101 in 1001 Final Update

On June 24^th I created a list of 101 goals to accomplish in 1001 days. And while I accomplished a lot, I got no where near accomplishing them all! Friday marked 1,001 days, so in hopes of kickstarting the habit of blogging again, I figured I’d update this ol’ list before starting fresh with a new one!

Start Date: June 24th, 2011


Goal Completion Date: March 21th, 2014


Goals Completed: 60/101

Food

6.       Do the “Daniel Diet” for 14 days.  Perhaps soon with the Biggest Loser competition at work!

Fitness

14.   Do 50 real push-ups in one sitting. Short breathers permitted. Ha! No where close! More like 25 girly push-ups!

17.   Do the splits. See above comment. :)

18.   Complete a duathalon. Pregnant two out of the three possible summers didn’t help with accomplishing this one!

Personal

26.   Limit my closet to 20 pairs of shoes. Accomplished!

27.   Get a new Passport with current last name.

31.   Deposit a dollar outside.

Relational

33.   Host a dinner party.

34.   Invite friends—outside of Girls Group—into our home 6 times over the course of 3 months.  We were intentional about having family/friends over, but I don’t think this one was actually accomplished!

35.   Read 100 complete books to our child. Not a 100 different ones!

36.   Go on a double date.

37.   Plan a surprise party. Accomplished! After really dropping the ball for Chris’ birthday last year, I planned a surprise 29 and 2 months birthday party for him in September. His mom even made a cake with “Happy 29 1/6^th Birthday, Chris!”

38.   Take a “flip coin” road trip with Chris.

39.   Stay at a bed-and-breakfast as a weekend getaway. We’ve got one in the works for our anniversary!

Awareness

45.   Read 43 books from BBC Top 100 books. [2/43] This was like pulling teeth to enjoy them at first. Now I barely make time to read! :S

46.   Sew an article of clothing and wear it in public. [Beyond a simple seam and hem.] Nope, sewing machine’s a bit dusty!

Blog

48.   Blog about each of my 101 accomplished goals, unless supposed to be anonymous or uber personal. Accomplished. ;)

50.   Answer 50 Questions that will Free Your Mind, perhaps blog about them. I started with questions 1-5.

Spiritual

51.   Read the Bible every day to our lil’ bean for 30 days. Accomplished! We ready the Bible every night for two months before bed, but haven’t been doing so well in March!

52.   Pray every night with Chris before bed for 30 days. :(

54.   Memorize the books of the Old Testament, in order. [27/39]

55.   Study a book of the Bible with Chris.

Outdoorsy Stuff

56.   Sleep under the stars.

58.   Go fishing.

59.   Play in the rain.

61.   Camp out in our backyard.

62.   Build a fire without a match/lighter.

63.   Build a snow_____ [fort, man, etc].

64.   Go skiing.

65.   Go sledding.

Just For Fun

68.   Complete a photo challenge. I tried to accomplish this one about 5 times, each time a failure!

70.   Submit a post to PostSecret.

72.   Learn to tie a tie.

73.   Create a font in my handwriting. I printed the paper work to do this one about 5 times, but never actually did!

75.   Go to Cedar Point. Accomplished! Chris and I went! We were only there a couple hours before it started to rain so we decided to leave without getting our hands stamped. As we left Olive Garden for lunch, we walked outside to an absolutely gorgeous day. We kind of kicked ourselves for not getting our hands stamped, but decided not to be upset about it and enjoyed a leisure ride home!

Giving Back

78.   Pick 5 people who have changed my life and write each of them a letter. I wrote one!

79.   Leave 25 Operation Beautiful notes.

80.   Write three “Dear Stranger” letters and leave them in random spots around Lima.

81.   Donate blood 3 times. I donated twice. Pregnancy took me out so much on this one!

82.   Plant a tree.

84.   Write our Compassion Gospel for Asia sponsor child once a month for a year. Ugh! This was much more difficult and more ambitious than I thought it would be!

85.   Send hand-written notes of encouragement to 10 friends/family members. I probably got close on this one, but didn’t really keep track.

