52 in 52 List Check-In

If you've been around these parts for awhile you might remember that last year I decided to take a new approach to the 101 in 1001 or 30 by 30 type lists. Instead I came up 52 things I wanted to go/see/do in the 52 weeks of 2016. With three weeks left in the year I can definitively say I won't be accomplishing but there are a few more things I should be able to squeeze in. I know I want to do this approach next year but make the list a little more realistic/manageable. So I thought I'd go through the list and make a few notes about each item and start the process of making a new list for 2017.

Fair warning this might be a long one and is mostly for my benefit. If you want to stop reading now I'll understand but would be forever grateful if  you'd leave an idea for 2017's list in the comments! 

Completed

In Progress

1. Complete 12 months of Project Life. (10/12) This was probably my favourite task on the list, the only change I'm going to make for 2017 is trying the weekly approach opposed to the monthly.
2. Document my One Little Word for the whole year. Fell off the wagon on this one. I might choose a word for next year but I won't pay to participate in Ali Edward's class again. It just wasn't for me. 
3. Read 52 Books. (8/52) Ugh, I don't know what happened here. It's embarrassing. 
4. Fill three Notebooks. (0/3) Looking back this was a weird goal. I kept a journal and prayer notebook and a daily question book but none of them are really full. 
5. Try 12 new foods. (12/12)  This ended up being easier than anticipated. I do wish I had kept better track of what those foods were rather than just a little tally every time I tried something. 
6. Cook 12 new recipes. (12/12) Same as above. 
7. Try 12 new restaurants. (12/12) I ended up knocking this one out pretty early in the year, again I wish I had kept an actual list. 
8. Spent 10 nights sleeping in a tent. (7/10) I was on track to finish/exceed this and then all of my fall camps were cancelled because of the weather.
9. Visit six museums/National Historic Sites.(4/6) Again, better notes. I might have finished this? 
10. Participate in a "Photo A Day" Challenge. There are no excuses as to why I haven't gotten around to this yet. 
11. Add a stamp to my passport. 
12. Plant a garden. Even though this was a camp program, I'm giving myself full credit. 
13. Write a "1000 Gifts" inspired list. I forgot about this one and then just never started. It'll go on the 2017 list. 
14. Invest in a custom piece of jewelry. I'm so excited about this one and would gush more but I can't because I bought multiple for Christmas gifts. 
15. Mail Valentine's Day Cards. This was fun and I'll do it again!
16. Mail Christmas Cards. They are addressed and just waiting for me to take them to the post office to mail. 
17. Mail post cards during a vacation. Nope. 
18. Publish 152 blog posts. (70/152) I didn't blog at all during June, July & August which totally derailed this goal. 
19. Take a photography or cooking class. I looked into photography class but it didn't fit with my work schedule. 
20. Volunteer for a total of 52 hours. (52/52) Thanks to a week long Girl Guide camp in August I surpassed 52 hours. 
21. Visit another province. Went to visit H. and hit all the major tourist attractions in Southern Ontario! 
22. Buy fresh flowers 'just because'. This was a good idea until I realized the cats would try to eat them. 
23. Write the rough draft of a novel. I started this but then consciously stopped participating in NaNoWriMo because it wasn't fun. 
24. See my blog reach 100 followers. This happened in November and I was super excited! 
25. Watch 12 TED talks. (9/12) Surely I can fit 3 more in before the end of the year!
26. Read the Bible cover to cover. I started this and never finished. 
27. Complete 12 Pinterest Projects. (12/12) There's a theme here...the theme is I wish I had kept better track of exactly what I did. 
28. See a play.  I'm cheating a little here but I assure you I watched a lot of plays performed by campers as part of drama programming at camp. 
29. Complete six jigsaw puzzles. (2/6) I'm sad about this one. Hopefully Santa brings me some puzzles and I can do this in 2017. 
30. Sew all my patches on to my camp blanket. Not even attempted
31. Save $2 each week and use it to celebrate completing all 52 things. This is still in progress, although I won't be completing 52 things so I'll probably just put all my change into my bank account at the end of the year. 
32.  Attend an NHL game.  I knew this one was going to happen when I put it on the list, but it seemed like a noteworthy thing to add. 
33. Have a girls' weekend. We all went to H.'s parents cottage in September and although the lead up was chaotic once we all got there it was fun. 
34. Choose a good habit to start during Lent. Nope.
35. Build a snowman. I should have managed my expectations on this one. 
36. Complete two "Day in the Life" posts. (0/2) I really wanted to do this during camp season and I didn't blog at all. I'm legit sad about it but lesson learned. 
37. Invest in an external hard drive and back up my photos. This is on my Christmas list! 
38. Visit a Farmer's Market 6 times. (2/6) I thought this would be an easy one but as it turns out it wasn't. 
39. Purposely learn something new everyday for a week. I'm not sure browsing the 'Today I Learned' thread on Reddit was what I originally had in mind, but I'm counting it. 
40. Watch a fireworks display. This is a sore spot because I envisioned this happening at Disney and it didn't. 
41. Meditate once a day for a week. (0/7) Yeah, no. 
42. Complete a crossword puzzle without help from Google. Not even attempted.
43. Listen to a full album of classical music. I talked about this one with multiple people, but haven't actually done it. 
44. Do the Clean Sweep test and improve my score in six months. This got thrown on here because I wanted to get to 52 things. I had no real interest/motivation/commitment to this. 
45. Watch the sunrise.  Done! I watched it on the first day of fishing this year.
46. Spend an hour outdoors in silence.  I'm sure I did this at some point, although I'm not sure when. 
47. Try three different types of wine. (3/3) Tried more than 3, but not sure how many more than 3
48. Enjoy a guilt free afternoon nap. This was harder than I thought, but it happened. 
49. Join a club. I should have been more specific with this because I'm still not really sure what I had in mind. 
50. Enjoy a bonfire with friends. Done on multiple occasions during the summer!
51. Follow through with decluttering and the KonMari method. I decluttered my clothes this way and some knickknacks but wouldn't say I went all in.
52. Make cards using my photos/scrapbooking stash and sell them.  This happened very last minute but I ended up making a few cards to fill a spot at the church's Christmas tea & sale. 

