I’m officially 10% into my third 101 in 1001 list! If you’re unfamiliar with the idea, it’s a list of 101 things I’d like to accomplish in 1,001 days, or about 2.75 years. I started the first one in 2015 and enjoyed it so much that I’ve started new lists as soon as one ends!
I try to do check-in posts every 100 days, or 10% of the list. Now that we’re 100 days in, let’s see how I’m doing!
8 Goals Completed
Ideally I’d have 10 goals completed by now, but I’ve realized that with this list, I went too hard on the long-haul items. Things like “read this massive list of books,” “organize this really intimidating space in the house,” “accomplish this really hard video game thing,” etc. Whoops. 🤦🏼♀️ Lesson for next time!
That being said, I’m pretty proud of the fact that I crossed eight of them off the list!
7. Pay off our student loans.
This is the one I’m most proud of, because Sean and I have been working really diligently at this for about six years now. We made so many sacrifices in order to pay down the student loans, with our stretch goal of having them paid off before either of us turned 30. And in November, we did it!
8. Make a big purchase to celebrate paying off our student loans.
On a related note, to celebrate paying off our student loans, Sean and I each got a chunk of money to spend on whatever we wanted. We split split the amount we normally paid each month between the two of us. I bought myself a new iPad and an Apple Watch!
13. Buy an Apple Watch.
Which means I got to cross number 13 off the list, too! So far I’m loving my Apple Watch.
19. Get a new couch.
We’ve wanted a nice brown leather couch for a long time, and in November, after refinancing our mortgage, we treated ourself to one! We’re so happy with it.
25. Buy coupe glasses.
I’m so excited about this one! I’ve wanted coupe glasses for a while (I really want to have a fun bar setup and learn a bunch of bartending skills) and I love the look of coupe glasses. I ordered them almost right away from Crate & Barrel!
45. Preserve my wedding dress.
Okay, technically my mom did this one for me. One of my Christmas gifts this year was getting my dress cleaned and preserved. It feels so good to have done—I didn’t realize how much it’s been giving me background anxiety for three years. Plus, my parents got one more thing out of their house!
74. Buy an iPad.
Another combo item! I got an iPad to celebrate paying off our student loans. I’m still figuring out exactly what to use it for, but it’s been nice to have when cooking, because I can look at the recipes without it taking up as much counter space as my laptop.
92. See Animal Crossing: New Horizons switch over to a new day at 5 am.
This is the first item I crossed off my list! I knew that Animal Crossing switched to a new day at 5 a.m., but I was curious what it actually looked like in the game. One night in October I was having trouble sleeping, and when I noticed it was almost 5 a.m., I decided to get my Switch and cross this one off! At least something productive came out of a restless night.
27 Goals in Progress
There are a bunch of long-haul items on my list, so I’ve got a bunch of goals in progress.
1. Beat my past 101 in 1001 record of 68.
I know it’s highly unlikely that I’ll ever cross all 101 items off in 1001 days, but I want to be improving list after list! I’m at 8/68 with this one.
5. Listen to all (previously unplayed) episodes of 99% Invisible.
I love this podcast and Roman Mars. The early episodes are all pretty short (5-15 minutes each) so I’ve been able to crank out quite a few. There’s more than 425 episodes out right now, and I’ve listened to episodes 1-75 so far, plus all of the ones I listened to before this list started (which was roughly another 25 episodes).
6. Get to level 5 in all Spanish lessons on Duolingo.
I’m currently on a 707 day streak in Duolingo, which I’m really excited about! I was pretty much at the beginning of Checkpoint 3 when the list started, and I’m now 1/3 of the way to Checkpoint 4 (out of 7). They also added in smaller lessons at the end of 2020, so I took those, too.
10. Max out 401Ks, IRAs, and HSAs for me and Sean in a single calendar year.
We’re going to be aggravatingly close in 2021, which is still really exciting! Now that our student loans are gone, we’re reallocating all of that money to our retirement funds, which is going a lot further than expected. We’re hoping to have 3/5 accounts maxed out this year! 😱
11. Boost our emergency fund to $15k.
We’ve got emergency fund contributions budgeted each month, so this is just a slow-and-steady-wins-the-race item!
16. Finish Ring Fit.
Ring Fit is a fitness game for Nintendo Switch that I love. It helped so much in the early days of the pandemic. I try to play it three times a week, but I’m realizing that this game is much longer than I realized. 😬
21. Set up an emergency preparedness kit.
I have the shopping list and I’ve started gathering the supplies we had on hand! Now I just need to buy the rest of the things…
24. Add a wet bar to our dining room.
We made pretty much the bare minimum amount of work done on this to consider it progress, but whatever! In the fall of 2020 when we had a plumber come out to help us with our new washer and dryer, he also gave us a quote on what it would cost to get water hookups in the dining room. I’m not sure if we’ll actually install a wet bar, but for now we haven’t given up the idea!
27. Install curtains throughout the house.
We had living room curtains before this list started, but we purchased curtains for the main bedroom this fall! We’ve now got curtains in two out of the five rooms in our house where we want them.
We’ve also purchased the curtains and curtain rod for the dining room and the curtains have arrived—we’re just waiting on the curtain rod to arrive in order to put them up.
