New goals #51 - 60

Some days I hate my life, and today is one of those days. I am in a bad mood, I don't feel good and I'm tired. Grumpy Anne doesn't make for very good goals, but I'm going to give it a shot anyway while I watch House Hunters.

#51: Visit a Renaissance Fair

#52: Hike part of the Appalachian Trail.
Even if it's just a teeny tiny part.

#53: Go jet skiing with Brandon.
I went as a kid and remember liking it a lot.

#54: Cross at least one of the MLB stadiums off of our list (see destinations above).

I am checking out a list of 1,000 ideas for a bucket list (I know, that's kind-of cheating) and I just saw one that says "Learn your grandparents' native tongue"...check. I should put that down as a goal. Does it count if I've already accomplished it (25 years ago)...?

#55: Go to an amusement park.

Oh my gosh, I still have 5 more *facepalm*

#56: Lose 100 pounds.
...did I really just write that?

#57: Tour the Richmond Art Museum.

#58: Build a greenhouse.

#59: Frame my yearly goals every year.
Like this:

#60: Buy a nice chess set.

The end. And just in time for the end of House Hunters.  They picked the first one.
I'm still grumpy, tired and don't feel good.

New Goals 41 - 50

I have reached the point that I knew I would...  I have reached "the wall" in this process. So I think I am going to sit here for the next hour or so and do other things on the internet and write things down as they come to me.

7:21 pm
I can do this.

7:42 pm
Perhaps I should make this my 44 in 444 instead of 99 in 999.

#41: Create a book list.
This is for all of the books I have ever read and will ever read.

#42: Visit Bald Head Island with Brandon.
Bald Head Island is a posh island off the coast of NC that I love and I really would like to take Brandon.

#43: Publish a book.
Typing this makes my whole body clench.  This is something that I have wanted to do for years, but whether it is because of fear or self-doubt, I haven't done it, and I want to. {Still freaking out a little.}

8:14 pm
Yes, I am, in-fact, watching "Bridezillas, where are they now?" on television.

#44: Watch the sunrise over the beach.
I live on the coast - might as well do it!

8:27 pm
Well, I'm past an hour...

#45: Sew curtains for a whole room.

#46: Tour Poplar Grove Plantation.

#47 Make monthly and yearly goals - and stick to them!
This means that they have to be r.e.a.l.i.s.t.i.c!  Otherwise they'll never happen. Realistic, Anne, realistic.

8:48 pm
Only 3 more to go! I can do this. I can do this. I can do this. I can do this.

#48: Go on a picnic with Brandon.
Location to be determined.

#49: Get professional family photos done of the entire Cliffe family.

#50: Get professional family photos done of the entire Entsminger family.

9:01 pm
Man, that was rough.

New Goals 31 - 40

#31: Go to a for real Horror House (Panic Attack in Wilmington...?)
I have been through a few rinky dink things at fairs and such, but I've never been through a legit Horror House, and I really really want to.  Wilmington has this one called Panic Attack around Halloween and we didn't get to go this year, but I'd like to see it.

#32: Get a professional massage.  And try not to get addicted.
Never had one but I'd like to.

#33: Do some kind of record keeping every week for the entire 999 days. Blog, journal or take a picture.
If nothing else, I will take a picture with my phone.

#34: Learn how to play the piano and memorize 5 hymns from the LDS hymnal (simplified, obviously).
I have been trying to learn to play the piano since I was 8. Okay, that's a lie, I took a few lessons when I was about 8 and got a few songs under my belt that I can still pluck out on the piano, but I never practiced...or the piano teacher at Cripple Creek left...or something, so I didn't keep it up. But I have always wanted to know how to play.  I have never been willing to put the work into it, though, obviously. So, 996 days from now I will know how to at least play 5 hymns.

I'm beginning to think I've bitten off more than I can chew.

Speaking of chewing -

#35: Make ten amazing desserts that I've never made before.
I have made cakes and a few pies, but there is a whole world of dessert that I have never explored, and I want to.

I really want to do a Family History goal, but how does one gauge how far along they are on Family History??  I can't say "complete my genealogy" because that won't happen in a lifetime. There is always more to learn, always more to discover. That's almost like saying "find out all there is to know about the history of the world" - not possible. But, I can do something as a goal, I suppose.
 
#36: Take 20 family names to the temple and complete them - start to finish.
That includes male and female.

#37: Make 72-hour kits and test them twice.
Test them as in go camping and take nothing with us but the 72 hour kits.  That's awesome because that means we get to go camping, and that might work for the weekend trips from goal #28. I shouldn't say Goal #28 because I'm going to rearrange these... I'll change it when I do.

#38: Start building my food storage and have a solid 2 months worth.