As of now I'm on track to complete about half of the list, not ideal but okay for a first attempt. 

Do you have a list of things you want to do? Have you ever completed a full list? 

Quick Goals Update

You can read about my April Goals back here.

In terms of monthly goals that I accomplished in April...I definitely get full marks for the writing goal I didn't specifically keep track of hours but I had quite a few strings of 7-10 days without missing a day so I'm confident in total it was at least 30 hours, in all reality it could have been more. I'm still working on reading a book, turns out I chose a poorly written book to read and it's taking me three times as long to read it as it would if I was genuinely interested in the plot. I was pretty active on my FitBit, maybe not as active as I would have liked but I hit 10,000 steps at least one day a week and had a few days that were in the 15,000 range. 

May goals are always something I struggle with because it's the time of year when I head off to camp and it's nearly impossible to predict how the summer will play out and what I'll have time to do or want to make time to do. For now I'm going to hold off on the May goals and wait a few weeks to set summer goals that will span the whole season. 

As for my 52 in 52 list, I accomplished quite a bit with that this month!

I am a few hours away from finishing January, February and March of my Project Life album which will essentially bring me up to date since I'm working on it monthly. I am inching closer and closer to filling one of my 3 notebooks for the year. This month I both made eggplant parmesan and tried it for the first time. I need to add everything up but I know I'm close to approaching 10 out of 12 new foods to try, my new recipes are a lagging behind and standing around 6 out of 12 and after last week's trip to visit Holly I am pretty sure I have visited a full 12 out of 12 new restaurants. 

After that trip I can also check off visiting a bunch of museums and of course another province (more on the whole trip tomorrow). 

2016 has been a terrible year for accomplishing monthly goals but I am loving my 52 in 52 approach. It really has helped motivate me to try new things and as the year goes by I'm finding it getting easier and easier to stay motivated because I want to accomplish everything on the list.

