101 in 1001 #4, Check-In #4

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I’m officially 40% of the way through my fourth 101 in 1001 list, which can only mean one thing—time to check in!

If you’re not familiar with a 101 in 1001, it’s a list of 101 things to accomplish in 1,001 days, which is approximately 2.75 years. You can start it whenever, and you get to organize it and fill it with whatever you want! I love how customizable it is.

Each time I’ve finished one, I’ve started a new one the following day, and I’m currently on my fourth iteration! Let’s see how the list is coming along.

1 Goal Being Changed

Since this list is entirely focused on things that *I* want to accomplish, I give myself full permission to change items whenever I feel like it.

I’m pretty stringent on what I change—I have to have a good justification for it. And even when I do change an item, I try to keep it in the same genre, as best as I can.

This time around, I’m only changing one goal.

3. Get to Unit 100 in Spanish on Duolingo a Duolingo French score of 30.

This is one of those items that keeps changing, almost exclusively because Duolingo is constantly changing up how their lessons are structured. (Not a complaint by any means; sure, it’s a little annoying, but it means they’re working on improving their product.)

This time around, though, I decided to switch from Spanish to French. I’ve taken Spanish for most of my life, but I’m really feeling drawn to French lately. Plus, it helps that my best friend is French and it helps me feel closer to her (and she can help me with pronunciations…).

Since I’m switching from Spanish to French, there’s a new grading system based on the CEFR levels. I started at level 6 (I had taken some French lessons on Duolingo several years ago), and I want to get to level 30 before the end of my list, which Duolingo describes as being able to “handle simple conversations about daily topics.”

2 Goals Completed

I started off my list really strong, which is part of the design—I mix the list up with things that are easy to accomplish and harder to accomplish to keep everything steady. I started out with 18 items in the first 100 days, which is good, because my progress is slowing down a bit. I’ve completed two goals since my last check-in, which puts me at 38—my first time being “behind schedule” since I started this iteration of the list.

69. Learn to felt.

I’m definitely one of those people that’s curious about basically everything in the world, and I always want to try new things. I’m a walking stereotype of the 30-something woman with ADHD who has a house full of half-started hobbies that she has since abandoned. I like using this list to actually try some of those hobbies that I’m interested in, to see if I actually like it or not.

And I’m glad I did, because turns out I absolutely hate felting. I got a simple kit from Amazon to felt a dinosaur (obviously) and holy cow, it was brutal. Not only did I stab myself five too many times, I also got so bored and impatient while I stabbed the felt waiting for it to knot up appropriately.

So, I’m keeping the dino, but… I’ll be tabling this craft and saving the supplies for people who truly enjoy it. (I also just realized as I was typing this out that I forgot to do his arms. But oh well, he’s just going to be armless, because I’m not doing that now. 😂)

76. Take a ceramics class (again).

This one makes me so happy! Speaking of trying out new hobbies all the time, one that I had been interested in for a long time was pottery. I took a class back in the winter of 2020 (it was actually on my third 101 in 1001 list!), scheduled for January through March. And… you can see where this is going.

It was cut short, and I had to finish up a handful of pieces in the summer while being super stressed about COVID, which obviously isn’t the way I want to wrap up the class. But I also didn’t want to leave the activity behind, because I loved it. I saved up inspiration over the course of four years and finally prioritized it again this year. The summer semester was 8 weeks long and wrapped up about two weeks ago. I finished a lot of pieces (most of which I’m still waiting to be glaze fired), and in a fun turn of events, almost all of the students in the class are taking the exact same class together again in the fall!

I’m so glad I put this item on the list, because it kept me motivated to check the schedules of the ceramics classes and make the jump to sign up again.

14 Goals in Progress

While I’m technically “behind schedule” in terms of goals completed (though really, I doubt I’ll finish all of the items on my list within the 1,001 days, so what even is “on schedule” anyway?), I’ve got a bunch more in progress!

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

While I doubt I’ll ever cross off all 101 items in any given list, I’m constantly striving to beat my own record! So far my best is 68, which is what I hit in my second list. I’m now at 38, which means I’m more than halfway there!

And for those counting, I need to cross off 69 before I can cross this one off, because I need to beat the record, not just tie it, so once I hit 69 items completed, it will immediately jump to 70!

3. Get a Duolingo French score of 30.

As mentioned above, I want to get to a Duolingo score of 30 in French, which means I’ll be able to to have simple conversations about daily topics. I started out at level 6 when I switched from Spanish to French, and as of this week, I’m at level 10! I’ve gotten into a rhythm of practicing every day, so I’m feeling optimistic about this one.

9. Hike 5 times.

I added another hike to the list a few weekends ago with Sean, Stanley, my sisters-in-law, and my mother-in-law! We hiked one of our local favorites, Asylum Lake Preserve. It was a bit more of an adventure than we anticipated (it’s a loop trail, but the trail was closed when we were 90% of the way around the loop, so we had to back-track…), but we had a great time!

13. Finish my allergy shot treatment.

Slowly but surely! I get approximately one shot per month and should be able to wrap it up right around the time this list ends.

