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Can you believe it? It’s already time for the second check-in of my 101 in 1001: Take 2 list! That means I’m 20% of the way through. And excitingly, I’m once again more than 20% of the way through my list!
If you’re unfamiliar, 101 in 1001 is a list of 101 things you’d like to accomplish in 1,001 days, or about 2.75 years. This is my second attempt at one, hence the “Take 2” portion of the title. In my first iteration, I stopped paying attention to it pretty early on, so I only crossed of 42 items. This time I’m doing check-ins every 100 days or so to hold myself accountable. Here’s where I stand 20% of the way through the list!
8 Goals Being Changed
First things first–I’m switching up my list! This isn’t something I really thought possible when I did my first iteration of 101 in 1001, but I’ve decided that this list is for me, so I need to make sure it still serves me. Because of that, I’m not clinging to things I wanted to accomplish when I first started it—I want to make sure every item is still something I want to or can achieve.
With my recent move from Cincinnati to Kalamazoo, I knew I’d have to do some changing up of my list. Some things were specific to our old house, and some were specific to Cincinnati. I took a look through my list and decided to remove 8 things, so I came up with 8 more. They’re not perfect exchanges, so some items have been renumbered as a result.
Here’s what I took out:
- 34. Decorate and settle into my new office at work.
- 50. Repaint my vanity.
- 52. Reorganize the laundry area.
- 75. Try 10 new restaurants or breweries in Cincinnati.
- 76. Try 5 hikes from the 60 Hikes within 60 Miles of Cincinnati book.
- 78. Go to Cincinnati Pride.
- 80. Go to a Cincinnati Reds game.
- 81. Go to an FC Cincinnati game.
And in place of those, here’s what I’ve added:
- 38. Make $1,000 in one month from And Possibly Dinosaurs.
- 50. Landscape the back yard.
- 51. Landscape the front yard.
- 52. Replace my vanity.
- 55. Organize the bathroom closet.
- 77. Complete the Give a Craft Beer Trail Passport.
- 79. Go to Kalamazoo Pride.
- 81. Go to the CMU vs. WMU game in Kalamazoo.
Now that I’ve swapped out these items, I feel like I can still accomplish everything! Speaking of which, let’s look at everything I’ve completed since the last check-in.
11 Goals Completed
Okay, so technically I only completed 10 new goals this time… but there’s one that I re-accomplished, and I accomplished it better this time.
15. Replay my parents for wedding overages.
As soon as we moved and bought our house, Sean and I aggressively paid back my parents for the money we spent on the wedding, above and beyond what they agreed to contribute. And amazingly we sent them the final payment a month after we sent them the first payment! 🙌
28. Do a back bend without a spot.
This one was also really exciting! We had been doing back bends in aerial silks classes (when you stand up straight and then bend backwards until your hands touch the ground and you’re in a bridge). I needed a spot, despite being pretty successful with gymnastics while I was a cheerleader in high school, so it was disappointing every time. I told the instructor this, and one day she told me I was going to do my back bend without a spot, and I did it! It worked out well because it was one of my very last classes before I moved. (😢)
33. Update my portfolio website, including my new URL.
I crossed this one off sooner than expected because I wasn’t sure if I’d have a job or not as soon as we moved to Kalamazoo! It turns out I do, but it was really nice to have the excuse to get my portfolio site updated.
41. Post to Instagram Stories every day for at least a month.
I completed this in April, though it didn’t convert me to a big Instagram Stories user like I thought it would. I’m excited to explore it more again soon, but I don’t think “post every day for x amount of time” will be the answer.
44. Completely finish the And Possibly Dinosaurs rebrand.
Finally! This has been on my monthly goals list for far too long, and I finally crossed it off last week. I republished all of my old blog posts with updated headers, I got all of my automated emails updated, and my social media profiles are now on-brand.
54. Get a printer for the home office (or make the one we have actually work). (Again)
This one I technically crossed off in January, but it was still a pain point. I made the printer we had work, but for whatever reason, it wouldn’t print black ink, even though it had a brand new cartridge of black ink. I tried several different cartridges to no avail. So I could print things… as long as they were only color.
Once I moved to Kalamazoo and continued my employment, they realized I didn’t have a way to print things off, since I’m no longer working in an office. To fix this, they ended up buying me a new printer and having it delivered to my house! Now I can print in color and black and white! A much better solution than the one I had come up with in January.
60. Clean out my Kindle of all the free books I’ll never read.
This was on my July Goals list, and I surprisingly sat down on July 1 and cranked out the whole thing! I thought it would take much longer.
I had a ton of free ebooks from various email lists that I literally only downloaded because they were free. They were mostly just trashy novels that needed some extra publicity, so they were giving them out for free for a short amount of time. I thought when I cleaned out my Kindle I’d go through them and see which ones sounded good. Instead I went through and saved the ones I recognized, and deleted the rest. It was so freeing!
