April Round Up

After a series of busy (but good!) weeks, I am back for another progress report.

Items in progress: 1, 2, 4, 10, 11, 20, 21, 22, 24*, 25*, 26*, 28*, 29, 30, 32 (planning in progress), 39*, 53, 59, 64, 66, 71, 97, 101

Items Completed: 6*, 15, 24*, 25*, 26*, 28*, 33, 34, 39*, 73, 86, 90, 101(* = ongoing)

1-Pay off my car
In progress, though not as close to over as I'd thought. Sigh.

2-Pay off the rest of my credit card debt
In progress and starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel

3-Create a budget
Apparently I am too free spirited for a budget, which I fear will one day translate into "too free spirited for food or shelter that is not a cardboard box". I had better get on the ball! Budget or sugar daddy in '08, that is my vow!

4-Lose weight
Lost eight pounds during the month of April! The whole vegetarian thing is helping a LOT on that front. Even if it isn't actually the reason I have decided to become one, it is a GREAT side effect!

5-Join a gym & set up an exercise program
I have not joined a gym. I received a really good offer for a deal on a Bally's membership last week and was going to join the one my friend Mexican Jenny goes to, then found out she had quit. It's not exactly a program, but I did go walking a couple times last week, which is better than nothing...I guess.

6-Collaborate with someone on a creative project
This has been such a great goal for me, because it has opened me up to the idea of working with others. I am collaborating with Anne on this blog, I spent last Tuesday making collages with Mexican Jenny's 12-year old daughter (very fun!). I've joined a spiritual (interfaith) online writing group that my friend Wendy (Anne, if this interests you, let me know), the poet started AND my friend Jen and I have started a once a month Wednesday writing duo. We actually meet every other Wednesday - now for "writing Wednesday" and "fun Wednesday". This month we are writing poetry for writing Wednesday that we will turn into a handmade zine project on fun Wednesday. I will definitely keep working on this as an ongoing project, but I think I can call it a goal acheived and then some!

7-Exercise at least 3x a week
As evidenced by #5, this one needs a bit of work (I am, btw a master of understatement, considering I have made almost no effort at this thusfar!).

8-Make an appointment with a personal trainer

9-Make a quilt

10-Complete January blogstravaganza
Not sure if I can legitimately call this one complete or not. I did try posting once a day for the month of January, howevever it did not quite pan out. I did, however, write just about every day, so from that standpoint it was a success. Maybe I will try really posting once a day during some other month this year. For now, I will leave this one incomplete.

11-Write 12 short stories, essays or poems in the next year (I.e. 1/month)
I think my two writing groups are going to help a lot in this. I did write a piece I rather like about family back in January and I have been tweaking three poems for my writing duo and also started to write a silly ballad (complete with music) for my friend's birthday in July. I think that's on track with the spirit of the goal. Sometimes creative things are difficult to quantify. Maybe the goal should have simply been to create something once a month.

12-Finish the first draft of my mystery novel
Working on this is actually one of the goals of my writing duo. We started with poetry to give ourselves time to get all our materials together. (I am trying to locate the hard copy of my novel outline, since the electronic version was lost when my laptop died around ths time last year.

13-Learn another language
No progress. I had found a Spanish class, but then ended up talking myself out of it because of the money and also fear of being a lone geezer in a sea of 18 year olds! So stupid, I know!

14-Take a class

15-Join/start a writing group or take a writing class
I did both!

16-Make something with my own hands once a month (craft project)
Jan - ?, Feb - ?, March - ?, April - collage

17-Join a choir or that music thingy from the "Keep PDX Weird" event

18-Learn 12 new songs on my violin in the next year (I.e. 1/month)
One of those things I think about, but haven't actually DONE. I did move my violin to a place where I would see it daily in the hopes that I would be shamed into picking it up. I am apparently shameless.