March Wrap Up & April Goals

Before we get into what I want to accomplish this month let's do a quick recap on my March Goals and what I accomplished last month...

March Goal: Read one book of the Bible every day in March

Outcome: Nope. I read 5 books, which makes it more of a once a week accomplishment than a once a day accomplishment. I'm not being too hard on myself with this one. I've made progress and I'm going to keep it up for the month of April.

March Goal: Read two books.

Outcome: Seriously, what is my problem with this!? Another month has past and I didn't read a single book. I'm too disgusted by this thought to elaborate any further.

March Goal: Journal/Write Creatively 16 days out of the month.

Outcome: I'm giving myself a check mark next to this one! 

As for my 52 in 52 List...I did try a new food (baked brie with apricot jam) and made two new recipes (icing and pad thai). I'm anticipating April being a more successful month because I already have some things 'in progress' but can't actually call them done until next month. 

April has a few unknowns right now. Basically one of two scenarios is going to play out; either everything will continue according to plan OR I'll check a pretty big item off my life goals list...which is the preferred scenario and it will also come with some big changes. So keeping that in mind I'm keeping my April goals pretty simple. I'm going to go ahead and carry all of my March Goals over to April with a few moderations. I am going to keep up with my Bible reading plan and aim to read 10 books this month. On the literature front I'm going to take a different approach. I'm just going to read one book. One. Surely, I can read one book during next next 30 days. As for the writing, I'm not sure I want to put a number of times on that. I discovered last month that It can be hard to count days, somedays I can easily write for a few pages and others the only writing I do is a quick five minutes to answer the question in my Five Year Journal. So I'm going to try and keep track of how many hours I spend journalling and writing. I'm going to aim to spend 30 hours writing and we'll see how it goes. To make my goals a little more rounded and since the weather is warming up I'm going to aim to have at least one day a week with 15,000 steps on my FitBit. 

There may be some changes to this list depending on how the month unfolds, but for now I'm balancing living in the present while being aware of things on the horizon. What are you planning to accomplish in April? 

Many Monday Things

I had good intentions of sharing five on Friday but I had a terrible nights sleep on Thursday and then Friday just kind of got away from me. I worked all weekend so nothing to report there, so we'll back track to Friday and share a bunch of things I meant to share then.

{one}

Happy Leap Day! As Leap Day William would say "real life is for March". 

I miss 30 Rock. 

{two}

I requested my first cheque from Checkout 51, I've been using the app on and off for over two years. I'm trying to get better about using the stuff I have because it would take a year of rain for me to use up all the things I've been 'saving for a rainy day'. So I went ahead and cashed out and am planning on doing it more frequently from here on out. I love collecting points but then I feel guilty about spending them...it's weird. One of these days I'm going to go on quite the Shopper's Drug Mart shopping spree. 

{three}

After taking a few weeks off I participated in Susannah's Solidarity Sisters group this month. I was paired with Shannon from Sincerely Shannon and really enjoyed getting to know her. The month kind of got away from us but I hope we are able to stay in touch and maybe collaborate on something in March.

{four}

March Madness. It's happening, not in the traditional college basketball sense (I mean, I know that's happening too but that's not the one I'll be involved with.) My March Madness involves (maybe) my last month of the office job before camp starts (or it could extend into May Madness we'll see how that plays out). Plus, getting back to work on my 52 in 52 list stay tuned for more details on that tomorrow. 

{five}

I'm searching for a new notebook and I would really like to find one with a hardcover, spiral bound and it would be great if the pages were grid/graph paper. Does anyone know if such a thing exists? It also needs to exist in Canada because there's no way I'm spending $100 on a notebook which is inevitably what it would cost to order from the states, factor in the exchange rates and pay for shipping. 

{six}

The internet is full of Oscar references today and I don't understand any of them. I didn't see a single Oscar nominated movie and I am completely indifferent as to who wore an expensive outfit and took home a little gold man. It's just as well though because it means I will spend less time perusing Facebook/Twitter/Instagram and more time catching up on all the blog posts I missed last week. 

