101 in 1001

there is little i love more than making to-do lists and getting organized and setting goals for myself.  unfortunately, i do not always feel the same excitement about working towards those goals.  i have a tendency to give myself too much to accomplish, or i forget about them as time goes on.  i saw a 101 in 1001 list on design darling, and was immediately inspired to create my own.  the list is large enough to allow for both large and small to-dos, but it doesn't end on december 31st  like a new year's resolution, so you have plenty of time to accomplish what you want to.  i just started, but i like the fact that i can focus on one or two goals at a time.  the ones in italics are ones that i am currently working on.

May 5, 2016

Go to London
2.     Go to the top of the Empire State building
3.     Go to the Liberty Science Center
4.     Go on a road trip
5.     Visit a state I’ve never been to Michigan! Completed October 2013
6.     Rent a beach/lake house/cabin with friends
7.     Visit the New York Public Library in Bryant Park
8.     Take the Roosevelt Island tram
9.     Do a Brooklyn Brewery tour (with Dad!) Completed September 2013
10.  Take a circle line cruise
11.   Go to Brooklyn Boulders
12.  Go to Museum of Moving Image
13.   Go camping in a tent or cabin
14.   Go ice skating
15.   Go for a hike
16.  See a Broadway show by going to tkts
17.   Take a trapeze class
18.  Sneak into a second movie for a “double feature”
19.  Go to Shake Shack
20. Visit Erica in Baltimore
21.  Ride my bike into Manhattan
22. Go to a trivia night
23.  Go to brunch in Manhattan
24.  Go home for a random weekend just to hang out with my parents
25.  Go to a hockey game

26. Take a yoga class Completed August 2013
27.  Run a 10k
28. Take a pilates reformer class
29. Go to a personal trainer Completed first session August 2013
30.  Comfortably wear a two piece
31.   Run at least two 5k races and improve my time
32.  Run more than 5 miles
33.  Find a general practitioner
34.  Go to the gym 2x per week for three months straight
35.  Try meditation
36.  Go to a SoulCycle class
37.  Get 8 hours of sleep every night for a week
38.  Take a vitamin daily for one month
39.  Give up soda for one month
40.   Drink 64 ounces of water every day for a week Completed August 2013
41.   Fit into one or both of the modcloth dresses I purchased two years ago
42.   Wash my face, apply eye cream, serum and moisturizer every night for two weeks Completed August 2013
43.  Do a pull-up
44.  Book an appointment at Great Jones Spa Completed November 2013
45.  Keep track of miles I run (jog) and run 500 by the time my 1001 expires


46.  Do a “30 day” challenge
47.  Do a photo-an-hour challenge (once per month) for 6 months
48.  Perfect Mom’s sauce recipe—meaning, make it like her!
49.  Make a dish from things purchased at the farmer’s market
50.  Try one new recipe a month
51.   Roast red peppers with Aunt Anita
52.  Watch all of the AFI top 100 movies released since 1960
53.  Start and maintain a blog with at least three posts per week
54.    Read 25 books per year (15/25 so far in 2013)
55.  Read 10 “classic” books
56.  Watch Battlestar Galactica
57.  Watch Six Feet Under
58.  Perfect a signature cocktail
59.  Visit a braid bar
60. Try acupuncture
61.  Participate in a multi-course tasting menu
62. Read 5 books on my shelf that I have never read (1/5)
63.  Get my makeup done professionally and then buy one of the products used
64.  Carve a jack-o-lantern
65.  Read the Sunday New York Times for one month
66. Use my point and shoot camera more
67.  Create a photo book with digital photos
68. Donate money to 3 friends who are collecting for charity (2/3)
69. Review 20 restaurants or bars on yelp-positive and negative!
70.  Write in my journal 2x per week for 2 consecutive months
71.   Write daily intentions for one month
72.  Get fresh flowers for our apartment every week for a month
73.  Wear jewelry to work every day for a month
74.  Develop a makeup routine and wear it to work for a month
75.  Complete the stocking of our “bar cart”
76.  Get a matching pajama set

