20 in 6

I’m not normally a reader of the Design Darling blog, but the other day I somehow stumbled upon Mackenzie’s 101 in 1001 list, a list of 101 things to accomplish in just under 3 years. 

It got me inspired to create a list of my own, although there’s no way I’m coming up with 101 items. Honestly, I need to find less to do, not more.  I came up with 20, which I'll attempt to have done in...six months? Sounds good to me.

These aren’t in any particular order, just the order in which they came to me, and I decided to leave them that way. Here goes:

Cooking

1.      Master swiss meringue buttercream frosting. I have never, ever been able to get this right.

2.      Bake that damn Graham Cracker Cake you’ve been wanting to try for four years now.

Fitness/Health

3.      Eat solidly clean for one week (so much harder than it seems!). I'm thinking something along the lines of the Whole 30 program, with beans and legumes allowed.

4.      Try a cycling class.  Loved it! 

5.      Actually use the 5 pack of yoga classes I purchased.

6.      Get to run a 5k solidly, regularly in under 30 minutes. Right now I'm at around 31-32 minutes.

7.      Go hiking. The hubs and I visited Ann Arbor this weekend, and that included a trip to the University of Michigan Arboretum.  We walked around the trails and the lake, looking at all the fall foliage, and this definitely satisfied my craving for a fall hike.

Fun/Before We Leave the City

8.      Visit the Highline.

9.      Visit botanical gardens and/or Museum of Natural History.

10.   Spend one afternoon in a cool BK neighborhood I haven’t been to yet.

Personal

11.   Meditate regularly for one month. Continue indefinitely if you see results.  I've meditated before and definitely find it valuable, but I'd like to make it a regular part of my routine. I think doing 10 minutes a day would be a good start.

12.   Go one week without being unnecessarily negative.

13.   Find a better hairstyle and master a great blowout.

14.   Actually learn the right way to use your fancy camera. Take a class if that makes you do it. No excuse for owning an external flash for two years and never having opened it!

15.   Go to bed, for real, at 10 pm every night for one week. It IS possible! Right? It has to be. I average 5 and a half hours a night, that needs to change.

Finance

16.   $20 into savings for every goal accomplished.

17.   Go one month without shopping. AH. Probably will save this one for Lent! To clarify, shopping = clothes shopping.

Family and Friends

18.   Call mother in law more often. She’s always calling me first and I feel bad. I’m not so great at being the first to pick up the phone; I much prefer to communicate by text or email.

19.   Create a family birthday list.  Maybe then my cousins could get their birthday cards on time.

Professional

20. Work on having a better filter at work.  I like and feel very comfortable with my coworkers, and I tend to be very opinionated, so sometimes I just blurt stuff out without thinking.