“Go everywhere,” he said at last, in a low, kind voice; “do everything; get everything out of life. Be happy – be triumphant.”
— Osmond, in The Portrait of a Lady, by Henry James
Jane and Mo have both done this, as well as plenty of other people on the internets, and I’ve been thinking about this for some time now. There are lots of things I want to do that I keep putting off for one reason or another, and since I’m feeling better, I thought I might start tackling some of them. Plus, I love lists, and this is, like, the mother of all lists.
The idea, if you haven’t already figured it out, is to come up with 101 things you want to accomplish in the next 1001 days. And then do them. I’m posting this here as a regular post, but I’ll add it as a page tab across the top, so you can follow along with me, if you like. Here goes nothing:
Start date: August 1, 2009
End date: April 28, 2012
Creative
1. Find a way to sing again – in public
2. Work my way through one quarter of “No One Cares What You Had for Lunch: 100 Ideas for Your Blog” (0/25)
3. Start keeping a personal journal again (without the pressure of feeling like I need to “recap” everything that’s happened since I last kept one, which is the reason I haven’t started doing it before now)
4. Make 5 more journals and give them away
5. Draw something suitable for framing
6. Blow up and frame a photo I took
7. Blog at least three times a week for 3 months (0/12) (0/3)
Travel
8. Go to 5 states I’ve never been to (0/5)
9. Take a train somewhere far away enough that I have to book a sleeper car
10. Visit a national landmark I’ve never seen before
11. Visit a tourist trap I’ve never seen before (like the World’s Largest Ball of Twine, or something)
12. Spend a weekend in Amish country at a Bed & Breakfast
13. Visit my friend who lives in LA
14. Spend a night at the Wigwam Village Motel in Holbrook, Arizona
15. Ice skate at Rockefeller Center
16. Finally Yelp! Fat Matt’s Rib Shack from our trip to Atlanta (short version: go there)
17. Go back to the Excellent Dumpling House in Chinatown in New York (where they really do serve excellent dumplings)
18. Go to Coney Island (when it’s open this time)
Tourism at Home
19. Take a Duck Boat tour of D.C.
20. Visit the September 11 Pentagon Memorial
21. Take a tour of Old Town with one of the colonial guides
22. Take a Segway tour of D.C. with my mom
23. Go see the dolphin show at the Baltimore Aquarium
24. Go to the National Zoo
25. Go to 5 new museums in D.C. (0/5)
26. Go to Arlington Cemetery
Home
27. Finally finish unpacking the books
28. Try 2 new recipes a month for 6 months (0/12)
29. Put loose recipes into binder
30. Go through boxes of high school and college memorabilia and toss everything that no longer holds meaning (0/2)
31. Host a dinner party
32. Bake something that requires yeast (which scares me)
33. Enter a baked good in a contest
34. Hang curtains in bedroom
35. Bake a cheesecake from scratch
36. Cook meals for lunches at work two weekends a month for 3 months (0/3)
37. Find out what, exactly, chipotle en adobo is, get some, and then make something with it
38. Find dulce de leche and re-attempt Death by Caramel Bars
39. Grow mint so I can learn to make my own mojitos
40. Get caught up on putting photos in albums and printing photos from my camera
41. Buy a scanner
42. Upload old photos
43. Go through photo files and name all photos
44. Buy an apron, maybe from Etsy
45. Find a recipe for beef burgundy and try it out; see if it compares to this
Health & Fitness
46. Lose 40 pounds, 5 pounds at a time (0/40)
47. Journal food intake (i.e., get back on track with Weight Watchers) for 30 days (0/30)
48. Run another 5k
49. Take a kickboxing class
50. Take a dance class
51. Get off my medication
52. Floss every day for 30 days (0/30)
53. Take Pico to the vet three times (more as medically necessary) (0/3)
54. Take my vitamins every day for 30 days (0/30)
55. Work out 5 days a week for one month (0/20)
56. Finally upgrade my processor or get my back-up processor fixed
Financial
57. Establish a savings account and deposit money from every paycheck
58. Create and implement plan to pay off credit card 1
59. Create and implement plan to pay off credit card 2
60. Create and implement plan to pay off car
61. Figure out whether and how to roll over old 401(k)
Recreation
62. Attend an NFL game
63. Go ice skating
64. See games at 3 Major League ballparks I’ve never been to (0/3)
65. Go horseback riding
66. Fly a kite
67. Go to the drive-in
68. Join a bowling league
69. Go to a monster truck show
70. Drag David into a photo booth get a photo strip of pictures of us
71. Bowl a perfect game on Wii Bowling
Enrichment
72. Read Anna Karenina
73. Learn to play Euchre, so I can play with David’s family