{seven}

My office job is pretty mundane and I don't interact with clients/customers so I listen to a lot of podcasts as I work. I still love my favourites The Vinyl Cafe and Grown Ups Read Stuff They Wrote As Kids but I've also been branching out and have discovered a few more that are now a must listen. Camp Code fulfils my love of talking about camp while I listen I scribble down ideas or make note of something I want to think about more. Night Time is kind of a fun mystery podcast that shares stories about local mysteries, I originally started listening just for the Oak Island episode but liked it so much I went back and downloaded the other episodes. My most favourite new discovery is Brining Up Betty. It's a podcast targeting towards special needs parents but it is so informative and fun and real. I would love to hear some more podcast recommendations. I like ones that are educational and family friendly (that's my subtle way of saying I don't like listening to people discuss their wild partying adventures). 

Tomorrow I'm getting back on the mostly goal setting wagon! 

Tuesday Plus One

Remember back at the start of the month when I was all gungho about February? I have since lost all enthusiasm for the month.  #reallife I can't even blame the weather because compared to last year February has been almost tropical. It's still -6 and there are patches of snow on the ground but this time last year there was six feet of snow on the ground and I was convinced spring (or summer) would never arrive. 

I have made zero progress on by 52 in 52 list. I read one book (largely because I was forced to earlier in the month when we lost power for 2.5 days during a snow storm) and completely missed the boat on my plan to start a good habit during Lent. I'm not even sure I bothered to fill a single page in a notebook this month. I did get Valentine's Day cards mailed and made a few Project Life pages, I need to print some more Disney photos though before I consider that fully accomplished. I'm also failing to remember a time this month when I went to a new restaurant, tried a new food or made a new recipe. 

I was also anticipating knowing if my contract will be extended past March 31 this month, but so far there's just be rumblings from the rumour mill that nobody will be extended. Which is fine but rumours don't do me any good I need to know for certain so I can make pre-camp vacation plans. #priorities I've said it before and I'll say it again but this whole contract position situation is for the birds....or at least people who unlike me don't feel the need to plan ahead.

At this point I'm more or less ready to write off February's productive and focus on getting in gear for March. Dusting off my planner, perhaps making a list of blog post, definitely making multiple to do lists. In various colours, stamps and washi tape...or scribbled on the back of a post it depending how things play out. 

That's all I've got for today. I thought I had photos but as it turns out they're on my memory card in my camera and not on my computer. Wishing you a Wednesday more productive than mine! 

52 in 52 January Progress

I started off the year with some lofty goals. Fifty two of them to be exact, one for each week of the year. January is almost over so I thought I'd do an update about what I was able to accomplish this month. 

