I’m now 90% of the way through my third 101 in 1001 list! 😱 If you’ve never heard of it, it’s a list of 101 things to accomplish in 1,001 days, or about 2.75 years. It’s longer than a to do list, more specific and actionable than a new year’s resolution, and shorter than a bucket list.
My current list started in October of 2020 and will wrap up in July of this year. I “should” be at 90 items completed at this point, but I’m not terribly worried about not crossing them all off. Right now I’m at 61 out of 101, which is still super solid!
3 Goals Being Changed
Since this list is all about having fun and completing things I’m interested in, I always always always give myself permission to change my mind. I mean honestly, let’s think about where we were in October of 2020… totally different people, right? So it makes sense that this list would evolve with me.
This time around, I’ve changed 3 goals.
6. Get to level 1 in all Spanish lessons in Duolingo Get to Unit 100 in Spanish on Duolingo.
This one is pretty straightforward—Duolingo changed up their format! There are now almost 300 Spanish Units, so I’d like to get to Unit 100 (aka complete Unit 99) by the end of the 1,001 days.
51. Travel to Nashville Asheville.
I realized that Asheville was a much higher priority trip for me (hello, Sierra Nevada!) than Nashville is. Plus, it made me smile that the two city names rhyme!
87. Read the Wheel of Time Stormlight Archive series.
The main point of this goal was to read a book series that Sean loved so we could talk about it. When I first made the list, he was reading The Wheel of Time, but it took me a long time to start this item, and by then he wasn’t as jazzed to talk about it any more, since he couldn’t remember a lot of the details.
When we drove to Florida for Christmas this year, we decided to start the audiobooks of the Stormlight Archive. He read the series a while ago and loved it, and was interested in revisiting the series with me. It worked out even better than the original goal!
6 Goals Completed
I’ve completed six more items from my list since the last check-in about five months ago!
31. Get my grandma’s chair reupholstered.
My grandma died in the summer of 2020, and one of the items I took from her house was a fun scalloped-back chair that… needed some TLC. I wasn’t the biggest fan of the fabric, and half of the seat was sunken in. (Though if you ask my cat, it was perfect as-is, because the sunken-in bit was exactly her size.)
I procrastinated this task a lot, but I finally found a local upholstery shop and picked out a beautiful pink velvet fabric when I dropped it off. They finished it in January, and I’m so happy with how it turned out.
47. Reorganize and consolidate my photo files.
This one was a beast, but I’m glad I got it done. Long story short, I almost lost all of my photos when I switched computers about 10 years ago, and they’ve all been sitting in an external hard drive ever since. I really wanted to get them reorganized, and I finally did! It took a couple afternoons, but it feels so good to have them safe and sound.
51. Travel to Asheville.
We ended up going to Asheville twice, once on the drive down to Florida for Christmas, and again on the way back! Technically we stopped in Mills River on the way down, because one of the key sites on our list was Sierra Nevada. They were short stops, but we really enjoyed the bits of town that we saw!
67. Make fried plantains and jollof rice.
I studied abroad in Ghana back in 2011, and two of my favorite dishes were kelewele (fried spicy plantains) and jollof rice. My host mom had sent me a recipe for both, but I hadn’t actually made it on my own. I finally made both for one big meal, which was so comforting! I didn’t do it nearly as well as my host mom, but I still enjoyed it.
70. Learn how to poach an egg.
When I was little, we’d go to church every Sunday, and if we didn’t go out to breakfast, we’d come home and my dad would cook us poached eggs and toast. It’s such a warm memory for me, so I wanted to learn how to poach them myself. (Though to be fair, my dad used a special pan for poaching the eggs, he didn’t submerge them in the water.) I finally figured it out! I definitely need to perfect my strategy, but I can at least do it when I’m craving them.
84. Read the Dear America books.
Ugh, I loved this goal, and I’m so glad I had it on my list. I read so many of the Dear America books when I was little, but I totally forgot about them. Then, a few years ago, I read the book My Dearest Hamilton, which was a historical fiction book from the perspective of Eliza Hamilton, and boy did it take me back. There were 43 books in the Dear America series, and I liked some better than others (the new ones… weren’t my favorite), and I’m so glad I was able to take this trip down memory lane.
99. Watch all of Downton Abbey (including the movies).
I’m not sure how I missed this series when it originally came out, but I loved it. It was so simple, but the character development was top-notch, and I zipped through the whole series because I wanted to get to know everyone more.
9 Goals in Progress
And finally, I’ve made progress on 9 items since the last check-in!
1. Beat my past 101 in 1001 record of 68.
I’m slowly but surely making progress! I’ve crept up into the 60s at 61, which means I just need 8 more to cross this item off. (Because getting to 68 doesn’t count—I need to beat it with 69!) Wish me luck that I can do it in another 100 days!
5. Listen to all (previously unplayed) episodes of 99% Invisible.
I love this podcast so much. One of the episodes I recently listened to was about… Who Let the Dogs Out. The song by Baja Men. Or was it…?
Anyway, I’ve listened through episode 401 out of 529 so far, which means I’ve got a bit to go, but I’m optimistic I can do it.
6. Get to Unit 100 in Spanish on Duolingo.
I fell off my language-learning for a while, but Sean and I just booked a trip to Mexico, so I’m brushing back up on my Spanish! Right now I’m on Unit 83.
44. Organize our bedroom closet / clothing storage.
This is thankfully much easier in our new house than it was at our old house, thanks to the shape of the closets! Sean and I planned out the solutions we want, so now we just need to purchase what we found, then remove the existing solution, paint the walls, and install the new solutions.
72. Learn how to make 15 classic cocktails from memory.
I’ve memorized another cocktail! I love whiskey sours (one of the first cocktails I fell in love with was an amaretto sour), and the kind with egg whites in them are top-notch. I found a recipe I liked, made a slight tweak to the amount of lemon juice I use, and voila! Whiskey sours are now in my repertoire.
80. Read (or attempt to read) and get rid of 25 books that I already own.
I’ve developed a higher standard of the books I keep after I finish reading them. Don’t get me wrong, I’ll buy way more books than I will ever be able to read… but once I finish it, I have to really love it in order to keep it. If not, I’ll either walk it down the street to the Little Free Library (so excited to get my own this summer!!), or I’ll give it to my mom. Since the last check-in, I’ve gotten rid of another six books, for a total of 17!
83. Read the Animal Ark series.
Now that I have all of the books, I finally started reading them! They’re so fun—though I also realized how sad they are. 😂 In one of them, Sheepdog in the Snow, a bunch of local farmers start searching for the dog so they can shoot it. So… not the uplifting series I remembered. (Sean is horrified every time I tell him about the most recent plot…) I’m 7 books in out of 59, but they’re quick reads, so I’m sure I’ll zip through the rest!
87. Read the Stormlight Archive.
Sean and I powered through the first book (the audiobook is like 35 hours!), and we got about halfway through the second and then… stopped. But I’m hoping that, now that things are a little calmer, we can pick it back up again. It’s really nice to sit around the kitchen with a glass of wine, listening to the audiobook while we cook.
97. Watch all of Sex and the City.
I started watching the series a few weeks ago! I’m having a hard time connecting with the characters at this point, but I’m sure as I continue to watch, I’ll get more invested. (And if not, I’ll let myself give up!)
Alright, just over 100 days to go—wish me luck!
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