22. Refinish my hexagon end table.

I have two side tables that I’ve held onto for a long time; the hexagon one has literally been in my possession since I found it at a yard sale in college… 12 years ago. It was painted green with a godawful bright blue on the inside, and there were some gold paint pen details and apples decoupaged on the top. It was… bad. So I finally spent a Saturday stripping the paint off!

I’m going to paint it black and use some rattan webbing to fill in the gaps on the sides. I just need to pick out what finish of paint I want, then pick up the paint and other supplies and finish it up!

25. Get my antique sewing machine working.

My dad and I spent a bunch of time last summer rehabbing an old 1913 Singer sewing machine that he and my uncle found at a flea market several years ago. It’s just about done, but doesn’t actually function as a sewing machine yet. I’m nearly there; I ordered the sash cord recently, so now I just need to string it up and it should be working perfectly.

It’s not electric, so it’s literally just connecting the foot pedal to the sewing machine itself. It’s a bit intimidating because I have to get into the table surface and cut the cord to size, but in the grand scheme of things, I bet it won’t take me more than 30 minutes once I actually do it.

26. Repair and repaint my lawn goose, Ryan.

When Sean and I moved into our new house back in 2022, I commented that I really wanted a midwestern classic: the lawn goose. My grandma had a set that I loved, but my Aunt Carolyn took it after my grandma died (which makes sense because she bought it for her and everything, but GUH I wanted them. I know you’re reading this, Carolyn, and I hope you love them!).

But it turns out my grandma bought one for her sister, Fran, and once Fran moved in with her daughter, she was no longer allowed to put it out. 😂 Thankfully, my mom asked if I could have it and picked him up for me! He was in… rough shape, though. He had a chunk of his neck missing, and his rebar spine was exposed.

In July, I got some concrete repair patch and filled in all the missing chunks, so Ryan (yes, I named him Ryan since he’s a gosling) is now in one piece! I just need to give him a fresh coat of paint and he’ll be ready to show off all of his outfits (which… I still need to buy).

31. Landscape the front yard.

When we moved into our house two years ago, the front landscaping was nice, but it didn’t necessarily feel like us. We didn’t rush to update it, but we didn’t really take care of it, either, so it got a little overgrown. This summer we finally decided to tackle it, ripping all the landscaping fabric out (landscaping fabric is one of the worst things in existence, please never use it or I will never talk to you ever again), planting some new rhododendrons, and edging around the mulch.

We’ve got a few last chunks to do, but I’m relatively confident we’ll be able to get this done before the fall!

42. Visit 3 zoos.

I don’t know if this technically counts as progress, but it’s my list, so I’m going to do what I want.

In June, my parents got Sean and I tickets to see the Grand Rapids Lantern Festival at John Ball Zoo, which was magical! There were Chinese-style lanterns everywhere in the shape of different animals, sea creatures, flowers, and even dinosaurs.

That being said, while we technically went to a zoo, the spirit of this item was to visit 3 zoos and see the animals there, and basically no animals were out because it was after hours. So while I’m not counting that trip as one of the three zoo visits, I’m still saying I made progress on this one!

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

My job at Holiday Inn Club Vacations gets me quite a few nice perks, including getting to stay at our resorts for a heavily discounted rate. I’m used to staying at Orange Lake Resort, because we stay there almost every time we fly down to go into the office, but I wanted to stay at some more (especially since I started as a contractor and didn’t get the perk until I was brought on as a FTE six months later).

I’ve stayed at four resorts so far, and just last week, Sean and I made plans for to visit a fifth! We’re going to be traveling to another resort in October, so stay tuned for that. 🤗

57. Visit all of the wineries on the Lake Michigan Shore Wine Trail.

I’ve been wanting to work on this one for a while, but it feels like an activity that fits so perfectly into summer. There are 15 wineries on the trail, and we crossed two more off this summer (Cody Kresta and Lawton Ridge) for a total of three!

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

This is one of those amazing but infuriating list items that grows in size every time I feel like I’m making progress on it. I’ve had my Book of the Month membership since November of 2021, which means I’ve got a lot of books that I still need to read.

As of the beginning of this list, I had 42 books to read, but I have since purchased more, which means the moving target is currently at 69 books. I have read five since my last check-in, which puts me at 22 so far! And only 47 to go… which means I’ve actually made negative progress since the list started? Cool.

82. Read the Animal Ark series.

Animal Ark was one of my absolute favorite book series when I was in grade school. I finally purchased all of the books for my personal collection (though I only bought the ones on the American reading order… I might add onto it with the Great Britain reading order books later.) as part of my third 101 in 1001 list, and now I’m working my way through reading all of them. I’ve finished two more books since my last check-in; I’m currently reading book 22, Dolphin in the Deep, out of the 50 books I’m counting toward this item on my list!

91. Watch all of Ru Paul’s Drag Race.

Another fun one, but this one is a beast! I’ve been interested in Drag Race for a long time (fun fact, my husband’s second cousin is a favorite from Season 5) so I’m finally making my way through all of the seasons. I’m currently in Season 14, which means I’m almost caught up to real life! I’ll definitely watch All Stars once I’m done, but I won’t count that toward this list; just the regular seasons of the US run, up to the present.

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Wowza! Technically I’ve slowed down on completing goals, but I sure don’t feel like I’ve slowed down on progress. Thanks for joining me on this adventure!