77.  Host a game night
78.  Host a dinner party
79.  Send 50 handwritten notes
80. Reconnect with Kellee
81.  Go on a romantic picnic with Mike—with picnic basket, wine glasses, etc
82. Send out Christmas cards one year
83.  Create an address book on my computer
84.  Host a girls only slumber party
85.  Send someone a care/surprise package
86. Send 5 postcards from vacation
87.  Get a new library card
88. Put $100 from each paycheck into savings
89. Track my spending for one month
90. Develop a monthly budget
91.  Fix up backyard
92. Upgrade to iPhone 5 Completed November 2013
93.  Pay off my American Express bill
94.  Get black boots stretched
95.  Get gold bracelet fixed
96. Subscribe to HGTV and Glamour
97.  Back up photos, music and important documents onto an external hard drive
98. Put $10 in savings for every goal completed
99. Get a new Social Security Card
100.  Get a New York License
101.  Pay my monthly student loan bill for 6 months even though I don't owe right now

the list!

summer!  sweet, sweet summer vacation!  everyone loves summer but teachers love it more than anyone.  it's not just because we don't have to go to work--don't get me wrong, that is pretty great, but there is something so wonderful about not talking all day and sleeping through the night without waking up in a panic and making a mental to-do list.  i haven't heard my last name once in an entire week and i have read every night for at least 20 minutes without falling asleep with the light on.  it's pretty magical.  as usual, i have set some summer goals for myself.  i have a tendency to be super motivated for the first two weeks and then fall into summer insomnia where i sleep all day and watch netflix/troll the internet all night.  i need a list because a) i need structure and b) i love making lists in little notebooks!

1. read!
i have so much reading to do!  i set a goal for myself to read 25 books in 2013 and after a fantastic start, i sort of lost my momentum.  i'm on my 10th book and i need to make the effort to read every day.  i am also starting a new job in the fall where i will be teaching reading and writing for the first time in a few years, and i am definitely behind in my knowledge of children's literature.  i have a couple of trips planned this summer and i'm hoping that sitting poolside will be the perfect setting to help me reach my goal.

2. catch up on projects around the house
mike and i moved into our apartment a little over two years ago and, while i decorated like crazy for the first few months, i definitely hit a wall with some of the projects i had planned.  there are a couple of pieces of furniture i need to buy, a wall to paint, and some closets to purge and then our apartment will almost be done!  someday we will get rid of the cheapest of the ikea furniture, but for now it is serving its purpose.

3. sweat it out
i was doing sooo well for sooo long when it came to eating healthy and going to the gym and then the last month...yikes.  seamless = dangerous.  outdoor patio happy hour = kryptonite.  this summer i need to make going to the gym a priority and keep healthy snacks around the house so that my netflix addiction is not paired with a junk food addiction.

4. new york city
get out!  do things! live in new york city not just in my apartment! sometimes oppressive heat and humidity makes leaving my central air cave of an apartment difficult to leave, but i need to take advantage of how light the crowds are during the week at some quintessential new york locations.

i think that's it.  i have obvious goals with regard to my new job but those goals are separate and will be for a post later this summer!