1. Complete 12 months of Project Life. (0/12) I'm on track with this but I won't get to cross one month off just yet. Since I'm doing Project Life monthly I won't start working on January until the first week of February. 
2. Document my One Little Word for the whole year. Making decent progress on this one as well. I did 75% of the January prompts, I got a little off track when I went away but I'll catch up. 
3. Read 52 Books. (1/52) Not such good progress... 
4. Fill three Notebooks. (0/3) I either need to start writing a whole lot more or adjust my goal. 
5. Try 12 new foods. (2/12) Nothing too exotic but while I was travelling I had my first ever hushpuppy (delicious) and I also tried biscuits with sausage gravy. That was a weird experience, it was good, but it didn't feel like something I should be eating for brunch. 
6. Cook 12 new recipes. (0/12) I bought all the ingredients to make Thai Chicken Soup but I haven't actually made it yet. 
7. Try 12 new restaurants. (0/12) OK, so when I made this I wasn't really thinking about my trip. Technically while travelling I visited at least six new restaurants, that feels a little like cheating though? When I first wrote this challenge I was thinking about trying one new local place each month. So by those rules I'm 1/12 since I went to a local coffee place this month. What are your thoughts? Should I could places I went while travelling or stick to exploring more local places? 
8. Spent 10 nights sleeping in a tent. (0/10) 
9. Visit six museums/National Historic Sites.(0/6) 
10. Participate in a "Photo A Day" Challenge. - I think February is going to be the month for this! It's a short month so I can get it done and then maybe do another one in the summer. 
11. Add a stamp to my passport.  Florida - January 6 - 16
12. Plant a garden.
13. Write a "1000 Gifts" inspired list. 
14. Invest in a custom piece of jewelry. 
15. Mail Valentine's Day Cards.- I made a list of everyone who I want to send a card to, which is the first step. 
16. Mail Christmas Cards. 
17. Mail post cards during a vacation. I totally forgot this was on the list. #oops
18. Publish 152 blog posts. (5/152) January was a slow month. I was travelling for close to two weeks and didn't blog during that whole time. 
19. Take a photography or cooking class.
20. Volunteer for a total of 52 hours. (0/52) This one is tricky too. I need to make up some rules about what I'm going to count as volunteer hours and what I'm not. 
21. Visit another province. *Technically I spent the night in Ottawa, Ontario...but I'm holding off on crossing this one of just yet. Hopefully I'll visit another province and spend time in more than a hotel. 
22. Buy fresh flowers 'just because'.
23. Write the rough draft of a novel.
24. See my blog reach 100 followers.
25. Watch 12 TED talks. (0/12)
26. Read the Bible cover to cover.
27. Complete 12 Pinterest Projects. (0/12)
28. See a play.
29. Complete six jigsaw puzzles. (0/6)
30. Sew all my patches on to my camp blanket. 
31. Save $2 each week and use it to celebrate completing all 52 things.  Technically haven't done this yet...but I have been putting all my change into a piggy bank. 
32.  Attend an NHL game.  Pittsburgh Penguins vs Tampa Bolts, January 15, 2016
33. Have a girls' weekend.
34. Choose a good habit to start during Lent.
35. Build a snowman.
36. Complete two "Day in the Life" posts. (0/2)
37. Invest in an external hard drive and back up my photos.
38. Visit a Farmer's Market 6 times. (0/6)
39. Purposely learn something new everyday for a week.
40. Watch a fireworks display. You would think I would have crossed this off at Disney, except I also forgot this was on the list...
41. Meditate once a day for a week. (0/7)
42. Complete a crossword puzzle without help from Google.
43. Listen to a full album of classical music.
44. Do the Clean Sweep test and improve my score in six months. 
45. Watch the sunrise. 
46. Spend an hour outdoors in silence. 
47. Try three different types of wine. (0/3)
48. Enjoy a guilt free afternoon nap.
49. Join a club.
50. Enjoy a bonfire with friends.
51. Follow through with decluttering and the KonMari method.
52. Make cards using my photos/scrapbooking stash and sell them. 

All this considered I'm satisfied with my progress this month. There are a few things that I totally could have done if I had of remembered they were on this list. I need to print out a copy and keep it somewhere handy!

Joining the Blogging Elite for January's Frosty link up! 

A New Year's Do Over

I spent January 1st in an excited panic. 

My One Little Word prompts had arrived for the month of January.

My blank Five Year Question Journal was sitting on my bedside table ready to start. 

My Project Life Album was full of empty pocket page protectors. 

My 52 Things in 52 Weeks list waited for the first thing to get crossed off.

The year had hardly started and already I felt slightly overwhelmed by my imaginary to do list. (I say imaginary to do list because I did have a real to do list. It involved packing, arranging, Sparks things, meal planning...you know things that would actually impact my daily life.)

And then I messed up and my one month old phone met with water which was enough for my mind to grind to a halt and recognize that I was rushing myself to do all the fun things and ruining the fun in the process. 

I am not going to disappoint Ali Edwards if I don't finish all of my OLW prompts by January 2nd.

It will take me approximately 5 minutes to respond to the prompt in my Five Year Journal. 

It's called Project Life not Project January 1st.

52 Weeks...not 52 minutes on January 1st. 

It was like the calendar changed to 2016 and I went coocoo bananas and lost all sight of reality and logical thinking. 