19-Get my bow rehaired

20-Clean out/organize my books
Finally, I have made a little bit of headway on this. I played hookie from work yesterday and spent a number of hours "roomening" (i.e. improving my living space via cleaning up, redecorating, moving furniture around - in this case, going through some old stuff) and now have a full box of containing mostly books to give to friends or Goodwill and another box of "maybe" give-a-ways, which I will probably donate, but need to baby step myself into releasing into the wild.

21-Make curtains for my bedroom
I have fabric for this, which sounds like I must have made progress, but the truth is that I bought it a long time ago. I'm still going to call this "in progress", though, because fabric is closer than no fabric!

22-Go for a walk in a new park/trail at least once a month
April - went for a walk in Wilsonville where I work

23-Learn about wines
I bought a cheap bottle of sangria from CostPlus the other day, does that count? It will allow me to learn what cheap CostPlus sangria tastes like...

24-Try a new recipe once a month
Jan 08: Thai Pizza; Feb 08: West African Ground Nut Stew; Carribbean Black Beans with Orange Juice and Candied Ginger; March 08: Ziti with Sundried Tomato Cream, Plaintains with Apples and Sweet Potatoes, Tangy Orange Salad Dressing; April 08: Vegetarian Carne Guisada

25 - Invite friends over for dinner once a month
Jan 08: Jenny & Jesus; Feb 08: - ; March 08: Paula (kinda - we ended up eating out); Jen, Becky, Nancy, Jenny, Dejadira; Ruth, Jala, DeEtte; April 08: Jenny, DeJadira, Antonio

26-Try a new restaurant once a month
Jan 08: Jim Dandy; Feb 08: Van Hanh; Mexican Restaurant on 122nd...can't remember the name, but it was good; March 08: Mexican Restaurant by work - can't remember the name, but it's by the Thai restaurant (like that tells anyone but me anything!); April: 08 - nothing yet, but the month is not over either!

27-Make Stollen

28-Once a month, pick someone and buy them a gift/do something to make them happy for no reason at all: Jan 08 no one; Feb 08 - sent flowers to my mom; March 08 - Cadbury eggs for Mary (b/c they're her favorite and she was having a bad day); April 08 - bought my mom a lily, also have something for Jen that I can not yet reveal, because I have yet to send it

29-Moisturize every day
Have been better about this lately, but is kind of hit and miss.

30-Organize my recipes
In progress - Vegetarian recipe binder is now organized (but growing). Still need to buy some nicer binders and also go through magazines and pull out only the recipes I'm going to try and throw the rest away.

31-Study a new Tarot card each month

32-Go on a real vacation
I am planning a trip to Leavenworth with one friend at the end of May and a roadtrip to an as yet undisclosed location with another friend and her kids in mid-June. I'm still not sure what will happen with September - I'm thinking another retreat like I did last year has some possibilities or maybe I'll try something like the SW again, if I can afford it.

33-Resume Wednesday activity schedule with Jen
Check! We've been out for Chinese, hung out at her house, started a writing duo, planned a craft project and are going on vacation in May. I think we have resumed!

34-Spend a month as a vegetarian (in progress Feb08)
Successfully completed a month of meat free living and still going strong as of April. I think this may be a permanent lifestyle change. I feel really good about not killing animals or contributing to factory farming in order to eat.

35-Play my guitar more than once a year

36-Cut my diet coke consumption down to 1 a day (or better - none a day) and drink more water
I think I have cut down, but not to 1 a day and I have not gotten at all better about the water. I think I'll buy a case of Gerolsteiner from Trader Joe's. I seem to do better drinking that than tap water.

37-Sign up for organic grocery delivery or foodshare
Not yet, but am still thinking about it. We've also started planning a vegetable garden at home, which may be the replacement for this, which would be ok too!

38-Study a new artist/composer each month
So far not much progress, though I did forget that I read up a bit on Sofonisba Anguissola a bit back in January.

39-Go to a concert/play once a month
Jan 08: The Devil and Daniel Webster; Feb 08: Sweet Honey in the Rock; March 08: Corteo, Ladysmith Black Mambazo; April 08: Nothing yet. I think Marc Acito has some musical/book kick off event going on in town at the end of the month. Maybe I will see if I can still get tickets to that. I really like his writing style. Plus, he's local, very entertaining, and seems like a good egg.