#39: Live two weeks on nothing but food storage.
This will be after I've obtained quite a bit, obviously.  Eat what you store and store what you eat, right?

#40: Learn how to can stuff and buy a pressurized canner.
I think it's called a pressurized canner.

New Goals 21 - 30

You may or not agree (hey, guess what, it doesn't matter, because they're my goals!) but I'm not going to consider yesterday a skip because:
1. I had already written them down. I took my own advice and wrote them in a draft on Thursday night after I posted my last post so I didn't forget them.
2. I would have posted if I hadn't gotten a call from my new job saying "hey, can you come and do your orientation tonight? I know it's short notice, but you won't be able to do it for two weeks if you don't do it tonight" and then I didn't get home until late. And didn't remember until after midnight and I had gone to bed.

So without further adeu (is that how you spell that? I'm sure french isn't on my computer's spell check), here are my goals 21 - 30.

#21: Watch 30 movies off of Brandon's "list".
Brandon has a list of movies that he wants to watch with me and I am ashamed to say that we haven't watched any since we've been married. 30 is one a month, with a little room to breathe.

#22: Go on a week-long "media fast" every quarter.
I have an obsessive personality, and I am obsessed with media. Television, internet, video games, movies, my iPhone, Pandora, etc.  I understand that I need a break from these things every now and then, so for a week once a quarter I am going to take a fast.  I'll have to strategically time it so I don't miss anything important (midnight release of "the Hobbit", for instance {which is coming up soon!!!}, or during family vacation).

#23: Learn how to rotate a garden and then successfully do it.
I love to garden, even though I typically lose interest somewhere around the end of July. But I'd really love to learn how to rotate my vegetable garden so that I can get more nutrients into my soil (the old fashioned way).

#24: Buy Rosetta Stone and learn how to speak a new language.
When I originally typed this the other day, I said "how to speak Spanish and French" AH! Well, Spanish isn't really a "new" language for me, as I've taken 8 semesters of it, however, I am most certainly not fluent. But I would love to learn a new language, like French, Italian or Gaelic.  I doubt they have Gaelic on Rosetta Stone, though. I think I would eventually like to know Spanish, French and Italian. We'll see which one I learn first.

#25: Start a retirement fund (Ah!).
Oh my gosh, that's such an grown-up thing to do. I'm not a grown-up.  I'm an adult by age, I suppose, but I'm certainly not a grown-up.  I once read a quote by C.S. Lewis that said something about how he hoped that he never sunk down to becoming a grown-up. Oh, let me see if I can find it. 

“Critics who treat 'adult' as a term of approval, instead of as a merely descriptive term, cannot be adult themselves. To be concerned about being grown up, to admire the grown up because it is grown up, to blush at the suspicion of being childish; these things are the marks of childhood and adolescence. And in childhood and adolescence they are, in moderation, healthy symptoms. Young things ought to want to grow. But to carry on into middle life or even into early manhood this concern about being adult is a mark of really arrested development. When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty I read them openly. When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up.”

 Okay,  okay, that doesn't say exactly what I remember it saying.  I remembered it more in a Peter Pan kind of a way.  None-the-less, I still don't feel old enough to be doing things like starting a retirement fund.  And that quote is certainly something to live by.  that is my life philosophy.  My brother said to me the other day that I was strange for doing things like listening to Disney songs on Pandora, but who cares! I like to sing along sometimes, darn it.  Right along with my Wicked songs.  And Into the Woods. Into the woods to Grandmother's house!  There are giants in the skyyyyyyyyy.
Moving on.

#26: Finally read "Paradise Lost" all the way through.
I've taken two classes where I was supposed to read this.  In-fact, one of those classes was a John Milton class...and I still didn't read it. I suck, let's move forward. I'll read it now.

#27: Buy an external hard drive.
We've had one before, but it crashed.  I want this primarily for my pictures. I suppose I have plenty of room on my computer...but I'd still like to have one.

#28: Go on 6 small weekend trips with Brandon.
It's not all about the huge trips, and I'd really like to start doing small weekend trips.

#29: Get up to date on scrapbooking.
 - SVU - Freshman Year
 - SVU - Sophomore Year
 - SVU - Junior Year, Part 1
 - Life in Burgaw
 - SVU - Junior Year, Part 2
 - Wedding
 - SVU - Senior Year
 - 2009
 - 2010
 - 2011
 - 2012
 - 2013
 - 2014
 - 2015
The thought of all of this freaks me out a little bit. But I WILL do this!

#30: Organize memory boxes.
I have tons and tons of memory things that I want to keep, but they are all shoved in cardboard boxes and I never look at them.  I really want to get those pretty boxes that are all the fashion right now and organize everything - which really goes along with my scrapbooking goal because those boxes have a lot of things that will end up in scrapbooks.