I spent January 2nd in my yoga pants and hoodie. I helped mom tear down Christmas and return it all to the attic. I communicated by landline and e-mail while my cellphone hung out in a baggie full of rice. I sharpened a tupperware container full of pencil crayons left over from my elementary school days to use in my new colouring books. I hit the reset button. 

I'm declaring a do over on January 1st. 

Reminding myself that there is no need to rush into things. There is no prize for finishing things first and nobody is going to hand me an award for starting the most projects on January 1st. I've secretly rolled my eyes a little every time I've read about a blogger committing to being more intentional over the last few weeks. Now I'm about to join the ranks. I still have every intention of completing Project Life this year, following along with my One Little Word, crossing off items on my 52 Things List and responding to the journal prompts every day. I also have every intention to do one thing at a time and enjoy the process. 

So tonight I'm going to ring in January 3rd and remind myself that Rome wasn't built in a day and the year doesn't revolve around crossing items off on my to do list. 

52 Things in 52 Weeks

Some of you observant folks may have noticed that over the weekend my 25x25 list transformed into a 52 in 52 list. I've been 26 for almost a year now and have thought many times about needing to do something with my 25x25 list but couldn't decide on a plan. For a while I thought about doing a 101 in 1001 list that seem to be popular among bloggers but 101 things is a lot of things and 1001 days feels like a long time! A 30x30 list didn't interest me because it felt cliche and four years is a long time to do 30 things. So after some thought I decided to create a list of 52 things I want to do over the course of the 52 weeks that make up 2016.

1. Complete 12 months of Project Life. (0/12)
2. Document my One Little Word for the whole year. 
3. Read 52 Books. (0/52)
4. Fill three Notebooks. (0/3)
5. Try 12 new foods. (0/12)
6. Cook 12 new recipes. (0/12)
7. Try 12 new restaurants. (0/12)
8. Spent 10 nights sleeping in a tent. (0/10)
9. Visit six museums/National Historic Sites.(0/6)
10. Participate in a "Photo A Day" Challenge.
11. Add a stamp to my passport.
12. Plant a garden.
13. Write a "1000 Gifts" inspired list. 
14. Invest in a custom piece of jewelry. 
15. Mail Valentine's Day Cards.
16. Mail Christmas Cards. 
17. Mail post cards during a vacation.
18. Publish 152 blog posts. (0/152)
19. Take a photography or cooking class.
20. Volunteer for a total of 52 hours. (0/52)
21. Visit another province.
22. Buy fresh flowers 'just because'.
23. Write the rough draft of a novel.
24. See my blog reach 100 followers.
25. Watch 12 TED talks. (0/12)
26. Read the Bible cover to cover.
27. Complete 12 Pinterest Projects. (0/12)
28. See a play.
29. Complete six jigsaw puzzles. (0/6)
30. Sew all my patches on to my camp blanket. 
31. Save $2 each week and use it to celebrate completing all 52 things. 
32.  Attend an NHL game. 
33. Have a girls' weekend.
34. Choose a good habit to start during Lent.
35. Build a snowman.
36. Complete two "Day in the Life" posts. (0/2)
37. Invest in an external hard drive and back up my photos.
38. Visit a Farmer's Market 6 times. (0/6)
39. Purposely learn something new everyday for a week.
40. Watch a fireworks display.
41. Meditate once a day for a week. (0/7)
42. Complete a crossword puzzle without help from Google.
43. Listen to a full album of classical music.
44. Do the Clean Sweep test and improve my score in six months. 
45. Watch the sunrise. 
46. Spend an hour outdoors in silence. 
47. Try three different types of wine. (0/3)
48. Enjoy a guilt free afternoon nap.
49. Join a club.
50. Enjoy a bonfire with friends.
51. Follow through with decluttering and the KonMari method.
52. Make cards using my photos/scrapbooking stash and sell them. 

I plan to blog about all (or at least most) of the things and am pretty optimistic I'll be able to complete the whole list. Have you started thinking about New Year's Resolutions yet or am I way ahead of the game!?