celebrate. Decisions... Opinions?

Here's a cool thing I found the other day through the blog grapevine. August 26th (TOMORROW) starts a Holiday Grand Plan. The blog gives you printable lists and calendars for cleaning/tasks to accomplish EACH WEEK to bring you through to a more organized and prepped holiday. I think we could all use a little bit of that. Dan and I are going to tackle it and I'd love to have people to tackle it with us.

Oh my

Dan is gone all day throwing his friend's bachelor par-tay. Should be a fun day of ca-brew-ing and bar shenanigans for them. We made a t-shirt last night for the lucky bachelor to wear tonight - with a "honey-do list" of things he needs to complete at the bar. Mwa-haha. That reminds me I should see if my camera is around for charging, or if Mr. Best Man already took it.

As for me today, it's time to find a yummy lunch and complete the following...

• make a map card for Mandy's wedding invites
• work on the invitation for Dan's grandparents' surprise anniversary party
  (that's a mouthful)
• come up with an invoice sheet for rye-designs.com
  
• finish that layout of myself with some kind of journaling
  
• listen to Craig and Linus on repeat while completing above tasks
  

Ah, and something that fits better into this list - I was offered another class to teach in November. ALL RIGHT! That means some extra cash, but also less time for doing holiday things. The class will run Thursday nights from November 15th to December 20th with Thanksgiving off. YIKES! HOPEfully the grand plan will help with that. Along with starting things earlier rather than procrastinating. Time to MOVE!

P.S. - do the storytelling bolds, CAPITALS, and italics annoy you? If so, I don't know if I would stop because they FUN and it's my blog, but don't be afraid to let me know. ;)

My forgetful mind...

In thinking about the things I'm digging lately, and what I'm going to put on my 101 in 1001 list, I forgot a few tidbits!

Here's another thing I'm digging - Donna Downey's Inspired. event this April. It's so tempting to go and work with different artists and mediums, playing with all sorts of art, and SHOPPING, but the price is the catch and the event/hotel fees are separate. I could take Dan with me, though, because they'll have golfing and stuff for the guys (even though he may want to join in the workshops - which would total a LOT of money). Anyone else want to go and play in the art with me? :) Registration opens September 15th!

I cleaned off the half of Dan's desk that had extra monitors on it - pretty quickly actually. I got the most important things in baskets that I can use for making cards, invitations, or mini albums. The rest of the stuff is still in the craft closet. But apparently I'm not supposed to USE this desk for my crafts because Urpel already claimed it as HER personal lounge. Crazy cat.




And finally, I scrapped a layout in the last week! AMAZING! This brings me up to a GRAND total of FOUR layouts for the year, lol. I did start another one right after this one, I just haven't figured out what I want the journaling to be. It's a page about me, that's all I know. These photos are from Dan's bachelor party in May. In the bottom photo, his friends are singing You've lost that lovin' feeling to a girl celebrating her bachelorette. I wasn't there to know that, but I've seen the footage my dad took. Quite entertaining! ;)


See it in my gallery here. Made with Holly McCaig's "Boyfriend" kit. Fonts are barcode, pea jenny script, jailbird jenna, and top secret.

That's about it for today... that I can remember. After work I'm meeting my mom for pedicures - BADLY needed right now - and seeing where the night takes me from there! Have a FABulous weekend!