Incoherent Scribblings

Anna’s post reminded me that I recently passed the deadline for my 101 Things in 1001 Days. In the end, I completed 62 Things in 1001 Days.

As far as my “Professional” goals went, I didn’t seem to cross a lot of the tasks off the list, but in reality I am pleased with the progress I made. I didn’t get a professional position until I was about half-way through the list and most of the tasks were made under the assumption that I would get a tenure-track position. Since my current job isn’t tenure-track, I simply didn’t need to do some of those things.

One thing the “Personal” section of the list taught me is that I am not very charitable with either my time OR money. I picked a couple of charitable things that, because of my interest in them, I really thought I might do, but in the end I was too stingy with both my time and money.

Some other observations:

1. The “Cat Care” section tells me that my cats get better health care than I do… and I have insurance!
2. I did better on the “Financial” tasks than I originally thought I might. One of my personal goals when I came back to the States was to keep my finances under control and now, “with this economy,” I am glad that I managed not to get in over my head.
3. I did quite well in the “Family” department. Of course, the fact that I lived at home with my family for a year before I moved to Texas probably had something to do with that…
4. The “Stitching/General Crafts” sections were moderately successful. The main problem with the tasks on this list is that I overestimated how much time I would be willing to spend on things that are outside of my cross stitch comfort zone. I only have a finite amount of time to spend on my hobbies and the actual act of cross stitching beats anything else almost every single time!
5. Although I only accomplished two things in the “Health/Fitness” section, I made progress towards all but one of those goals.
6. It was tempting when I was putting this list together to add a lot of “Travel” goals. However, traveling takes money, so I tried to be realistic and managed to travel to four of my seven destinations

I have also annotated my list if you are interested in seeing what I did (and didn’t) do.

Although I only accomplished 62 of my original 101 Things, I will probably do another 101 Things list because it motivated me to at least attempt to do all those things I always say I am going to do but don’t.

While contemplating my next step regarding Flo (to order or sort beads, that is the question… I am leaning towards ordering), I decided to start a new project tonight.

“Kitty Cottage Sampler” is by Little House Needleworks and has been in my to-be-stitched pile for at least three years and tonight it finally made it to the top. I am stitching it on 28 count Lambswool Joblean and have decided to do it over one because I think it will make a cute ornament this way.

In addition to starting a new stitching project, I also started another “new” project. I finally checked out The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring as an unabridged audiobook from my library. I figure I’ve read the book and seen the movie, so why not listen to it too? (Actually listening to LOTR as an audiobook is on my 101 Things list.) It took three hours to listen to two chapters so I predict I will get a lot of stitching done while listening!

One of the items on my 101 Things in 1001 Days list is to “eat a vegetarian diet for a week.” This is an item that I have been pondering off and on quite a bit over the past few weeks because once again, I have fallen into one of my I-hate-cooking-and-food-in-general moods.

This anti-cooking sentiment reached its peak last weekend when I thought I was in the mood for one of my favorite dishes. I bought all the ingredients and made it, but once it was ready and I sat down to eat I wanted to throw it out after two bites. It wasn’t that it wasn’t good. It was. It just didn’t appeal to me. So I put the left-overs in the fridge and the next day I tried to eat it again (usually it is even better the second day), but even then I didn’t find it appetizing. I gave up and threw it out.

As a result, last week I began to think that perhaps a temporary change in eating habits might lift me out of my mood. Therefore I began to wonder if I was ready to implement the challenge of eating a vegetarian diet for a week.

So I started doing a little research on vegetarianism. I found this somewhat difficult because a lot of information out there is little more than militant propaganda (PETA anyone?), but eventually I found some advice for people who are considering vegetarianism. One of the things most often suggested is to try vegetarianism for thirty days and eat meatless meals that appeal to you. You don’t have to eat asparagus and tofu right off the bat. It is OK to eat spaghetti with meatless sauce and baked potatoes. You also don’t have to wake up one morning and completely give up meat. You can gradually wean yourself off of it. This type of advice was what I was looking for and was all I needed to decide that I am ready to begin my vegetarian experiment.

When I wrote this challenge for my 101 Things list I wrote it fairly simple because I thought if I left it as merely “a vegetarian diet for a week” I might accomplish it. However, I had hoped to not just eat a vegetarian diet for a week, but actually sit down and do a vegetarian meal plan as well. I wanted to find vegetarian recipes that sounded good and give them a try.

However, I have not yet seriously looked for any such recipes and given my current mood concerning food, I am not sure that a week is enough to get me out of this funk. Therefore, as most places suggest, I have decided to try vegetarianism for thirty days as opposed to one week.

Nevertheless I have also decided that I will not completely forbid myself from eating meat. In other words, I will allow myself to eat meat only if I go out to eat. This does not mean that I will circumvent my experiment by eating out every night or require myself to eat meat if I go out, rather I will not deny myself a steak if I am at a restaurant and I want it.

As a general rule though, for the next month I resolve to no longer buy or cook meat and will actively search for and try one vegetarian recipe a week. In a month I will evaluate the state of affairs and at that point determine if I am really the carnivore I always thought I was.

Seeing as I only have one more Christmas to achieve #12 “stitch a Christmas ornament for each member my immediate family” of my stitching goals on my 1001 Days List, I decided that I better make a plan to stitch and finish this set of ornaments.

First of all, I define my “immediate” family as such:

Mom
Dad
Sissy
Niece
Nephew
Step-mom
Step-sis
Step-dad
Aunt (Mom’s Sis)
Uncle (Dad’s Bro)
BFF (Best Friend Forever… you know who you are!)

With his “Baby’s First Christmas Ornament,” I have already stitched one for my nephew, so I guess I don’t need to stitch him another… unless I really want to.

As far as the rest of the family goes, I will aim to have the ornaments for my mom, dad, sister and niece done for next Christmas. I will then complete the second half of the set before the end of my challenge and those ornaments can be gifts for Christmas 2009.

Therefore starting next month, I will add the goal “Stitch and finish Christmas Ornament for So&So” to my stitching goals every other month until I finish all 10 ornaments and can count the “thing” as complete.

I have been thinking about my 101 Things in 1001 Days list quite a lot over the past week. I suppose I have been doing so because I felt like with the list it was not really necessary to make New Year’s Resolutions.

Or it could have been that I just happened to notice that the ticker at the top of the page indicates that I am within days of being half way through my allotted time. On Monday it will be 500 days since I started my task and as of October 8 (the last time I updated the list), I have only completed 18 tasks. I have completed a few more since then, but I am nowhere near the 50 mark where it seems I should be as I near the half-way point.

Upon looking through the list I have found that there are some tasks-in-progress that really can’t be counted until the last day of my challenge so when I see that they aren’t crossed off yet I don’t worry. However, there are things that for one reason or another I am no longer interested in pursuing so I have been thinking about replacements for those tasks. In fact, I have a few that I will be updating shortly.

One of the things I would really like to add but haven’t figured out exactly how to word it yet is something along the lines of blogging every day for a year. I know that there are different “365 Blog Groups” out there, but I am not sure if I want to join something like that. After all my blog is written for me, so I shouldn’t have to prove that I have posted something everyday to anyone but myself.

Perhaps if it is something I want to do I need to make some rules and/or exceptions… Sort of like what I had/have for the Project Challenge. I would love to post every day, but the fact is that sometimes life gets in the way and I don’t want to feel like I have failed my task if I miss a day here and there.