Getting started -- The List

101 things to do in 1001 days
starting 06/01/2005 and ending 02/27/2008

1. Finish a class through MIT’s OpenCourseWare – including any papers or problem sets.
2. Get my eyebrows waxed on a regular basis. Umm, at least once a month for 6 months running?
3. Go to Europe. For more than 10 days.
4. Put the maximum amount allowed into my IRA, every year.
5. Take dance lessons. Any kind of dance except for social dance since I’d take those anyway. Ballet. Jazz. Modern. Belly.
6. Get back on a workout schedule that includes toning / strength training.
7. Do physical therapy exercises for my knee. Daily. At least 30 days in a row (at which point it should be a habit…)
8. Go to a sporting event that I would normally avoid (baseball, basketball, football).
9. Get a cat or a dog.
10. Get one nice piece of jewelry. Nice being something that costs more than $100. That I will wear.
11. Purchase a nice piece of furniture. Not from IKEA.
12. Start using Quicken again for personal finances.
13. Have non-retirement account stock holdings. Maybe one share of Berkshire B? Maybe a drip account or two?
14. Go to a concert of some sort. It is just pathetic that I never have.
15. Do one thing to make my houselet more appealing – curtains in the bedroom, paint the bedroom, paint the kitchen, etc. – there are so many options to choose from. Barring that, move.
16. Learn to sew. Or quilt.
17. Lose weight. Get to either size 8 or 160 lbs. Stay there. Then cease negative thoughts about weight and appearance.
18. Do a clothing purge and keep only the stuff that actually looks good.
19. Buy new clothes that are flattering.
20. Volunteer for Friends for Youth or English in Action again. Or take on something new. But get another weekly volunteer gig.
21. Drive up or down Highway 1 for fun and relaxation, not on a quest to get to a destination. Do 17-mile-drive. (Did part 1 when Caroline was here.)
22. Write letters to my friends who live far away. Do at least 10.
23. Visit, have lunch with, or otherwise socialize with Homestead people - don't fall out of contact.
24. Visit Ireland. Go to a pub. OR Visit Italy. Stay in a villa. (Whichever doesn’t happen goes on the *next* 101 list.)
25. Go white water rafting again.
26. Be deliberate about relaxing and set the stage to be indulgent rather than just being bored and reading a book for 5 hours.
27. Put together my "if I die" information. Include things like parts of the funeral service, who should be notified and how, where money is and how to access it, etc. Let someone know where said information is kept.
28. Go to New York City. See a Broadway show.
29. Cuddle with someone while watching a movie.
30. Go to an art museum. No, The Tech, while cool, does not count.
31. Get a facial.
32. Get a bikini wax to see if it is worth it.
33. Grow herbs and use them in cooking.
34. Buy something that would be considered "lingerie" instead of simply "underwear".
35. Complete the online Rosetta Stone course for the first year of German. Or Russian if I switch to that.
36. Finish Grandma’s 80th birthday photo album before she hits 90.
37. Find a new job. Or go back to school. But quit working at something that bores me in any case.
38. Take a road trip - one that covers at least 3 states. Not with family since we know how that turns out.
39. Read Hamlet. Or at least something that I would not be embarrassed to admit that I read to a snooty college friend. Not that I have snooty college friends.
40. Let’s make that 10 classics or otherwise “respectable” books. Fiction. Shakespeare counts, Jane Austen doesn’t really.
41. Come up with a good list of places to go see, eat, etc. for when people visit from out of town.
42. See an opera.
43. Go to the Shakespeare festival in Ashland, Oregon.
44. Kiss someone. (Not relatives and not on the cheek.)
45. Do regular upkeep on my nails. File them at least once a week for 3 months straight. Use lotion and other cuticle stuff too.
46. Find a new eye shadow color. Lipstick too while I’m at it. Heck, let’s go for the big guns – enter a Sephora store and buy something.
47. Release some books into the wild with Book Crossing IDs. Consider thinning the herd. My bookcases will thank me.
48. Meet a snippet IRL. Any snippet, just meet one.
49. Put a song or two on my iPod. Use it.
50. Write a letter to a state or federal official about something that matters to me.
51. Cut down on diet Coke. A lot. As in get down to one per week. Instead of 4 per day.
52. Read every word of the Bible.
53. Read some theology-adjacent books. For example: Postmodern Times, The Spirituality of the Cross, and God at Work by GE Veith; Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis; Life Together by Dietrich Bonheoffer; Holy People, Holy Lives by Richard Eyer; Here We Stand by Hermann Sasse.
54. Walk with Walk California or hike on my own at least once per week for 3 months straight.
55. Do an aerial. Show Thai.
56. Send the card on time for every immediate family member’s birthday and anniversary at least once within the 1001 days. (Mom, Dad, Bro1, SIL, Neph1, Niece, Neph2, Sis1, Bro2, Sis2)
57. Read something related to work. At least 4 books. This could be a management type book or some new skill I need to learn.