40-Go to the Shakespeare festival in Ashland
So frustrating! My friend Psychology Anne (as opposed to Grad School Anne) wants to go and I want to go, but we can't seem to find a mutually good weekend before she moves away - AWAY! - to California. How is it that I can go 11 months of the year with no social life, then in the month of June everyone and their dog wants to take a trip with me? I'm telling you this whole not being independantlyl wealthy thing is really a drag!

41-Host a summer barbeque
It's not summer yet, but the nice weather we are having sure is making me think about this one - a LOT!

42-Plan a trip to Europe

43-Renew my passport

44-Go through and get rid of CD's that need to be released into the wild

45-Go on another retreat
September? If I could get some friends to join me, it might be fun to rent a house on the beach and have a writing/making stuff vacation - a Create-a-thon, if you will!

46-Visit the Oregon Trail museums I haven't yet visited
This might have some possibilities in June...

47-Read a poem each week
Joined a poem a day listserv in hope that I might at least one of the daily offerings a week. So far I have done a lot of deleting. I think maybe the internet is not (for me, anyway) condusive to poetry reading.

48-Read something in another language each week

49-Visit the East Coast

50-Write a handwritten letter to someone once a month

51-Meet a friend for coffee/drinks/whatever once a month
This one is sort of negated by the Wednesday scheme with Jen. Really, the point of making this a goal was that I found myself feeling kind of hermit-like at the beginning of the year and turning down a lot of invitations I should have accepted. This does not seem to be a problem anymore. Maybe I'll think of a more necessary goal to replace #51.

52-Regularly deposit money into savings
I thought about this yesterday when I was home from work. I need to update my direct deposit paperwork to have some of my direct deposit diverted from my checking to my savings account.

53-Take control of my 401k investments by taking a class/reading a book on investing
Despite my general (and completely unfair, because I have literally seen her talk for all of 10 minutes) Oprah-like misgivings about her, I have purchased a book on women and money by Suze Orman. It's colorful dust jacket looks really on nice on the shelf, where the book has now sat uncracked for weeks.

54-Call or e-mail friends at least once a week
Haven't really been keeping track, but I think this works out. Setting this goal was a companion to #51.

55-Finish the photo wall

56-Take (or procure) a flattering picture of each of my friends for the wall

57-Attend a pow-wow

58-Make a dress
Have fabric, have multiple patterns. Needed? Motivation. Sometimes I think I like the concept of learning how to sew more than I do the actual sewing itself.

59-Clean out my closet (clothes AND shoes)
In progress - Added some shoes to the donation box yesterday.

60-Buy new underthings and get rid of the old
Whenever I read that I think of "Make new friends, but keep the old...", except for that old bras with bent underwire are neither silver nor gold - not even in the figurative sense.

61-Clean out the garage

62-Attend a pagan festival (Beltaine and/or some other)

63-Update my birthday list
Do I even HAVE a birthday list? I mean really, all in one place? I don't think so. Maybe I need to CREATE a birthday list.

64-Take pictures at events, gatherings, etc.
Such a tough one to quantify because of my insistence on not following basic goal setting rules in making my list. I did buy a new camera and have been taking a lot of pictures, so I guess that counts as in progress, but how do I know when I'm done???

65-Go to the beach once a month in the sunny months

66-Visit Leavenworth
A trip is in the works!

67-Paint my bedroom

68-Pull up the carpet in my bedroom

69-Paint the deck

70-Paint the front porch

71-Go on a road trip during the summer
Already have two planned!

72-Use my Entertainment book regularly, keep track of the savings & put them in a fun money jar

73-Buy and TAKE a daily vitamin
Purchased in Feb and have been taking about as often as I moisturize.

74-Learn to knit

75-Go camping
May be part of the June roadtrip and has potential for all sorts of incompetent hijinx, since neither I nor my companions are big campers. I've been a couple times, but that was with people who were actually adept at building fires and putting tents up. Still, how bad can it be? I got through grad school, surely I can put up a tent!