69. Go on a train trip.
In June, literally a week after we moved into our house, I took a train trip by myself from Kalamazoo to Chicago! I went to a conference for work in the Windy City, and it was only a $70 round-trip ticket. I got to meet a ton of people from other Girl Scout councils and spend a ton of time with my friend Randi! It was a blast.
83. Take Stanley for a walk every day (rain or shine) for a month.
I’m so glad I crossed this one off, because now it’s a habit that I’m sticking with. Unlike Instagram Stories, this wasn’t a “I crossed it off my list, now I’m done and won’t do it ever again” type thing; I’ve really enjoyed morning strolls with Stanley. I started once I returned from Chicago in June and hit the one-month mark in the middle of July. Since then I’ve only missed a few days!
90. Try 10 different IPAs.
This was much easier than I expected. It helps that Sean is a big fan of IPAs, so we were able to get a variety pack at Costco and really enjoyed most of them! I’m definitely on Team IPA now.
94. Buy some white converse.
My white Converse make me so happy! I’ve been wanting white low-top Converse for a long time now, and I finally saved up enough Amazon gift cards from Microsoft Rewards to get them for free! Yes, please!
12 Goals in Progress
In addition to those 11 goals, I’m working on another 12! Some of these were also on the first check-in, because they’ll take a while, but I’m still making progress!
1. Beat my past 101 in 1001 record of 42.
I’m now up to 31! Hopefully by the next check-in I’ll have this one crossed off. 🤞
3. Read 75 books.
I’ve crossed another 7 books off of my list since my last check-in! I’m now at 11. Squire by Tamora Pierce, Lady Knight by Tamora Pierce, The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot, Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe by Fannie Flagg, and The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin, and Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein are the ones I crossed off this time.
I’m going to need to pick up the pace if I want to complete this by October of 2020! Don’t forget, you can keep up with my progress on Goodreads!
4. Read and get rid of 25 books that I already own.
Of those 6 books, I’ve given away 2 of them: The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein and Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe by Fannie Flagg. I liked both but probably won’t reread them, so I put them in our neighbor’s Little Free Library.I’ll also be giving away a third, The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin, when I see my boss in person on Thursday. This puts my current total at 4, and I’ll bump it up to 5 later this week. I’ve gotten rid of others without finishing them, but for this goal, I’m only crossing off books I’ve gotten rid of after reading the whole thing.
6. Officially change my last name.
I’m so close! My updated passport application is being processed, and I’m waiting on one more credit card which should arrive soon. After that, the last thing to change is my Global Entry card. Once I get my updated passport, I’ll need to get that changed somehow… next step is finding out what that process is!
16. Pay off our student loans.
We’ve paid off all but one of our student loans! Of course, the one remaining student loan is the biggest, but it’s exciting to shove all of our money at one bill until it’s gone. Right now we’re on schedule to pay it off by December of 2020, which is technically 2 months past the end of this 101 in 1001, so we’ll see if we can move up our timeline a little bit.
25. Complete Couch to 10k.
I’ve been working on Couch to 10k for the past few weeks and loving it! I’m currently in week 5 of 14, and so far I don’t hate it. My friend Elsbeth and I are already planning on running a 5k together in the spring, so this will be a great way to train.
37. Donate at least $250 to the ACLU of Kentucky via my business income.
Every quarter, provided I have made income, I make a donation to the ACLU of Kentucky. At the beginning of July, I made a donation of $31! I can already tell I’ll be making another donation in October, so I’m slowly but surely making progress on this goal.
45. Try out three new series on the blog.
One new series, Home Tours, has officially started on the blog! As long as you can call one single post a series… I shared our Kalamazoo home tour in June, and I’ll be sharing more photos as we finish different spaces!
57. Do a 10×10 clothing challenge.
The #summer10x10 started on Friday, July 27, so I jumped on the opportunity! So far summer in Kalamazoo has been perfect weather for light layering, so I think it’s a great time to try out my first 10×10. Fingers crossed I can keep it up until Sunday!
61. Create a “home book” with information for our bills, etc.
I outlined and started filling in our home book… and then we moved back to Michigan. So now I need to start over with most of the information, but at least the outline is ready for me to fill in!
77. Complete the Give a Craft Beer Trail Passport.
I’ve already made progress on one of the items I added after our move! There’s a beer tour passport in Kalamazoo called Give a Craft with 13 breweries to visit. So far I’ve visited 5 of them, but only have stamps at 2 of them. (whoops!)
88. Try 25 different dark beers.
I’m not a big dark beer fan, so I added this to my 101 in 1001 list to give them another shot. It’s hard to tell if I don’t like dark beers in general, or if I just haven’t found the right dark beers for me yet. I’ve tried 3 more since my first check-in, and I can definitely tell I’m warming up to them… but I still choose IPAs over dark beers if I have the choice!
The 3 I’ve tried this time around are Darkness Brewing S’mores Man on the Moo, Gravel Bottom Brewery S’mores Stout (I’m a big s’mores fan, can you tell?), and Founders Breakfast Stout.
Woo! 31 out of 101 crossed off! I’m excited to keep going with this challenge. Thanks for following along!
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