101 in 1001

101 things I want to do in 1001 days (from August 3, 2010 to April 30, 2013):

1. Learn to sew (better) (Completed summer 2011)

(When my sewing machine broke in the summer of 2011, that kind of put a damper on this one. I still have not gotten it fixed, but maybe after we move…During that first year of the project, I did complete several sewing projects, though, so I would say I completed this, just not to the extent that I hoped)

2. Sew a quilt

(Once again, the broken sewing machine made this hard to complete. I do have the quilt that my sister started for us before she entered the convent, just waiting for me to finish it.)

3. Sew an apron
(Completed 9-15-10)

(This was one of my first sewing projects after we moved into the Tracy House)

4. Sew myself a dress. One that fits. And is comfortable. And makes me feel pretty.

(I have the fabric cut out for a skirt, but did not get further than that before the sewing machine broke. I have, however, bought several thrift store dresses that do fit and make me feel pretty.)

5. Pledge on Wardrobe Refashion (Alas, Wardrobe Refashion is closing down)

5. Go Christmas Caroling

(Apparently people don’t really go Christmas caroling much in the city…)

6. Learn to knit or crochet (Completed winter 2013 – sort of)

(I started crocheting a rug out of old sheets, thanks to Angie Steinke’s instructions, but have not finished it or attempted anything else yet. It’s a start anyway.)

7. Sew curtains for our bedroom. And bathroom. And living room. And sunroom (now that we’ve moved, the rooms needing curtains have changed :-P) (Completed over time from January to March, 2012)

(I didn’t sew them exactly, but I did make curtains for our sunroom, living room, and dining room out of thrifted sheets cut in half)

8. Put together a sewing basket. In a real basket.

(This one was a nice thought, but didn’t happen. My sewing things are still thrown in drawers and closets)

9. Start a community garden (I’ve posted flyers in our apartment…) (Completed Summer 2012)

(Last summer – 2012 – I gardened in the open space next to our apartment along with another neighbor. Our tomatoes and peppers did terribly, thanks to the drought and our sporadic watering habits, but my friendship with Shiloh grew beautifully. She has since moved, but we plan to keep in touch. Now we have just started another community garden in the backyard of the house we’re moving to this summer, sharing the garden space with several other friends from the Boiler Room). 

10. Plant an herb garden (even if it’s just in pots) (Completed Summer 2012 — though they are just in pots)

(Several of my herbs did not survive, but my basil and oregano are still thriving and we have plans to add an herb garden in the front yard of the new house)

11. Visit a CSA farm

(This one just didn’t happen. I did, however, visit the farmer’s market quite a few times over those 1001 days)

12. Take a gardening class (Completed spring 2011 and spring 2013)

(The Kansas City Community Gardens is an amazing resource and offers a variety of free classes throughout the year. I took a schoolyard gardens class and then a berry and fruit tree class)

13. Get some house plants (and keep them alive for the duration of the 1001 days :-P)

(I have killed a few plants over the course of these 1001 days, but I now have a somewhat thriving collection , including my basil and oregano plants, a flower from a former student – which has amazingly lasted a year now and bloomed a second time, the little green plants I transplanted from our front yard – which have also survived over a year and resprouted several times, and a succulent plant from Marcel.)

14. Go to an apple orchard in the fall (Completed 10-9-10)

(We went to the orchard with the Bolers that first fall, though I did not have a working camera at the time.)

15. Raise chickens (I never thought I’d say that because chickens can be so mean and nasty, but…fresh eggs sound good)

(Apartment living is just not conducive to chickens, but maybe at the new house….)

16. Buy locally produced, organic meat

(Surprisingly, this one did not happen, though we bought plenty of local eggs)

17. Buy from a local food co-op (Completed – sort of)

(I had trouble finding a local food co-op, but we did buy quite often from a local health food store that specializes in local foods. I’m going to count that).

18. Roast our own coffee

(I still haven’t found the right popcorn popper to use for this. Someday….)

19. Make homemade ice cream (preferably with friends) (Completed 4-24-13)

(We actually made both ice cream and butter in one of my Learning Environments II classes, when we talked about teaching science with young children. It was delicious and such a fun process)

20. Can applesauce (Completed 10-23-10)

(This happened, partly thanks to the trip to the apple orchard and partly thanks to the pressure canner I received from my mom for my birthday).

