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? 

Blogtember 2015: Bucket List

It's been a long time since I've evaluated my bucket list and today seems to be the perfect day to come up with the 10 things I want to accomplish in life.

{one} Have a full time/year round position at a Christian camp and retreat centre.

This is pretty self explanatory, this is my absolute dream job and one that I will hopefully have in the next five years. 

{two} Become a wife and mother.

To be a wife and mother has always been a top priority in my life. 

{three} Publish a book.

Children's book, YA novel, memoir of my time at camp...I don't know what it will look like when all is said and done but I will cross it off my buckler list someday. 

{four} Create a small side business involving photography/scrapbooking/crafting.

I'm not talking multi-billion dollar arts & crafts empire. I would like to make some extra income by selling greeting cards or something along those lines. 

{five} Visit every province/territory in Canada.

So far I've lived in three of the four Atlantic Provinces (Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Newfoundland) and I've visited PEI and Quebec. I have some potential plans for trips to Alberta and Ontario sometime in the next year to visit friends, so we'll see if I can cross two more provinces off my list before 2016 is over! 

{six} Complete a full year of Project Life

I've dabbled in this method of scrapbooking before but it's always been a mash of PL and Smash Booking and traditional scrapbooking. I'd like to start in January and carry through until December doing a full page spread each week for 52 weeks. 

{seven} Complete one-three months of The 100-Mile Diet.

I've been fascinated with this concept since I first watch the Food Network mini-series where they challenged a group of people to follow the diet for 100 days. The biggest challenge is that I would want to do it in the summer/fall but I've always been at camp during that period and I simply don't have the time to devote to making that happen during the camp season. 

{eight} Grow a vegetable garden.

Summers at camp can also be blamed for not accomplishing this one. Someday it will happen though!

{nine} Complete NaNoWriMo.

Maybe 2015 will be the year!? 

{ten} Read the Bible cover to cover in chronological order. 

I've been thinking about this one a lot lately! I think that my plan to tackle this will be to invest in a new Bible (ideally a journalling Bible, suggestions welcome!!) and start from the beginning. I have attempted this before with no success. I think journalling my way through the Bible is a much better plan of action than simply reading.

Linking up for Blogtember!

Sunday Social #98

Linking up with Ashley & Neeley for this week's Sunday Social.

Five songs you'll listen to the rest of your life:

• Slide - Goo Goo Dolls
• The Crane Wife 3 - The Decemberists
• The Luckiest - Ben Folds
• Tim McGraw- Taylor Swift
• Konstantine - Something Corporate
• *Honourable Mention : Play it Again - Luke Bryan

Five things on your bucket list:

• Get Married
• Have Babies
• Publish a Book
• Visit Stonehenge
• Visit Auschwitz 

Five celebs you'd love to hang out with for the day:

• Ellen DeGeneres 
• Taylor Swift
• Neil Patrick Harris
• Rick Mercer
• Brent Butt

Five things you always carry in your purse:

• Wallet 
• Sharpie
• Gum
• Lip Balm
• Hair Elastic

Five books on your reading list:

• Guitar Notes - Mary Amato
• Everything Beautiful - Simmone Howell
• Send in the Idiots - Kamran Nazeer
• I Don't Care About Your Band - Julie Klausner
• The Ramen King and I - Andy Raskin

Share the last five photos on your phone: 

//Starbucks Mocha Fappachino//

//Chocolate Milk in my new cow print tumbler//

//Delicious M&M cookie//

//Volunteer thank you gift for Day Camp volunteers//

//Random screen shot from a FB group//

Winter Bucket List 2013-2014

Today I'm linking up with Erin & Brittany to share my Winter Bucket List!

2013 had a lot of great moments and experiences but I am ready to start the new year! My birthday is in January which although I hate because it's cold and gross I also love it because my age changes shortly after the calendar does which makes me feel like it really is a new start! I still need to get my Christmas cards out but I also want to sent Valentines this year. I've been thinking a lot about choosing a word or phrase for 2014 and I keep coming back to "Show Love"(more on that later) and I think everyone could use a little pick me up mid-Februray and a reminder that they are loved.

I also really want to bake cookies and make homemade hot chocolate to go along with them. Cookies I have made a thousand times but I've never made true hot chocolate, so that should be an adventure.

Now that I have my fancy camera I've been taking a lot of pictures of the tree lights (I totally have a new appreciation for all you expert level photographers, camera settings are HARD!). Next on my list is to take advantage of the 60+ cm of snow that has fallen over the last week and take some snowy, wintery photos. Of course if I don't get to it this week there's really no rush, we'll have snow until early May. #canadaprobs

I held off getting involved with any sort of volunteering in the fall because I was so sure the grant would come through and I'd be moving to the city. I even gave up my Brownie unit which was a huge disappointment, especially since there's still no word about whether or not our application has been approved or denied. I'm not going to put life on hold any more though and plan on finding an organization to volunteer with starting in the new year. I'd love to do something with the SPCA, but I know that is totally out of the question because I would just bring every animal home.

On that note I am off to address a stack of Christmas cards so they can get put in the mail tomorrow and maybe make it to their various destinations before January!