76-Get and update a new address book

77-Learn enough about photography to make my good pictures more than happy accidents

78-Go to a reading or lecture at least once a month

79-Participate in NaNoWriMo for real and following their rules

80-Join Amnesty International
Not an official member yet, but I have still volunteered a lot with them/signed a lot of petitions/written a lot of letters!

81-Join The Humane Society (or some other animal organization)

82-Learn to make an origami crane

83-Run the whole way around the track

84-Go on December pilgrimage with Jenny R. and her family

85-Write something (journal, blog, whatever) every day
In progress - If I've not written EVERY day, I've definitely done so ALMOST that often.

86-Buy a new ring as a reminder
Bought butterfly ring in Jan 08

87-Get a manicure

88-Treat myself to a spa day

89-Create an enticing reward system for every 10 pounds I lose
I had better get on the ball! I am close to a reward!

90-Get tickets for my mom to be able to see Cirque du Soleil
Saw Corteo with my mom on March 1

191-Read the Bible, Koran, Baghavad Gita

92-Buy a pair of comfortable athletic shoes

93-Visit a Buddhist temple

94-Learn yoga/take an exercise class

95-Plant a vegetable/herb garden

96-Make preserves

97-Research and make a list of fun summer festival outings
In progress - I am using the lovely Gustav Klimt datebook my friend Lorin got me for Christmas to record them. That way, when I am bored, I can open it on any given day and know it is time for the Winlock Egg Day Festival.

98-Make stepping stones for the garden
I have this scheme wherein I invite my friends over for a crafty stone making extravaganza and then use their completed stones to pave the garden path. That way, whenever I am strolling along I will look down and think of them!

99-Go berry picking on Sauvie Island

100-Buy fresh cherries from the fruit loop when they are in season
Still too early, but it is SO on my mind! Is there anything better than fresh, sweet cherries on a summer day?

101-Plan something fabulous for my birthday this year
Done. Invited a bunch of girlfriends over for a vegetarian feast with not one, but two cakes. How did I get two cakes? Well, you see I went to this bake sale to benefit the women detained in last summer's Del Monte raids. One of the women there was a baker, and we bought one of her cakes. As we were talking to another friend, I thought "Why not order a cake from her for my birthday instead of giving money to Lamb's bakery?" So, I immediately went back and asked her if she would do it. She was happy to.

The thing is that when I got home with the original non-birthday cake, I found that the frosting tasted oddly lardy. I didn't want lard cake for my party. Who does? Getting old is bad enough, getting old with only a lard cake for succor does not help ANYTHING! So, I called Lamb's and ordered a mocha cake filled with raspberry and decorated with lovely spring flowers. But, of course, I would have felt too guilty cancelling my original order, so I didn't. It's not like you can call a sweet Mexican lady who is worried about deportation and whether she'll be able to afford plane tickets to take her American citizen children with her and tell her that her cake is lardy and strange, so I decided to just suck it up. The whole point from the beginning was to help her out in a way that wouldn't make her feel like it was charity. The cake was just a side benefit, but not really the point, anyway. So, that's how I ended up with a cake from her AND my Lamb's cake. But that's not where the story ends. The story ends beautifully (and with the birthday miracle of a surplus of cake, which is again beautiful!), because her birthday cake was not lardy at all but light and airy with strawberries and creamy, delicious frosting. Apparently all that stuff about karma is true!

One more down

Last week I finished 25- finish a DS game. 

In the past I was not a huge video game player- probably because my parents didn't buy me any. There was one exception. We had Pong. I do remember playing that. The intermediate bar was so small and the ball went so fast, I had no chance but I loved playing the lower level. Because of the short bar in intermediate, we began calling the smaller buses the intermediate buses. I may be the only who still calls them that since I was so young when I started using that term. I don't really remember how long we had Pong out. It wasn't all that long, though.