87.   Leave a 100% tip.

89.   Put together 5 Christmas shoe boxes. I got the boxes this past Christmas but never put them together! Perhaps I should do it now, so I’m actually ready for next Christmas!

90.   Contact 5 managers about the good work a specific employee has done. Only once did I do this!

Finances

93.   Pay off 2 student loans. Accomplished! We’re doing well with this! Looking forward to throwing a party when they are alllllll paid off! For.real.

94.   Continue to have $0 debt outside of Mortgage and Student Loans. Accomplished! Yep! Yep!

96.   Save half of my “Rachel Money” every week for 2 months. I changed the way I budget and no longer have “Rachel Money”.

97.   Do not buy anything for myself for one whole month. Eek. Nope!

98.   Teach someone the basics of couponing. I’ve given pointers and tips but not actually sit down and teach anyone. I’ve kind of fallen of the couponing bandwagon now too.

99.   Make no withdrawals from savings accounts [excluding possible car purchases]. Accomplished!

100.   Save $5 for each completed task. I didn’t do this as I went! I should of!

101.   Donate $5 for each incomplete task. Accomplishing. I didn’t do this either as I went, but am going to donate now!

Looks like it’s time to make some more goals!! :)

2 More Summertime Goals

Alright, blogworld, here's the deal.

I have about half a dozen posts half-written in my mind, but I still have some 101 in 1001 goals to update on here. So, here's another checklist kind of post after a whirlwind of July so I can get my blog-brain up to date!

77.   Go to the drive in movies.
During the last week of June, my niece and nephew stayed the night with the plan to see Monsters University that even. You see we've got some serious Monsters' fans in the family! My niece used to beg to watch Monsters, Inc--and take a bubble bath and brush her teeth--every.single.time she came to our house. My nephew is equally enthralled with Sulley & Mike; as is Ainsley! I can't even guess how many times I've watched Monsters, Inc. Coincidentally the Van-Del Drive-ins has BOGO on Tuesdays evening and kiddos 5 and under are free. So for seven bucks, Mister, Sondra [2 days shy of her 6th birthday!], Stuart, Ainsley, Jacoby, and I were able to enjoy a movie! 

About three-fourths of the way through the movie, the temperature dropped drastically. People scurried about collecting blankets and popcorn bowls, seeking refuge in their cars. Sondra turned to me asking if we should get in car. I relieved her that everyone else was just wimps, we'd be fine, buuuut I did keep a close eye on the lightening in the distance! The kiddos stayed up for almost all of the movie, with just a little dozing off at the end! They then slept the whole way home and all through the night. 

Cue the hallelujah chorus!

10.     Can vegetables grown in our garden.
I felt a bit of pressure looming with this goal. You see, last year, I thought our garden was pretty lush. This year? I don't feel like we've gotten much out of it. Either way, if I wanted to accomplish this goal I needed to can something. 

After thinking that I picked all the beans and then being informed of a whole 'nother section, I realized green beans was the produce of choice. [That and we did grow any other commonly cannable produce this year.]

So we took our snipped beans out the Mister's parents and his mom helped teach me.  You see, we have "uh garden" at our house, but Mister's parents? Now they have A GARDEN! And his mom is good at storing away for winter. 

Mmmmm... How I love some comfort food on a chill winter night that includes preserved summertime favorites. Green beans. Corn. Peaches. Yum! Yum! So that's where this goal came from and we spent some time canning. Nancy really did all the work and I just asked all the questions. I'm no where near being able to do it by myself--although Mister reassured me that there's this thing called a "user's manual" and it'd probably be able to walk me through it step by step. I'd say he was talking nonsense! ;-)

In the end, we had enough to can just 5 quarts of green beans, but I'm already looking forward to enjoying them this fall/winter! Next year I'm hoping for the bountiful harvest, or at least not being on vacation when my mother-in-law could use the help canning beans and cutting corn!

