life, love & laundry
35 by 35
A few months ago I mentioned that I was starting this project to complete 35 small tasks by the time I turn 35 at the beginning of May. I’ve occasionally blogged with some updates but thought I’d detail out my progress. I think I’m almost done! Granted this is not a remarkable list. This is no Bucket List. My bear-bow-hunting, gorilla tracking, australia trapsing (single, childless) older brother has that covered :) This is just small goals. Things I should have been doing all along that I wasn’t. Thing “extended checklist”. But I’m no good at checklists so the very fact that I am getting this done should be on my list of 35 things to do by 35! :)
So here’s my list, to date:
- Read Dear John: Done. (read book, did not see movie, will wait until it comes to DVD)
- Plant a tree: Done. Planted like 20.
- Read my camera book: I did this, and read maybe 5 others. I love e-books through my library! Instant gratification! Also? I love the Kindle, which we have on loan. I will be so sad when it is gone.
- Get a Scooba : I got two! ha! The first one broke right away. Then had to get multiple virtual walls. Scoobas are not for those who have open layouts! I think we are finally set now. No more mopping for me! yay!
- First kid out of braces - DONE! I originally had a goal to have my second kid IN braces but our ortho says he won’t be ready until at least another six months so that is off the list, no fault of my own :)
- Housebreak my puppy: done! Whew!
- Clean garage - Done! This was a big job. It is so nice to have a garage we can park in and I think we finally figured out the best possible way to store bikes so the kids can get in and out easily. YAY!
- Get Noah to read a chapter book - he has read 4! BIG accomplishment. This is one I wasn’t sure I’d be able to do so YAY (for me, for Noah most of all)
- Make addy an embroidered vday shirt: done. eh.
- Start a photo org system for 2010: Done. So done. LOVE it. And I have purged ALL my unneeded photos for 2010 as of this week AND my unneeded photos since getting my new camera in 2009. My harddrive is so happy!
- Take cow pictures: Done. Sort of. Turns out this was harder to do than I thought. They don’t just sit there when you stop your car on the side of the road. They run away! Whatever. I’m marking this off my list because I did it but I didn’t quite get the result I wanted. I need a friend with a farm!
- See an alligator: Done! Blogged it.
- Get a van: Done. Thank you hubby.
- Feed the ducks: Done. Don’t judge me. It takes a lot of organization to save bread ends AND remember to take them to the park.
- Purchase books for kids from Scholastic Book Club: Done. Twice.
- Renew our lease: Done. Two more years in Tejas for us!
- Grow shamrocks: Done. Blogged. No 4-leafers.
- Eat the full line up of fried desserts, Texan-style: done. So gross. Never again.
- Teach Noah to finger-knit: Done. He knitted an entire dog leash. So fun!
- Buy rainboots for Addy: Done. Believe it or not, NONE of my kids has ever owned rainboots. I didn’t get why anyone would bother until I moved here!
- Buy rainboots for Noah: Done. Has had LOTS of use since then too!
- See the Harlem Globetrotters: Done. So fun!
- Publish Writing in a circulating magazine: Done. Sort of hit the motherload there. Not only was I published as part of a cover story (and paid for it!) but I also won a contest in the same magazine, scoring a $50 Target gift card and they published both of my quotes related to the contest in the mag too.
- Publish Photography: Done. This one feels like cheating. Because a) I’m not being paid for it and b) It was only my husband. However technically it is done. A picture I took is being published in a major circulation and online. I took real headshots that fit very specific criteria and took them using natural light with a decent studio set-up. And I’m happy with the result (and trust me, this says a lot. I was not happy about doing this, taking good headshots is nothing like lifestyle photography!). So I am counting them. Well, I guess technically the horrible crappy iphone photo I took, above, also appeared but that can’t possibly count.
- Buy an awesome camera purse: Done. Times two.
- Get a credit card: Done. This may sound like a really dumb goal but once upon a time I was an anti-credit-card nazi becuase I was dumb and I thought that not having credit cards would earn me some AWESOME credit. Jokes on me. I may have paid cash for 10 years straight but I ruined my credit in the process. And however I didn’t ruin it, my husband definitely finished me off. And I would really like to have good credit one day. I am an *extremely* responsible user of credit. I should have amazing credit based on my own credit usage history. But alas, the system is jacked. So now I have a credit card. And it isn’t secured and I didn’t have to get a co-signor. Just like a real adult. sigh. One step toward better credit, though!
So there we go! 26 down, 9 to go. I’m already mid-process of 8 more so I think I should be good to meet my goal by May!
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I have to do this for 40 (years still)
But would love to do one for the end of the years 6 months. Maybe I will start in June.
Awesome job, so many little things I would love to just jump and down for you! and 2 damn camera purses, I am the queen of purses and don’t have 1!
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Quite impressed…
I am a little obsessed with the scooba right now. Is it really worth it? I want one so badly…
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March 16th, 2010 at 12:07 pm
I’m not sure yet if its worth it. It is SO expensive. And then to buy the extra virtual walls and probably an extra battery….it is even more. So I don’t know. Sadly I’ve only used it once and it broke the first time. Got lodged under our dishwasher and the sensor that detects the virtual wall snapped off. I’ll do a blog review when I use it a few more times.
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Use your Scooba’s A LOT in that first year because everyone I know that has one had the battery go bad. I didn’t use mine enough so it went bad after the warrenty ran out-so it’s hard to spend another $75 for a battery on a machine I barely used. But it does clean amazingly well when it is working!
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Love the list and love how much of it you’ve gotten accomplished! (I think when I read this and opened it to comment an hour or two ago I had further, far more interesting thoughts to add, but I have LOST it along with my tiny ounce of remaining sanity…)
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Way to go, girl! You should feel accomplished!
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wow Nicki, that is awesome !
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GREAT job on the homeschool article! Congrats on your list, I always do those and quit. lol
Yay on the credit card-and I can so relate to that one. Robert and I found out we had bad credit because we never got credit cards or bought anything on credit. You would think that being debt free would be better! We bought a tv on credit and got an cell phone with at &t and our credit score jumed 15 points in under a month.
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ok, i am SO impressed with you. my little list has not been touched in weeks…
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I love your list! I was thinking I should do this for my 40th birthday, but it’s only in a few months! YIKES!
Congrats on your accomplishments!
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