Growing up I had one friend who had an Atari system. I liked playing that. She had Asteroids, which was really great. There was also some kind of haunted house game that I remember playing. And my final Atari memory is that she would not let me play Pit Fall. I had to watch her. Why? I don't know. It was frustrating. Maybe once or twice I got to play, but once a crocodile got me, she wouldn't let me play anymore. The injustice!

Then Nintendo comes to my nephew's house. Thanks to him, I am undefeated champion of Blades of Steel (only because I stopped playing the game altogether on the day my nephew finally caught up to me). The Karate Kid was also a popular one to play for us and I can probably sing along to the music from the game since we did when we played it back then.

Off to college and it turns out that my parents have now bought Nintendo for their house for when the (now 2) nephews come to visit. One Christmas my father got Dragon Warrior. He played it and my nephew and I watched- for hours. At that point, my Dad must have been in his early 60's. I remember him coming home from work and letting me know he had had a strategy talk with some guy and he had missed a bridge or something that was going to keep him from fully completing the game. The hours of RPG were done. I myself didn't play that game and I still don't get into role playing games, but since you know who is controlling the main character (and you can chime in with advice), it can be a lot of fun to watch.

A year later or so, I am home for break and have had my wisdom teeth taken out. At some point, my parents got Tetris. I recovered by playing this game and drinking juice. I don't really drink juice anymore, but I still like Tetris.

And then we enter a long world of no game playing. My nephews went to Sega, my parents gave up the old Nintendo system after it was found out that someone (I won't name names- but it wasn't me, my dad, or my nephews) was chewing the controller wires while they played. 

I went to grad school where I would go to the arcade and play driving games for fun and House of the Dead for stress relief. Air hockey and pinball featured pretty highly as well. After grad school, I didn't play. That is, I didn't play until I had a roommate who got the PS2. I got sucked in by Burnout. I loved that game. And then there was Gran Turismo. Loved it. And then they got Grand Theft Auto IV (I think it was IV), which I thought would be another racing game, but chased by cops. I was pretty wrong. After watching the random violence and the storyline, I decided I didn't really need to participate. I just wanted to drive. I withdrew from gaming until I found Nintendo again.

I gave Tim a GameCube for Christmas and said I wouldn't play it, because it was really his toy, not mine. I held onto that for a year. Then I found out about Dance Dance Revolution: Mario Mix. It was over. With Tim's encouragement, I began playing and finding out how good the good games can be. Now, I am fully involved. I play by myself as much as I play with others, in particular if they are rhythm games, like DDR and Guitar Hero. I have a DS Lite and Tim and I have the Wii. I've bought too many games to play all at once, so I'm slowing down on the purchasing and trying to play through and finish what I've got. Hence, the couple of video game goals I made up.

Last week, I completed Brain Age. I finally completed all the Sudoku puzzles and tested just a couple years away from the absolute best score (best possible score is 20- my last test was 23- although I'm sure I tested at 21 once). Now, of course, I have moved on to Brain Age 2. How brilliant can I get?! I guess it will take a couple months and then we'll see. With Brain Age to sharpen my mind and Dance Dance Revolution to give me an hour of cardio workout everyday, I can only get better.

Pajama Weekend

Things completed: 27 (ongoing), 33, 45 (ongoing)

Things worked on: 12, 14, 20, 25, 41, 43, 58

This weekend was pajama weekend. I don't get many of these, so it is particularly sweet. This may not be the ideal weekend for the very social, though. In short, I wear pajamas all weekend. Sure, I showered and I changed into normal clothes to go to the grocery store so that I could cook, but the goal is to be in pajamas for as much time as possible. That means I had a lot of time in my house. I always think that I will get more done, but somehow, I don't.

One of my pajama weekend plans was to update this blog as I worked on my 100 things. I was going to (once everything else was completed) begin work specifically on my goals. Now it is almost the end of pajama weekend; tomorrow is back to clothes workweek; and I won't have time to do much more than this update for now.

