101 in 1001 #4, Check-In #2

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I can’t believe I’m already 20% of the way through my fourth 101 in 1001 list!

If you’re new around here, welcome to my favorite topic to blog about: my 101 in 1001 list. It’s a list of 101 things I’d like to accomplish over 1,001 days, which is approximately 2.75 years. I started my first list in April of 2015, and as soon as one ends, a new one begins.

I aim to do check-ins every 100 days, which is 10% of the list, so it’s now time for my second check-in.

1 Goal Being Changed

I always allow myself to change as many goals as I want throughout the 1,001 days, because it’s my list, and I want it to be full of things that are still relevant to me. This time around, I’m only changing one, and it’s really more of a clerical change than anything.

2. Get to Unit 100 Finish Section 5 in Spanish on Duolingo.

I wouldn’t be surprised if this goal changes regularly throughout the 1,001 days. The main goal is to make a lot of (measurable) progress with my Spanish lessons, but Duolingo is constantly changing up its model, so the benchmark is going to change. They just went from overall Units to Sections with Units inside, which means all the numbers have changed around. Finishing Section 5 should be about the same progress as I initially had on my list.

9 Goals Completed

Since I’m checking in every 100 days, I should be finishing approximately 10 goals per check-in, so I’m very pleased that I’ve crossed 9 off my list in the last 100 days! Plus, with the 18 I completed in the first 100 days, I’m at 27 completed already, which is pacing quite a bit ahead of schedule.

18. Paint my office.

I’m so excited about this one! I have A Vision™️ for my office, and it will involve a lot of work (more on that in the in progress section below!), so I’m trying to do it incrementally so it’s not overwhelming and doesn’t cost a fortune all at once. The first step was painting the walls, trim, and doors a deep forest green, and I’m so pleased with how it turned out. I honestly might paint the ceiling next to make it a cozy cave…

19. Paint Sean’s office.

Similar to my office (and the main bedroom, which we completed before the first check-in), we painted the walls, trim, and doors of Sean’s office, this time choosing black! I’m obsessed with how it turned out, and Sean loves joking that he finally got the black room his mom never let him have when he was a kid.

24. Put up a Little Free Library.

We were so close to putting this up at the end of the first 100 days, but we were just a few days late thanks to rain. My dad built a Little Free Library for me, and once the copious amounts of fall rain subsided, we put her up! It’s such a fun thing to have in our yard, and it’s a great way to get rid of books once I’ve finished them.

32. Edit down my iCloud photos.

I have so many photos saved on my iCloud account. I got my first Macbook back in 2009, and all of the photos I’ve taken since then are on my account. We’re talking tens of thousands of photos. I knew a bunch were duplicates, and probably even more were crap, so I wanted to go through all of them and clean out what I didn’t need any more. It only ended up taking about 10 days of going through photos in small chunks, but I deleted more than half! It feels so good to have that done.

38. Finish decanting the jars in my spice drawer.

Our new house (I say new, but we’ve lived here for almost two years now…) has ample kitchen storage, which means we can finally have a fully-functioning spice drawer. Except… all the bottles were mismatched and it was driving me crazy. For a while I was repurposing Everything But the Bagel jars from Trader Joe’s whenever I finished one, but a few weeks ago, I bit the bullet and ordered a big batch of spice jars and decanted them as soon as they arrived and I cleaned them out. It’s so much tidier now!

54. Visit 10 new-to-me places in Kalamazoo.

We were at 9 during the first check-in, so I only needed to hit up one more place. We visited Toba Sushi and Grill, which we had been wanting to visit for a while, and it was delicious!

56. Complete the Give a Craft Beer Trail.

The Give a Craft Beer Trail was a sprint to the finish. It’s an annual list, and it refreshes each new year, so I need to visit all the breweries in one calendar year. We made it by the skin of our teeth with a SW Michigan brewery crawl in November, joined by my parents and my aunt!

70. Learn to crochet (again).

I learned to crochet waaaaaay back in 2014 (I even wrote a blog post about it!), but it had been so long that I totally forgot how to do it. I kept getting ads for Woobles kits, and when they had a Harry Potter collab come out, I jumped on it. I’m now feeling much more confident with my crochet skills. They’re basic, but I at least know how to do some standard stitches and know what to Google now.

By the way, that’s a referral link, and if you use it for your first purchase, you get $5 off and I get $5 off my next order!

93. Watch all of Hannah Montana.

I watched the first season or two of Hannah Montana when it first aired, but I never knew how it ended, and I thought it would be a fun, light item to add to my 101 in 1001 list. I was right! I really enjoyed rewatching it, even if so many of the episodes were painfully cringey.