{8} 101 in 1001 Goal Updates

I thought I wasn't doing so hot on my 101 goals to accomplish in 1001 days, but in reality it looks like I'm just not doing well blogging about them! I counted 'em up and have EIGHT to update!

5.     Drink no pop for 6 months.
This one wasn't too hard as I have gone longer without pop. It was more difficult to remember that I wasn't supposed to drink it than it was to say no to it. Other than the cherry pops--Cherry Coke, Cherry Pepsi, Cherry 7up--I don't really miss pop too much. So compared to how bad it supposedly is for ya, it's no biggie to say no! [I can't remember the last time I had it actually.]

23.   Get a professional massage.
February 2nd. While at my second chiropractor visit [in my life in prep to make sure all was in alignment for Jacoby to slide squeeeeeeze out] I scheduled an hour massage by the massage therapist that shares an office with him. It was nice. It was relaxing. It was worth it. [Especially since the office still hasn't sent me the bill!] The oddest part was with my normal massage therapist aka the wonderful mister I give a lot more direction--a little to the left, harder there, not so hard there--but with this appointment, I just let her do her thang!

29.   Only trim hair until lil’ bean’s first birthday.
I'm bad about regularly getting my hair trimmed and usually just get it cut [2-3 inches]. I mean you pay the same amount whether you get half an inch or half a foot chopped off. Doesn't seem quite right. Anyways, I made this goal to prevent a spur of the moment chopping... and I did it. It wasn't until 3 months after Ainsley's birthday that I had more than a trim. 

49.   Blog a personal/life update once a month for 6 months.
Well since Ainsley and Jacoby are our life. Just click on those tabs to check out those updates. :)

Handsome lil' man

Miss Personality & Mister

66.   Write a letter to myself to open in 10 years.
Sign. Sealed. Delivered--to-our-basket-of-important-things-that-I-don't-want-to-lose. I actually already forget what I wrote and suddenly look forward to reading it!

71.   Go ice-skating.

The weekend after Thanksgiving, Mister and I traveled to Chicago for the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics Conference. It was the first time for us both to be away from Ainsley overnight and served as a bit of a babymoon before Jacoby's arrival. While there, we went ice skating at Millennium Park! We enjoyed ourselves and could easily tell the difference between newbies aka US and experienced skaters aka those circling us as they whizzed by! Neither of us fell either which was good considering I was 6 months preggo!

88.   Send an anonymous note of encouragement/flowers.
I did it. November 2011. I intentionally didn't blog about this one since it was to be anonymous. :)

And last, but certainly not least!
After today's 5k and playing at the park, we headed home. By the time we got home, the two little ones were asleep and after showering, Mister quickly crashed as well. And so I decided I might as well accomplish another goal!

92.   Grow out hair and donate it.

Before

After

 [Sorry! I don't know why they've formatted funkily!]

Pantene's Beautiful Lengths has 9+ inches of Rachel hair!

And there ya have it! Almost halfway to accomplishing all my goals!

Photo Shoot Preview & Goal #25

With Mister having the day off today, we thought it'd be a good day to head to the park and take some pics for Ainsley's first birthday. Well unbeknownst to us rain was in the forecast so after snuggling through a Tyler Perry movie [my fav!], a lunch date, a few errands, and a nice nap, the sun came out and we decided to still head to the park. 


We took 300+ a lot of pics so hopefully we have a dozen good ones. No exaggeration on either end of the estimates. We still have to sift through them all but I thought I'd leave you with one preview:

Ainsley & her lil' sibling's first photo.
Goal #25 :-)

Baby Massie #2 is healthily growing with an expected arrival of early March. Ainsley had a due date that threatened to keep me away from The Allen County Fair, yet was unsuccessful as I made it there all but the day my water broke and the day she was born. This little one though I'm 99.9% will keep me from another annual attendance at the OHSAA State Wrestling Tournament. Since I'm due the weekend of the tournament, I'm already counting on my first missed attendance in 16 years!!! 


He or she is definitely worth it though! 


We are all excited and hoping for another smooth pregnancy with a perfect, healthy outcome; just like the last one!