Three things done- 

27 is make a new recipe every month. This one has been easy to do since I've begun working through cookbooks. I have a few, let's say there are about 50 of them in my house. I haven't cooked out of all of them yet, so I feel it is time to begin. In my substructure of cookbook organizing there are three categories: general, ethnic, and special topic. At any given time, I have determined, I will be working through one of each of these. In addition, I've begun using the bread machine I have pretty regularly, so that means once I start cooking, there are potentially four new recipes going on. This weekend was egg bread (pretty nice, but I think I need to really start buying bread flour to see how differently these recipes turn out), chicken soup (the general cookbook is now in the soups chapter, which is nice with this variable weather), lamb stew (the ethnic cookbook is a multitude of ethnicities and I am currently in the Armenian chapter), and later tonight, pork and apples (Special topic: Low-Fat). The extra bonus to this is all the leftovers I can take to work for lunch.

While shopping for these recipes, I found myself in front of the butcher asking for three different kinds of meat. "Holy cow!" I thought (ironic, because I wan't buying beef), "that is a lot of meat." I don't feel that I need meat for a meal. Sometimes after taekwondo class, I will have only rice and kimchee because I don't feel all that hungry (and I pretend eating Korean food might up my abilities). Martina's been trying out vegetarianism, so this would seem to be the total antithesis of her move. There have been stretches in my life where I was vegetarian at home, but willing to eat meat when I went out. I am almost beginning to think that I should have done that backwards all along. Eating it at home means that I personally selected it- which is even nicer when I can go to the butcher and not just pick something up that is pre-wrapped in plastic. When you eat out, you have no idea of the source, unless they tell you. Some places are obviously better than others, but still. I've even considered looking into buying grass-fed beef just to see what the difference is (and after reading The Omnivore's Dilemma, I thought it an even better idea), although I haven't really eaten beef with much regularity since the weekend I woke up vomitting from a migraine and became reacquainted with the rich beef and red wine dinner from that evening. In the end, though, pajama weekend is not about making life-changing decisions, so I will table these thoughts until I have a less pajama-y weekend.

I completed the second half of 33- use the Hauschka mask. It wasn't all that difficult. I don't think it has changed my life, but it was nice to do. I think I have consistently used their products for a year now. I like them, but they can be expensive, so I was very happy on my one out-of-pajama outing this weekend that I found a sale and was able to get my next round of cleanser and moisturizer slightly cheaper.

Lastly, inviting people over (45) was surprisingly busy last month. My book club came over, I had people over for mahjong and my sister and nephew visited. It was quite a month. This coming month so far, I only have the book club again (co-hosting with someone whose place is a bit too far for convenience for the majority), so I am on track, but scaling it down a little. May's invitation may involve some MarioKart, but we'll see. I also talked to a friend in New York, who was asking if I'd visit this month. I've already got some plans for the rest of this month, so I might be completing my New York goal in May or June, before it gets too hot. 

Time to move on to my next activity. If I achieve anything else in my pajamas, I'll be sure to write. 

The card

I have paid off and canceled that Citibank card. Now I am reduced to cash and a credit card not widely accepted. I'm pretty happy about it. Unlike some other people my age, I haven't really accumulated credit card debt, so this wasn't a big necessity. If I could, I'd live on cash and never use credit. It may be the result of my parents who never used credit cards. They told me credit cards would ruin me if I let them, so I didn't.

I'm not a fan of Citibank. I called to cancel the card and told them I was giving up credit cards. 

They then connected me to some senior credit guy (salesman) who then tried to sell me on a new credit card. 

No thank you, I am getting off of credit cards. 

How much other debt do you have? I can get you a lower rate if you transfer it to us. 

No thank you, I don't really have any other debt. 

What is most important to you in a credit card? I can make it better for you.

No thank you.

Well, thank you for your business for these past years. And if you want to re-open your account in the next 6 months, please call.

Ok, thanks, bye.

I know they have to do this as part of their job, but when I said I was giving up credit cards and pretty much stuck by that story, I was surprised at the tenacity of the man on the phone. My brief summary does not do justice to this man's sales technique. I think this is why I am not in sales.

Another goal achieved! I can't wait to list another.