17 Goals in Progress

I’m super proud of how many goals I’ve already completed, and that doesn’t even count the ones that are in progress!

1. Beat my past 101 in 1001 record of 68.

This one is pretty straightforward—every time I cross off a different goal, I get one step closer to crossing this one off!

2. Finish Section 5 in Spanish on Duolingo

I took some time off from Duolingo, but lately I’ve started a somewhat consistent practice that I’m proud of! I’m not practicing that much each day, but I’m striving to do at least something on Duolingo each day.

8. Journal every day for a month.

I’ve been using the Finch app for the last few months for my everyday tasks and self-care, and there’s a reflection section that has been working super well for me. I just need to keep up the daily reflections until early February and I’ll have this one crossed off!

Btw, if you want to join Finch, add me! My friend code is GA7VBHSSL9, and you’ll get a special micropet egg with my invite link.

13. Finish my allergy shot treatment.

I’m about two years into the process now! They say it should take 3-5 years, and I estimate mine will take the full 5 years. At least, that’s my assumption based on the allergist walking into the exam room after my allergy test saying “oh my god, you poor thing.”

16. Add built-in bookshelves to my office.

These built-ins. 🙄 They’re all part of My Vision™️ for my office, and it was all going well, until…. I discovered that the three Billy Bookcases and one of the doors didn’t get delivered with the rest of my order. And of course they’re currently sold out. So I have all of the pieces for the desk side of my built-ins, but not the bookshelf side (which will be behind me when I sit at my desk). I’ve hit a bit of a motivation slump with it, so it has looked like the photo above for the last two weeks or so, but I’m hoping to crank out the desk stuff in the next week or two.

44. Go to a Red Wings home game.

We have tickets to a home game this month! I’m so excited to go—it will be so fun, especially since we’re (knock on wood) somewhat good right now!

45. Go to a Red Wings away game.

We also have tickets to an away game later this spring, which will be really fun!

47. Travel to 5 Holiday Inn Club Vacations resorts (not including Orange Lake Resort).

As of my last check-in, I’ve visited two, and I haven’t visited any more since then, but we do have a new reservation at Orlando Breeze Resort, which I haven’t been to yet.

60. Learn to make 10 new cocktails from memory.

I added one more cocktail recipe to my repertoire with Lavender Haze! It’s so good, especially with purple edible glitter. Highly recommend! Plus, who doesn’t love a good Taylor Swift reference?

62. Bake 5 different cake recipes from scratch.

Last week I made another cake from scratch, taking my total up to two. I made the lemon curd cake from Chelsweets, which includes homemade lemon curd and homemade frosting. It was delicious!

75. Finish a sewing project.

I started a sewing project back in December, but I’ve hit an intimidation wall since then. I’m making a doll, and I have the body pieces sewn and cut out, but everything else is really intimidating. Hoping to jump back in soon!

78. Publish 15 blog posts (excluding 101 in 1001 posts).

I’ve written one more post since the last check-in: my herb garden work in progress! I’ve got plenty more ideas, so I’m hoping to actually write and publish them soon. 🤗

79. Read all of my Book of the Month picks.

I’ve been making my way through all of my Book of the Month picks lately, finishing 7 more since the last check-in. Of course, I have also purchased quite a few more since the last check-in, so I’m not sure how much progress that actually translates to…

80. Read and / or get rid of 25 books I already own.

I have gotten rid of 6 more books since the last check-in! See? Having a Little Free Library right outside my front door is super helpful for decluttering. I also made sure to mark all of my current books with post-it notes back in July of 2023, so I’m actually only counting the books I had before this list started. It feels good to make a dent in it; that means more room for other books. 😈

82. Read the Animal Ark series.

I’m just about done with the next book in the series, which will be the first one I’ve finished since this 101 in 1001 list started. I’ve hit a bit of a slump with reading my Animal Ark books, but I can feel the motivation coming back.

88. Listen to all (previously unplayed) episodes of 99% Invisible.

I have been powering through these episodes. I love this show so much! I listened to almost 100 episodes in the last 100 days. I just got to the episodes in January 2023, so I’m definitely closing in on this goal. Stay tuned for a list of my favorites once I’ve caught up. It’s a good list.

91. Watch all of RuPaul’s Drag Race.

I’ve never seen Drag Race before, and I was missing out. I started at the very beginning with Season 1 (wowza VH1 in 2009 was another era), and I’m currently in Season 6! At some point I’ll watch All Stars, too (after all, I am related to Alaska), but for right now, I’m just focusing on the regular seasons.

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It was a very productive 100 days—here’s to more productive days ahead!