74. Learn all the state capitals by heart
75. Take a class at the community college
76. See half of the movies on AFI’s list of the Top 100 Films of the Last 100 Years that I haven’t seen (0/23)
77. Finish Heart of Darkness, even if it kills me
78. Learn to use 3 new features on my digital camera (0/3)
79. Watch the third Godfather film (I’ve seen the other two, and I need to know if this one’s really as bad as they say)
80. Re-read all 7 Harry Potter books
Community
81. Volunteer with the Girl Scouts
82. Do 10 nice things for strangers and don’t tell anyone about them (0/10)
83. Leave a secret in a Post Secret book at the library or bookstore
84. Write three letters to companies whose products I enjoy (0/3)
85. Write three letters to companies when I have a problem with a product or service (0/3)
86. Send a care package through AnySoldier.com
Personal
87. Ask my grandmother to write down five memories of her own mother for me
88. Have the Princess and Conductor spend an overnight with me in D.C. and take them to do fun stuff
89. Write actual letters to 10 people telling them how much they mean to me (0/10)
90. Go one weekend (from 6pm Friday to 7am Monday) without using the internet (including from my cell phone)
91. Do something special with Aimee in 2011 to celebrate 20 years of friendship
92. Take David on a picnic
93. Continue the Christmas cookie weekend tradition with Karen (0/3)
94. Get a haircut and maintain it with regular (every 6 months) trims (I haven’t had a hair cut in more than a year)
95. Write myself a letter at FutureMe.org to be delivered on the end date of this challenge
96. Find a new job
97. Finally get my diploma and bar certificates framed
98. Send someone flowers for no reason
99. Buy new running shoes
100. Buy new iPod
101. Marry David
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So there you go. What do you think? Too ambitious? Not ambitious enough? I can’t decide. A few notes:
- The things that are for 30 days at a time or the like are meant to get me into the habit of doing those things. I don’t intend to stop flossing at the end of 30 days, or quit taking my vitamins, I just wanted to challenge myself to get back into good habits.
- At the end of the challenge, I will donate $2 to a charity (TBD, probably hearing-loss related) for every goal on this list that I did not complete. (If I complete them all, I’ll donate $202 to the charity.)
Hear Me in the Harmony 
Very impressive! I don’t know if I could come up with 101 things that fast! Have you been working on the list for awhile? So many of them made me say “I’d like to do that too!” and then there were a few that I could say “Done that!” You will have so much FUN with so many of these, and you will be so organized and healthy with the rest!
I need to think about this. I love lists too. MAYBE I could actually put something together that would get me off the sofa and out there accomplishing things!
You don’t have to do these in order…right? I especially love the one about getting your grandmother to write down things about her mother. That’s priceless.
(Oh. I like the marry David part too!)
#44 – or maybe get Lydia to make me one in 2010.
#57 – I love INGDirect. Seriously. Easy. High interest rates.
#77 – It will kill you. It’s awful. Seriously.
These are great. One day when there isn’t so much on my plate, I’ll work on one of these.
I’m re-reading the Harry Potter books right now!
and where does WI fit into your travel schedule? Miller Park anyone? 🙂
@ Dawn: I’ve been thinking about the list for quite some time, and I was actively working on compiling it for all of July. I could never come up with that many that fast, either. I also readily admit to googling “101 in 1001” and reading other people’s lists for inspiration, but many of these I came up with entirely on my own (like the one about my grandmother). And no, you don’t have to do them in any sort of order. I hope you do it; I’d love to see what you come up with!
@ Lydia: Would you really make me an apron? That would be awesome! We’ll have to get in touch about that – in 2010, of course! And as for Heart of Darkness, I have a friend who just loves it, and I promised him years ago I’d try again, but every time I get started I can’t seem to get through it. I go farther this most recent time (January-ish) than ever before, but I still didn’t get halfway through. I’m determined though.
@ Kari: Wisconsin is a state I’ve never been to, so maybe I could knock out more than one thing on the list (part of the 5 states and one ballpark I’ve never been to) – and I could visit you! How fun!
Sounds like a great idea to me Mel! You let me know when you’re coming and I’ll clear off the bed in the guest bedroom.