push and shove

yesterday i had a mini breakdown.  i was laying on the couch watching project runway and all of a sudden i was like--i have to go to work tomorrow.  i have so much to do.  i had fun this weekend but i just didn't do enough.  i never do what i need to do.  etc etc etc crying etc being mean to mike etc etc turning my anxiety into: "and i need my own desk to do work!"  poor mike...he doesn't know what to do when this happens to me (because there isn't really anything to do).  he knows i am unhappy at work but yesterday i really tried to verbalize what it was about my job that made me so unhappy.  i no longer feel like i am good at my job.  i feel like every day i am failing, and a part of me feels like i have been set up to fail--albeit unknowingly.  i didn't always feel this way.  i used to feel quite the opposite in fact. 
today's work day was more of the same.  however, today my mindset was very different than usual.  i decided that the shove of a bad day where i couldn't seem to do anything right was going to push me towards a new goal.  i've mentioned before that i have been training for a 5k.  i finished the interval training and have just been jogging at an easy pace, trying to increase the amount of time i jog.  these runs have been ending at around the 2.5 mile mark.  not too bad, but not enough for the 3.1 miles i'll need to do to complete a 5k.  on saturday i had a really good run and felt like i could have kept going.  when i got home i kept wishing that i had pushed myself to run an even 3.  after a day where i felt like i was falling short from 8-4, i wanted to meet a personal goal.  as usual, i spent the first 10 minutes getting into a comfortable pace but then the minutes just flew by.  i'm not working on speed right now so it took me awhile to get to 3 miles, but it felt great to have reached a goal that i've been slowly building on over the past two and half months.  i probably could have gone further, but i don't want to hurt myself. 

join together in song

 

fridays are the hardest days of the work week for me.  not only is every. single, person. ready for the weekend, but i have less time to get things done during that day than other days during the week.  after working hard all week it seems like friday pushes me even more to need the weekend.  after weeks of sort of pretending to plan it, a group of friends and i finally made plans to go to karaoke this past friday.  we met for dinner ahead of time, and then picked up some beers and snacks to bring into our private room (the only way to do karaoke in my opinion).  my afternoon had ended on a semi-sour note and i was really looking forward letting off some (a lot of) steam.  

since this year has been so tough for me, i feel like i've been appreciating my evenings and weekends more and more.  getting together with everyone reminded me, yet again, that these are the moments that i need to focus on.  it also felt good to be enjoying the city for one of the many reasons on the list of why i love new york.  

i hope that soon my work life can feel as positive and rewarding as my personal life, but until then it feels great to think about great friends and how i 100% killed "super bass" and "seether" on the mic.

oh get out...no, but really

i was 23 when i moved to new york from providence and VERY excited to take advantage of the unlimited possibilities a huge city offered.  my job required early (and long!) hours, so i wasn't very fun during the week, but on the weekends...watch out.  i knew every bar, had tried every little hole in the wall restaurant in the lower east side and east village.  i stayed out until dawn, visited museums, saw friends, and didn't consider my weekend complete unless i was dragging my exhausted body into bed on a sunday night.
let's just say things are a little different now.  my typical weekend consists of:

work, nap, gym, nap, catch up on tv, fall asleep at about the same time that i fall asleep during the week, maybe see one or two friends, be depressed about how fast my weekend is going by, bed

this weekend i was in my pajamas at 10:30 am debating whether to take a nap or go to the gym first when my friend becky asked me if i wanted to go to a pickling class with her.  my first response was "no! i have too much work to do and i haven't even watched pretty little liars yet!"  then i decided that like, what is the point of the weekend if i don't DO things? so i went.  i made pickles for 2 hours.  then becky decided that we should also go get pizza at spumoni gardens--something i'd wanted to try for awhile but who has a car to get to bay ridge?  no! i have to take a nap!  and hopefully find out who A is!  but i went and it was great.  i went out to dinner with two other friends later and then met up with people for drinks after.  i did ZERO work.  nothing.  i didn't go to the gym. i don't know if toby is really dead.  i did take a 3 hour nap so i crossed one thing off my to-do list.  the point is, i had the kind of saturday that i haven't had in years.  i forgot how to enjoy my weekends because i'm so worried about getting ahead of all of the work and cleaning i feel like i have to do.  i have so many lists of all of the things i want to do in and around new york and that list mostly just takes up space on my refrigerator next to the curling new york magazine 100 best restaurant list that has not been touched. my sunday was a little crazy with all of the "catching up" i felt like i had to do but in reality, it was no more stressful than any other sunday.  and this week i've felt no more or less prepared than any other week.  sure there were more things i COULD have done, but there will never really be an end to my mini-notebook to-do lists and if i hadn't just taken advantage of a beautiful saturday afternoon i would not have 3 jars of pickles to try next weekend.