Goal Updates: Warrior Dash & Running

Over a month and an half ago now--wow, summer's flying and I have had this typed for 3 weeks now!--about twenty family members from the Clum side headed to Logan, Onio to participate in the Warrior Dash. (Basically a 3.5 mile obstacle course.) 


Now a year ago, I didn't really know anything about such run, but a friend of mine mentioned it in spin class and then Mister and I got to talking about it and before we knew it,the whole clan was signed up for it! And we decided since we were all going down, we should make a weekend of it--and so that's what we did. :-) Lodge was reserved, meals were planned, and costumes (White Trash Class, of course) was decided upon. 

White Trash Class Before Pic

As family trickled in Friday night, we settled in with much laughter and fun 'making' our costumes which culminated with my lovely brothers giving each other costume appropriate hair cuts.

My favorite part of this pic isn't my brothers,
although they are looking studly,
but rather it's everyone's facial expressions in the background!

Saturday morning we had a breakfast of pancakes and eggs before heading to the fair grounds close to where the Warrior Dash was being held. The excitement and comic relief of others' costumes left our group splitting up--half heading to the starting line and the other half settled in with the kids to wait to watch the finish. 

Mr. & Mrs. Classy with matching fu-man-chus

Mister and I decided that we'd run together figuring it'd be more fun to share the experience and so we stuck together the whole time--which was also good since he wore my time chip since I didn't have shoestrings to attach it too. At various times we crossed paths with other family members and enjoyed the challenges and humor of the course. My brother intentionally slid down his share of muddy slopes whereas my slides weren't as planned. :-) We weren't there to win--as my case in all runs--and wanted to just enjoy the experience. I'd say we successfully accomplished that goal. 

My younger brother celebrating his finish!

Mister and I caught up with my mom in one of the last obstacles as we climbed up and back down the cargo net. The next obstacle was jumping over a couple rows of fire, over which I squawked like a 10 year old and my momma was a bit afraid her workout pants would go up in flames. The final obstacle was a 2 foot deep muddy water that you had to crawl through under barbed wire. At this point, Chris was ahead of me and momma was just behind me. Well I thought it'd be a good idea to swim in the muddy water, which was until I heard my momma yell, "Rachel! You're splashing me right in the face!!" I turned to see how close she was and then decided to finish the course with a backstroke through the water and then slipped several times trying to get out of the pit. 

White Trash Class After

After cleaning up a bit aka rubbing dried mud off and throwing away old clothes, we headed back to the lodge for the remainder of the weekend. 

All the Clum Clan in attendance

Overall, the weekend was so much fun and my favorite part--even beyond my muddy backstroke--was spending time with extended family! We decided then and there that this needed to occur more often so a lodge is booked for another Clum gathering in September! And I may just have a list of possibilities for a beach/lake vacation next summer! *Clum Clan if you're reading this: We want YOU there even if you weren't able to attend the Warrior Dash weekend!!*


In other, similar news, another goal is confidently crossed of my list of 101 things to accomplish in 1001 days: 


13. Run 101 miles. 


After yesterday's Run to the Moon 10km, I've chalked 122 miles since I started this task about a year ago. If you'd look at my running tracker, you'd quickly notice that I'm awful at consistency. For example, I did great end of February/March, then fell off the wagon thanks to picking up an extra afterschool teaching assignment, and then this summer have done a bit better again. Which is good since Mister, Momma-cita and I are registered for a HALF MARATHON come October! I'm anxiously looking forward to it already, especially after yesterday's run. 


Now I've said it before and I'll likely continue to repeat myself for a while, but I am not a runner. Yes, I run, but I'm not what I consider a runner. [What to 'meet' a real, awesome runner?! Meet my friend, Sara, who is both a great runner and a great baker!! Order a dozen cupcakes if you don't want to take my word for it! ;)] Anyways, even with the half marathon we're registered for, I have/had no intentions of actually running for 13.1 miles straight. 