21. Make jam

(Not yet.)

22. Can pickles (Completed summer 2012)

(I didn’t can pickles, but I did can pickled beets with Rachel. I’m going to count that. I also made homemade sauerkraut with her)

23. Make cheese

(I haven’t made cheese yet, but my friend Margaret and I have been talking about making some with the raw milk she gets from a co-op. Maybe this summer?)

24. Make my own yogurt regularly

(Unfortunately, I haven’t made yogurt even once during the course of this project. It’s another thing I hope to get into the habit of doing in the new house, though I still need to get the right kind of thermometer for it.)

25. Cook with a friend (Completed 9-6-10)

(This has happened many, many times in these 1001 days and I love it!)

26. Teach someone how to cook (I’ve done this a few times now, including 12-17-11)

(Teaching people how to cook has looked more like cooking alongside beginning cooks, but I think that counts.)

27. Befriend a neighbor (Completed fall 2010….but hopefully more to come)

(This did not happen to the same extend that it did when I lived at Lewis House, but I spent lots of time with one of our neighbors at the Tracy House, a young single mom, and still see her occasionally. At our current apartment, we’ve gotten to know nearly all our neighbors in the building and have spent time with them on occasion. The garden last summer opened up a lot of opportunities for this. There’s definitely still room for growth in this, though)

28. Regularly take prayer walks through the neighborhood (at least once a week)

(I walked a lot, but mostly walking to and from the bus stop. I did very little intentional prayer walking.)

29. Sit and have coffee with a neighbor

(I discovered that many of my neighbors did not really drink coffee, but I did sit and weed the garden with Shiloh many times last summer, which provided the same opportunity for relaxed conversation that a coffee date would have.)

30. Have a cookout with neighbors.

(We sate with the neighbors one day while they were cooking out, but did not necessarily ever organize a cookout ourselves.)

31. Have conversations at the bus stop regularly (I guess now that we have a car, I can say this has been completed, on an ongoing basis up until June 2012?)

(I did not always talk at the bus stop, but I did have many, many conversations with people on the bus and at stops during the several years that I rode the bus regularly)

32. Lead someone to the Lord (it’s telling, I think, that this one is almost as scary to me as, say, starting a family or buying a house)

(I have not done this, exactly, but I think I can say I have helped disciple some new believers, which is perhaps more my gifting.)

33. Write a real letter. The kind that you send through the mail. Actually, make that: get into  the habit of writing at least one real letter a month (well, I’ve written one three five nine so far….more than I remember now) (Completed April 2013)

(At times I have been more faithful about this than others, but I have definitely written quite a few handwritten letters during this project, especially to my sister sister and my mother-in-law).

34. Tutor someone in writing again (completed fall 2011, when I tutored several classmates from my early childhood education classes. I may even look at working at the writing center on campus…)

(I did not end up working in the writing center on campus; I decided it was too much to add on top of everything else I was already juggling in my schedule. I did, however, continue to tutor classmates on an informal basis)

35. Make and give out a stack of valentines (Completed February 2011)

(This did not happen every year, but there were a couple times that I made valentines for family and housemates.)

36. Have a Passover Seder (even though I’ve done this before, I want to again!)

37. Plan a girls night (completed 6-17-11, but this better happen more than once in 101 days :-D)

38. Go sledding (Completed 1-20-11)

39. Have people over for dinner at least once a month (I haven’t kept track of how often this happens, but we’re working on it)

40. Get dressed up and go out to dinner with friends

41. Host or lead a collective/small group (completed 5-25-11, but perhaps more to come before the 1001 days are over)

42. Have friends within walking distance (I’m slowly discovering that we do)

43. Be intentional about staying connected to family and friends back home. (working on it….)

44. Get a cat (meaning: convince Derek that he likes cats — hasn’t happened yet!)

45. Make something red to go in our glorious gold bedroom (completed 8-15-10)

46. Frame Naomi’s painting

47. Find a nice rug for our bedroom. That doesn’t look bad. Or smell bad.

48. Refinish a piece of furniture

49. Paint the old metal shelf in the bathroom Paint the shoe shelf by our front door (this one changed with our move, too)