58. Choreograph a warm up routine for gymnastics class. Teach it to others. Do it.
59. Organize papers and stuff in room. Keep only relevant information and bills. Dump the plan description for the health insurance I had 6 years ago.
60. Make scrap books for Jakob and Kyla from their last two visits. And for each annual visit that falls within the 1001 days. Jaxon too since he’ll be coming on the visits now.
61. Get a tea set, or a tea pot and cups from various sets but which magically go together in an attractive or even arty way. Use them even if by myself.
62. Start keeping track of music and songs that I like to figure out if there is a discernible pattern so that I can confidently say “I like [type of music].”
63. Visit friends in various parts of the country. (Ildiko, Mary and Doug, Rebecca, Lisa, college people)
64. Use the gift certificates I have instead of letting them sit around like so much non-interest-getting money. At the moment I have Crate and Barrel, Olive Garden, See’s, iTunes, and Pottery Barn. That I know of.
65. Find the perfect t-shirt bra.
66. Take care of my teeth: Go to the dentist at least once per year. Floss daily for a month. Finish the teeth whitening pack that is only supposed to take 7 days in no more than 14.
67. Clean my car more often than once every 6 months. Including the inside.
68. Get the special screws for my trunk, or find something that gets the job done.
69. Memorize the Te Deum, the Magnificat and Luther’s morning and evening prayers. Use them in regular devotions. Say, at least once a day for 30 days in a row.
70. Set up a regular schedule of chores instead of cramming them all into the weekend (or, you know, not doing them at all).
71. Sell text books that I will not use again on half.com. Or at least try. Someone somewhere has to want an old physics text book, right?
72. Keep tax related papers in one central organized location to make things easier come tax time. Including receipts for things bought off the internet for that stupid “use tax” thing.
73. Go through Tama’s organize post and adopt some of her methods. They really do make sense.
74. Own a house or a condo or have a serious plan to do so. Said plan may be predicated on winning the lottery if I stay in the SF Bay Area.
75. Go away for at least 3 weekends or extended weekends. 1 to pamper myself, 2 to do a little pampering and more thinking about life / planning.
76. Take care of my skin. Use lotion, sunscreen, drink enough water, etc.
77. (Huh. This seems to be a duplicate. Will come up with a replacement one soon.)
78. Send random gifts for no occasion in particular to my family members or friends when I see something that they would love or that makes me think of them. Let's say 5 times in the 1001 days.
79. Do at least 6 new things. It can be anything as long as I haven’t done it before.
80. Send thank you notes to TWoP recappers.
81. Go to a gymnastics meet in another country (Worlds or a major international meet) to cement my position as a whacked out crazy gymnastics fan. Or to a college meet in a different state.
82. Apply to TAR if they do another family show in the 1001 days.
83. Return various things I have borrowed to their rightful owners. Things I can think of now – book to BigMomma, book to Michael Bender, 2 books to Richard Holding, 3 videos to Homestead video library, book to Sharon.
84. Start keeping a list of books I read with notes (to help determine if it is worth tracking down other books by the same author).
85. Make myself, or pay someone else to make, a t-shirt quilt from some of my old t-shirts that have sentimental value.
86. Get rid of the “stack o’ magazines that I’m going to read someday, I swear, I will.”
87. Set aside time to pray daily and keep a prayer journal.
88. Don’t watch any fluff TV shows while sitting. Use either the Gazelle or do free weights or use the exercise ball for the duration of fluff shows. For the purposes of this item, fluff shows include any “What Not to Wear” or “Queer Eye” or reality (excluding TAR) type shows. “Alias”, “Veronica Mars”, “Gilmore Girls” and the like do not count as fluff shows.
89. Have guests over at least 4 times a year. Not always to watch TV, although special events like gymnastics meets are okay. (This is a general “be social” type thing.)
90. Take a class that is somehow job related. Programming? Management-ish? For a job change? Doesn’t matter, the class should just be related to my work somehow.
91. Take the personal finance class through Stanford Continuing Studies that I keep eyeing every year. If I can make it fit with my commute.
92. Make that chart for my blood pressure that my doctor wants. Fill it in a couple of times a week. Take it and my home blood pressure cuff thing in to an appointment. Verify, to my doctor’s satisfaction, that it is just white coat hypertension and get away without her prescribing meds.
93. Start, or get people to start, an “end of the school year leftovers rescue” program at Stanford. 94. Become an Excel power user. Or just know what pivot tables are, how to use them, and why they might be useful. Conditional formatting might also be a useful thing to know.
95. Keep a flowering plant alive for more than 3 months.
96. Go to a show or two or three using cheap tickets from Gold Star Events. They’re cheap, just go already!
97. Don’t let more than a month elapse between when I can donate blood again and when I do. For at least a year.
98. Get off the stupid Doubleday Book Club thing so I don’t have to keep telling them not to send me books. Gah!
99. Stay in a yurt overnight.
100. Visit the Scharffen Berger factory and take a tour.
101. Get renters’ insurance.