37. Use up all of my old And Possibly Dinosaurs notepads.
I will be making progress on this item throughout probably the entire 1,001 days. Fingers crossed I can actually use them all up by then… There are a lot.
38. Get all but 50 items in Stylebook down to $1 per wear.
When the list started, I was at 153, and now I’m at 133! The biggest jump was in December—I realized I had costs set for a bunch of items that I got as gifts, and that’s not how I want to think about it. I’m really looking at my cost per wear, not the cost other people take on for me, so I removed costs from about 10 items. Most of the items that are still more than $1 per wear are nail polish, so I’m going to try to get back into my nail polish habit!
40. Organize the laundry room.
We have a new washer and dryer, which is exciting, and Sean worked really hard during the holiday break to replace our old, leaky laundry room sink! We’re planning on moving his brewery stuff in there soon, so there’s a bit more configuring we need to do, but we’re making progress!
46. Update our Home Book each year.
This is one of the first things I did after the list started! It’s been updated for 2020, and I’ll probably wait until the summer to update it again in 2021. Then it’s just a matter of waiting for 2022 and 2023!
59. Visit 10 new-to-me places in Kalamazoo.
In November I visited three new-to-me places! We’re looking at changing grocery stores, so I visited Harding’s to pick up some things. Then we picked up our Thanksgiving meal from Kelvin & Co, which we had gotten delivery from but never actually visited. And on the way home, we stopped at Nonla on Drake, which is the new second location of our favorite burger place!
Really hoping I can take more advantage of this (and that there are still new places to visit…) once the pandemic is over.
66. Cook my way through an entire cookbook.
I identified the cookbook (Chrissy Teigen’s Hungry for More!) and made 6 recipes. I started off strong, but then Sean and I signed up for HelloFresh, so we’ve done less cooking from a cookbook lately. I’m planning to post regular recipe reviews once I start tackling them again.
72. Learn how to make 15 classic cocktails from memory.
Two down so far! I started with the Old Fashioned, because it’s one of Sean’s favorites. I tried a bunch of different combinations and settled on our house recipe, which we’re both really happy with! Then I figured out a Tom Collins, which was pretty straightforward. I’m currently working on the Sidecar!
80. Read (or attempt to read) and get rid of 25 books that I already own.
So far I’ve gotten rid of one, The Winter of Red Snow, because I had two copies.
81. Read all previously unread books on Alyse Ruriani’s Anti-Racist Bingo: Reading List Edition.
I had read two before my 101 in 1001 started: White Rage by Carol Anderson and The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander. (I highly recommend both!) Then in December I read I’m Still Here by Austin Channing Brown, which was amazing. I borrowed it from the library, but wouldn’t be surprised if I purchased a copy for myself.
82. Read all published books by Jenny Han.
I’ve got two down! I started with the easiest, Clara Lee and the Apple Pie Dream, because it’s a children’s book. Then I took advantage of the holiday season and read My True Love Gave to Me, which Jenny wrote one of twelve short stories for. Now I’ve got 10 more books to go!
84. Read the Dear America books.
I’ve read 3 of 44 books so far! I started with one I owned, The Winter of the Red Snow, and then got two from the library: Behind the Masks and Like the Willow Tree.
85. Read the Royal Diaries books.
I’ve read 2 of 20! I own Cleopatra VII, so I started with that one, and then after watching Anastasia on Disney+, I got Anastasia from the library.
87. Read the Wheel of Time series.
I’ve started the first book! It’s barely progress, but it still counts.
88. Get framed photos of all of my neighbors in Animal Crossing: New Horizons.
This is a hard task to accomplish in Animal Crossing! If you haven’t played, you start out moving to a deserted island (at least, you do in ACNH), and your neighbors are all animals. As you make improvements to the island, you can invite more animal neighbors to move there, with a maximum of 10. If you befriend them enough, they’ll give you a coveted framed photo of themselves.
Before my 101 in 1001 started, I had framed photos of 3 of my 10 neighbors: Lily, Judy, and Gaston. Since then, I’ve gotten 4 more: Chevre, Fauna, Freya, and Lucky. I’ve been working on two of the remaining three, but I don’t like the last neighbor and want to replace him, so this will probably take a while.
89. Catch all bugs, fish, and sea creatures in Animal Crossing: New Horizons.
I’ve made so much progress on this. I only need to catch 5 more bugs, 8 more fish, and 3 more sea creatures. The problem is, with the exception of some of the fish, the rest of them aren’t available until later in the year (for example, all 5 bug varieties I still need to catch are only available in July and August), so I either have to wait or time-hop. We’ll see what I decide to do.
90. Get all 6 golden tools in Animal Crossing: New Horizons.
I had the Watering Can and Slingshot before my 101 in 1001 list started, and since then have gotten the Axe. I’m slowly but surely making progress on the shovel, and then have to wait on the net and fishing pole until I catch all of the bugs and fish.
91. Get all of KK Slider’s songs in Animal Crossing: New Horizons.
I’m so close. The last song I need is K.K. Birthday, which you can only get on your birthday, so I have to wait for mid-February for that one.
98. Watch all of Golden Girls.
I’m almost through season 1!
Whew! Lots, lots, lots of progress. Hopefully I can start crossing more of these off soon.
Congrats on all the progress! My 1001 days is up in October so I’m excited to start forming a new list.
Thank you!! Have so much fun starting your new list!