Now I have to come up with another 10 for today. Awesome. 
:)

New Goals 11 - 20

Well, day two and going strong!
I actually had to stop myself short last night from going past 10 because they just kept coming to my mind - hopefully I don't forget any...perhaps I should just do a draft in future if that happens again...

#11: Document all of my goals in photographs.
I love taking pictures and I love doing that for the intent of record keeping. So, there you go.

#12: Watch all of the old Doctor Who seasons.
That evens out to about one disk a week...I think we can handle that.

#13: Compile a family cookbook.
For quite some time now I have wanted to compile a cookbook filled with family recipes and loved recipes of those whom I love, so I am finally going to do it!!

#14: Get new wedding bands for Brandon and myself.
We were in that struggling college student phase when we got married and got cheap rings from Walmart.  I love my engagement ring and I'd really like to get a set that tie into how it looks.

#15: Attend a play at a really old theater.
When we were in Boston a few years ago we went to see Wicked at the Boston Opera House and I fell in love with the Opera House almost as much as I did with the musical, and I'd like to go see another play. Not necessarily at the Boston Opera House again, obviously.

#16: Compile and stick to a budget for one month.

#17: Revise my budget and then stick to it for three months.
The plan for this is to stick to it for three months and just figure out how budgeting works in my life and go on from there.  Since the two of us have never really had a "set" income amount, this has always been difficult, but as that has changed, so has my idea of budgeting.

#18: Begin a fitness program and stick to it for 6 weeks.
I've started and failed many times...but I figure if I stick to it for 6 weeks, then it will become habit and it won't be so hard. That's the plan, anyhow.

#19: Stay at a Bed and Breakfast for my Anniversary.
I've always loved the idea of a B&B, and my 5th anniversary is coming up, so... (hint, hint, hint)

#20:  Attend a Catholic Mass in a big fancy cathedral.
There's something about attending a church service that is so steeped in tradition that is appealing.

New goals - 2-10

We already established goal #1: come up with 10 goals per day for 9.9 days (which, might I add, it is convenient that it is a partially self-accomplishing goal).
Here are 2 - 10.
I think I'll write them all down in blogs and then rearrange them later, because I can't have a blog that doesn't have like-things together. :) You should see my book collection... my brother said to me, "what's so difficult? just throw them up on the shelves." NO!!! I can't have Shakespeare next to Twilight (yes, I admit that I do own one of them...), that would be chaos. Shakespeare goes next to Milton, Beau, duh.
Anyway.

#2: Finish a book a month.
You know, I considered making this two per month, but I'd like to make this realistic and attainable.  And working 40 hrs/week sometimes doesn't allow me to do that...especially with so much television to watch...

#3: Go on 3 amazingly awesome trips with Brandon.
This does not include: trips that only include going to Kansas City or Bath County (where our parents live).  If we happen to stop by either one of those places, that's different.  These three trips are intended to incorporate some of the places under the "Destinations" tab at the top of the blog.

I keep stopping myself from asking Brandon "what do you think I should put on here?" because for once I need to do something for myself and not rely on other people.

#4: Create two travel maps.
I've always wanted maps that have cork board behind them and I am able to stick push-pins in them, so that is exactly what I'm going to do. I even know where I'm going to hang them up in the bedroom and what places are going to get pinned.

#5: Read a history of the world.
Self-explanatory, really. I even have the book already and everything.

#6: Watch all 6 Star Wars movies in order as a marathon.
Brandon loves them and they're one of "those things", you know?

#7: Read the entire standard works - cover to cover.
Old Testament
New Testament
Book of Mormon
Doctrine & Covenants
Pearl of Great Price

#8: Take a photography class.
I've always wanted to do this. I love taking pictures.

#9: Throw an amazing party that is not centered around a holiday or a birthday.

#10: Own all of the Classic Disney movies.
I should start a list of these at the top of the blog too...that way my husband can keep an eye on them and buy them for me... :) (especially when they come out in new editions...like Cinderella is right now...)

A shock of reality

I decided to get on here and do a little blogging today, and I did the math on what date it was going to be in 999 days (okay, okay, I looked it up on the internet because I'm too lazy) and I realized that it's my birthday! But...not only is it my birthday...it's my 30th birthday...

And then it hit me...
IT'S LESS THAN 1,000 DAYS UNTIL I'M 30!!!
Cue panic....

I would say "and then I composed myself" or "then I got over it" but NO! I'm still freaking out a little bit.  This sums up how I feel:

I'll get over it, I suppose.  And in the meantime...I need to make this a meaningful, useful time in my life (right...?).
So, here goes. I'm creating a 99 in 999. An official, typed words on web page list.

Let's begin, shall we?

Goal #1: Come up with 10 goals a day for 9.9 days in order to complete this list.