We've been following Jeff Galloway's training and suggestions and for our Sunday morning "long runs" have been following a 4 minute run/1 minute walk interval. It's comfortable and we've been keeping about a mid-11 minute/mile pace which isn't too far off from my typical mid-10/min to just under 11 min/mile pace for a 5k. Well yesterday as we embarked on our first race of a longer distances [previously I've only done 5ks (3.1 miles) and 1-4 mile race], I shared with Mister that my goal was to run the first half as if it were a typical 5k aka run as much as possible with a walk break if I felt like I really needed it, and then for the second half of the race, do a 4/1 interval.


Well we got started and it was a bit depressing since there weren't many people behind us, but we were   with the tail-end of the pack. When we crossed the 1/2 mile marker and our watches read 6:45, I turned to Chris and commented, "We suck!" Sure I felt slow, but I didn't think I was that slow! [Sidenote: I'll saw I a lot when it comes to pace or goals because Mister is a champ and goes along with what I feel comfortable with!] 


Thankfully we quickly came upon the 1 mile marker at 10:something and our suspension was confirmed: the 1/2 mile marker was misplaced! We ran the first half taking just one walk break of a few strides through the water station in order to rehydrate, and then we just kept going. Instead of intentionally taking walk breaks, we ended up running the entire race minus 3 water stations which in my book, doesn't really count as walking!


We finished overall with an 11:34/mile pace clocking in at 1:11:33 which was 3.5 minutes under our goal of an hour and 15 minutes. It was nice that the 10k course finished with the 5k course because it felt like more people were behind us than really were, but overall as I promised myself at the beginning of the run, I felt good because I did it. It doesn't matter how other's finish, it matters how I run the race. We met our time goal and even more accomplishing to my weak runner's self-esteem was that I ran for 6.2 miles which is over 2 miles longer than I have ever ran straight before. Even if we did place last in our divisions, I was proud!

Mister still ended up with a trophy,
signed by a real astronaut.
I ended up with a Moon Pie.

The only major downer of this run is that about 4 miles in when I took my sunglasses off to wipe them clean, the bottom of my rim caught my nose ring and pulled it out. It didn't hurt, but it was the second one I lost in 24 hours. Maybe it's a sign. Even though I have more nose studs, I don't really like them, so I'm thinking it'll grow shut.


-Rachel


Note: I stole borrowed all Warrior Dash pictures from my great sister-in-law who was the official photographer for the weekend!

An update by numbers

Much has happened, and continues to happen, since my last post, and so to give y'all an update I thought I'd do it with numbers--I am a math teacher afterall!

672: The number of miles we traveled this past weekend to share in the beautifully unique union of my brother-in-law and now new sister-in-law! Thankfully with about the same amount of Cheerios, we had a happy almost 9-month traveler the whole time!

100: The approximate cost of my first ticket. Ever. Thank you NY trooper for not giving me a warning for talking on my cell phone since I had no idea it was against the law. Had I known
I would had at least put the phone on the inside of the car to call...or just had Mister make the call!

57: The number of things I waited to complete for tonight's Honors Banquet! It got done, and I sighed a big ol' sigh of relief!

2: The number of centimeters Ains' fingers are away from reaching the toilet water! Blech!

33: The number of students I helped chaperone on Monday all the while accomplishing Goal # 75. I love Cedar Point and it was different, yet still fun to accomplish this goal on a school day. More importantly my students had a blast and were grateful for the opportunity to go.

7: The number of school days left in my second year of teaching! This year has whizzed by, but I guess missing the first 7 weeks may have helped that.

4: The number of instructional days left this year! Take out another day for all day curriculum meeting and two days for exams and I'm just left with a blink of school!

12: The number of chapters of Sacred Marriage that Mister and I have read together. We've appreciated the content of this book but even more so, I've appreciated the conversations it's spurred.

1097: The number of days Mister & I have been married, which to a lay person simply represents 3 years, today!! I feel as if we're in that stage of feeling "What?! 3 years already!?" and "What?! It's only been 3 years!?" all at the same time. I even caught Mister saying "early on in our marriage" and it was accurately in the past, awhile ago, crazy.