50. Make Christmas decorations with friends (Completed Christmas 2010, but I hope this will be a yearly thing)

51. Visit the Stockbridge Boiler Room (Completed March 2011)

52. Restore an old house

53. Go back to school to get a certificate and/or associates in child growth and development (Two semesters done and I’ve earned my certificate; two more semesters until I earn my associates) 

54. Start planning for an in-home daycare (I almost put “start an in home day care”, because I know I want to, but realistically, it’ll probably be a bit more than 1001 days before it happens)

55. Start our family

56. Buy a car (Completed June 2012)

57. Take a road trip (#56 obviously has to happen first :-P) (One road trip completed, driving back to Ohio/Michigan for Thanksgiving and one to Grand Rapids, Michigan, but more to come, I hope)

58. Visit mountains with Derek (Colorado?)

59. Go camping

60. Go on an out-of-country mission trip again (Africa?)

61. Visit home. (Completed Thanksgiving 2010, March 2011, and June 2011)

62. Go back to Haiti.

63. Go on a retreat, somewhere quiet with trees

64. Go canoeing

65. Go to the World War I museum here in KC

66. Research my family history, and Derek’s (perhaps go on a trip to track some of it down?)

67. Get a nicer camera with a decent lens (Completed 6-23-12, thanks to our friend Jeff)

68. Take someone’s engagement pictures

69. Print some of my photos to display in our house

70. Back up my photos on Derek’s external hard drive (this one should happen sooner rather than later) (Completed, thanks to my awesome husband)

71. Photograph my parents. And grandparents (I snapped some pictures of my parents while they were here this summer)

72. Take a photography class.

73. Make a scrapbook

74. Finish my paper collage that I started….two years ago?

75. Take a dance class.

76. Dance with my husband

77. Make a gift for someone out of something recycled (Completed Christmas 2010).

78. Go to a play or musical

79. Learn how to play piano (or at least start)

80. Subscribe to a daily newspaper.

81. Read the Lord of the Rings trilogy again (now that I’ve had a decently long break from it) (completed May 2011)

82. Read more fiction in general (working on it; I finished four books over Christmas break 2011, once I finally had time to read again) (Reading has become my treat to myself before bed, after I’ve finished homework)

83. Finish an A.W. Tozer book

84. Write a short story (just for fun, because it’s been a while) (Completed September 2011, October 2011, and again in December 2011, thanks to my Children’s Literature class that required me to write several short stories, as well as writing and illustrating a picture book).

85.  Blog regularly (I definitely need to get back to this)

86. Register to vote in Kansas City. And then actually vote. (I am officially registered now! Now I actually have to vote….)

87. Find a mentor (Derek and I just started meeting with an older, wiser married couple, so I suppose that counts? I’d still like to find an individual mentor, though)

88. Establish a consistent morning quiet time every day (getting there)

89. Be part of a women’s bible study

90. Meet regularly with a group of people for prayer (we certainly did this with Collaborative, completed May 2011, and we’re gathering at the Boiler Room Tuesday nights during the summer for prayer and worship. This is something that I hope continues to happen, in whatever various forms, for the duration of the project – and beyond)

91. Start a neighborhood prayer room

92. Take on a challenge (I know, that’s pretty general, but I haven’t decided on specifics yet) (Completed in July 2012, when we launched The Here and The Now, a photo project with our friends Jeff and Kristina back in Toledo)

93. Dye my hair (Blue again? Something more standard?)

94. Get a pair of boots that are comfortable and classy and good for walking in the winter (meaning not the ten pound, rubber bottomed, lace up ones I have right now :-P) (Completed 12-27-10)

95. Like how I look. Consistently. (I’m getting better at this, but still….)

96. Have my engagement ring re-sized so it fits right and I can wear it without being afraid of losing it

97. Get a check up at the doctors. And the dentist. And the eye doctor. And the gynecologist. And then get Derek to go, too. Ugh. (having no insurance means this one keeps getting pushed back, but I know we need to) (I just got a physical for work and my mom’s Christmas present to us this year was a check to cover dental check ups for both of us) (Both Derek and I got eye check ups on 9-18-24).

98. Sign up for Christian Healthcare Ministries (or get insurance of some sort).

99. Make a recipe book to give to neighbors who participate in the community garden

100. Write a monthly (or maybe bi-monthly?) newsletter about what’s going on in our lives.

101. Send out Christmas cards (every year) (Christmas 2010 done!) (Christmas 2011 — didn’t quite happen :-P)