Monday, May 5, 2014

Making Progress on My List

To help me stay accountable, I'm going to make some of my posts about the progress that I am making toward completing the goals on my 101 in 1001 List. I'm seriously loving having something to work toward and help to keep me focused. What I also love about this is that my family is really rallying behind me to help me check stuff off of my list! This weekend we were going to get some food and Ace was so excited to eat somewhere new, so that he could help me complete my goal of trying 20 new restaurants. It was just really great to kind of rally around doing something intentionally different, and to do it together.

This week I officially crossed another goal off my list #90: Organize the Garage. Ace and I spent all morning Sunday going through boxes, bins, and bags of stuff to see what we wanted to keep. We trashed some stuff and donated a whole bunch of stuff as well. We were able to stack up all of the boxes I keep for work, and get everything in a bin or a box. Now everything that is in our garage is stuff that we definitely want to keep, and will make packing for our move that much easier. It was quite a feeling of accomplishment getting it all finished, cleaned and swept.

With the exception of the trash by the door we needed to dump in the trash bin, this is our perfectly cleaned garage. We can fit both cars in there! 

There are also goals that I'm currently working towards, but haven't had enough time to fully finish yet. They are listed below with a little description of what I have completed so far!

#9: Get 20 people to walk with me (and Rubles!) during the American Heart Association Heart Walk: As of now I have 8 of the 20 people who have agreed to be on our team and walk with us. I'm so excited! I'm going to be posting on my Facebook more often about it to see if I can get to that 20. It raises money for such a good cause, and could potentially help Rubles in the future, which gives me extra incentive!

#16: Listen to Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time: I pulled up the list (if you want to check it out you can see it HERE), which is apparently the updated list. They did an original list in 2004, but then updated it in 2010 to include more modern songs, since the original list only included three songs that were written after the year 2000 (which oddly enough were all Eminem songs... which really surprised me). So far I have listened to numbers 500 - 485, and already there are some surprises. Like R.Kelly's "Ignition"... are you kidding me?!?! That song should be ashamed of itself, and in no way should be anywhere that list. So far there is only 1 song that I have never heard before (Alice Cooper's "I'm Eighteen"), and I'm enjoying listening to and reading about each songs significance.

#24: Inspire someone else to make their own 101 in 1001 list: So far my younger sister, my mom and my good friend are all working on their lists. I feel like I can't cross this off until one of them fully finishes their list, but they are all well on their way!

#25: Try 20 New Restaurants: We ate at this really yummy new Thai restaurant that we found near us. They had GREAT reviews on Yelp, so we headed over to try it. I was pleasantly surprised, and so proud of Ace for eating Thai food for the first time. He's a pretty conservative eater, so it was a big deal for him to try some. Only 19 more new restaurants to go!

#33: Go one month without eating out: Ace and I decided that this is the month we should be doing this, so we started this as of May 4th. Its only been two days, so we will see how tough this gets later this month or on a night when I'm super exhausted and want to cave and order pizza. I'm hoping this will not only help us get healthier, but save us a little cash as well!

#44: Go one month with no sweets: Oh man! I don't know if I'm dumb or just super motivated to do this at the same time I'm trying to go without eating out, but we will see how it goes. Isn't it ridiculous that as soon as you commit to not doing something, all of a sudden you NEED it? It's like when the dentist tells you that you can't swallow, and then immediately all you want to do is swallow. This one is going to be hard.

#45: Floss my teeth every day for a month: So I stared this one about 10 days ago, and had a great streak going. Then I fell asleep one night without flossing! Damnit! I was doing so well too. So I am recommitting to starting again today. I need to try to remember to do it in the morning, so I don't forget by the end of the day.

#57: Complete 10 Random Acts of Kindness: I did my first intentionally kind act last week. I'm not going to go into detail yet (I will do a write up of all my kind acts when I finish), but it felt really good.

#94: Buy a new home with a better layout for our family: This past week we accepted an offer on our house, so now the looking for our next house has commenced. We put an offer in on a house yesterday, but it is going to be competitive. I LOVED the house, but not sure if we will be contenders. It is toward the top of our price range, so someone could easily out bid us. If we don't get this one, I'll be sad, but we will just keep on looking!

Overall I'm really enjoying working towards each of my goals and getting things done. I didn't think it would be this fun! I'm hoping I can continue my momentum and check more things off the list soon! I will update next Monday with how things are going! But I also want to hear how things are going for you!

If you have made your own 101 in 1001 list, how are you doing with your goals? If you haven't, what are some individual goals that you want to get accomplished in the next few weeks?