I'll leave you with that, so until next time, toodles!!

Goals are meant to be accomplished!

I know I have been pretty MIA lately, but rest assure that even though I have have been "missing" I've definitely been "in action"!

Catching back up with life, as I scan through my list of 101 goals that I hope to accomplish in 1001 days, I have a handful successfully accomplished goals and more that I've made some progress on. Woot! Woo! :-)

Goal #2: Go Vegetarian for a month
For the month of February, Mister and I decided that we were going to fast from meat and bread and focus on what our next steps as a family should be. i.e. what we should get involved in, is there anything we should be initiating to better our community, etc. Let me tell you, even though this goal was to not eat meat, this carb lover struggled a lot more with not endulging in bread! [On Fridays my co-workers take turns bringing in a little treat. Well one day I headed to the workroom to find Panera bagels and there happened to be an Asiago cheese one. Score! After toasting it and covering it with cream cheese, I headed back to my classroom. Walkibg down the hall, I raise the small piece of heaven to my mouth when I realize I'm about to eat a bagel aka bread! Ugh! Darn it! One of my students enjoyed a bagel that morning nonetheless.]

After the month of February passed, we decided to continue to give up meat for Lent. Eating meatless seems like a healthier thing to do, even if not because I'm not eating meat, but rather because of the foods that I'm eating instead of eating meat. It's been a lot of fun to cook with Mister and experiementing with various vegetables. Yum! Yum! After celebrating Easter on April 8th, I think the game plan--after eating what meat is already in the freezer because I'm not all about being wasteful--I'll try to only meat if I know where it comes from. Which does not mean Meijer, Rays, etc. but rather a local farmer. We shall see. :)

Goal #12: Run a 5k in less than 30 minutes.
On February 25th, Mister, Momma-cita, my spin instructor, another workout friend and I participated in St. Rita's Family & Friends February Freeze. Well it certainly was in February and it certainly was freezing but some how I accomplished this goal that morning! You see, I was working through the Couch to 5k running program and my third run for that week was supposed to be the dreaded Week 5, Day 3: Run for 2 miles. You see, I've never ran 2 miles without stopping to walk so I was really nervous about this. I started with what I thought was a good pace and gave myself mental pep talks through the first mile and an half. As I came up to the 2 mile mark, I pushed myself to go a little more and then a little more and then a little more. The course was laid out around the blocks that the hospital is on and we had to make two laps around it. Well I thought that after the second loop we were headed back to the finish line, so that's what I was mentally pushing myself to, but come for find out we had to do an extra little loop [probably that last tenth of a mile]. So I kept pushing on and kept not walking. Soon I could see the finish line, I saw that my goal was definitely within reach stride. I kicked hard and crossed the finish line at 29:30!! My first 5k under 30 minutes and I didn't stop for any walking! :D

One hot [ecstatic] mess!
And an adorable, distracted one!

Goal #15: Run a block mile in under 10 minutes.
Continuing with the running theme, on March 7th, I accomplished this one. Mister and I discovered last summer that if you start on the sidewalk in front of our house and keep running until you get back you our house, it is right at 1 mile. Without the initial goal of completing the goal on that particular run, I accomplished anyways.

Running overall--but especially with Mister and Ains--has become pretty enjoyable and I'm sure there will be a post on the sybject in the near future.

Lil' Trooper in the Jogging Stroller

Goal #22: Breastfeed the lil' one for at least 6 months.
Ainsley is almost 7 months old--my oh my how time has flown!--so that means I've accomplished this by almost 1 additional month. The goal is to nurse her as long as I can until she's able to transition to cow milk. I'll be posting an individual post about this one as well! I've got a lot to say about this topic!

One quick word before heading out for a run--or maybe ice cream--even though I've been MIA lately, I was excitedly surprised that 10,000 visits have been made to my blog since it's beginning. So crazy! But thanks for stopping in and hopefully being inspired, encouraged, educated, or received a laugh on my behalf--that's the goal as I use this as an outlet! I won't wait another 3 weeks before touching base again!