In which the Laid-Back Bride jumps on the blog bandwagon

I made exactly one New Year's Resolution for 2012: Waste Less. Save more. (This applies to money, food and time.)

However, being that I have an unhealthy obsession love of making lists, I can't resist the allure of creating my very own Day Zero Project. (If you live under a rock and haven't heard of this concept, it's a list of 101 concrete, quantifiable goals you hope to accomplish in the next 1,001 days.) Perhaps because the whole house smells like the cranberry bread I have baking in the oven right now, a lot of mine have to do with food... (Don't be impressed. It's from a box.)


MY 101 IN 1,001 DAYS LIST!

Start: January 5, 2012 
End: April 3, 2014

1. Get married. (...Okay, that's a freebie one.)
2. Get my engagement and wedding announcements published.
3. Send all my wedding thank-yous within two months.
4. Have my wedding dress preserved.
5. Make a fancy cheesecake from scratch.
6. Complete my Year of Buying Nothing successfully.
7. Go to Kathy's wedding in Boston.
8. Start listening to Rosetta Stone Spanish.
9. Go to Machu Picchu.
10. Go somewhere tropical for our honeymoon. 
11. Go back to visit family in New Mexico.
12. Go to a new national park I've never visited.
13. Take a Big Sur road trip and drive up the California coast.
14. Make an entire meal (appetizer, entree, side, dessert) from my new Thai cookbook. Ditto for my new Indian cookbook.
15. Make 10 new recipes from my Tupelo Honey cookbook.
16. Make 10 new recipes from my Vegan Slow Cooker cookbook.
17. Make at least 4 new recipes every month from my Martha Stewart Living and cooking magazines. (1/28 down...)
18. Lose 10 pounds (ha). (6 pounds down as of February)
19. Go one month making everything at home - no restaurant food or other premade food, or buying coffee in a coffeeshop or beer in a bar.
    
20. Follow the Prevention magazine "Eat to Beat Belly Fat" plan for 1 week.
21. Go one month without eating fast food.
22. Take a sushi-making class.(Feb. 12, 2012)
23. Do at least 20 cardio workouts of 30 minutes or more in one month.
24. Try a new machine at the gym.
25. Go to a yoga class.  January 23
26. Try salsa dancing.
27. Go roller skating at the rink.
28. Read 50 new books. (3/50)
29. Read 3 classic books in the original French.
30. Finish all the unread French-language books on my bookshelf.
31. Stay debt-free for a year.
32. Save $1,000 that is untouchable except in emergencies.
33. Build up $2,500 in savings.
34. Surpass $3,000 in my IRA.
35. Contribute $3,000 in just one year to my Roth IRA.
36. Go on 10 new hikes.
37. Go to a music festival I've never been to before.
38. Go back to Shakori Hills with J.
39. Make a framed collage of Rooster Walk 2 and 3.
40. Complete a scrapbook.
41. Write a (finished) short story.
42. Start my master's in communications. (I got in to Johns Hopkins this month!)
43. Either get a raise, or get a new job.
44. Hit the half-million dollar fundraising mark in my grant writing and fundraising job.
45. Learn to play "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down" and the Charlie Brown Christmas theme on piano.
46. Go shooting again.
47. Get Lindsey to teach me how to knit.
48. Knit something.
49. Make myself a new fabric wallet using my mad sewing skills.
50. Make myself a fabric coupon holder.
51. Whiten my teeth.
52. Sing karaoke at a bar.
53. Clean out my closet.
54. Take a load of clothes to Goodwill.
55. See a movie at a drive-in.
56. Get a good 1.8 camera lens.
57. Go berry-picking.
58. Go wine-tasting.
59. Go visit my old teachers at high school.
60. Make a donation to my college.
61. Buy a Groupon.
62. Host a theme party.
63. Put together a Halloween costume using only items in my closet.
64. Make a new friend.
65. Invite some friends over to dinner who have never been in my house before.
66. Go skiing.
67. Get a massage.
68. Go to a UNC football game.
69. See a meteor shower.
70. Go a whole week without cursing.
71. Get a dining room table and chairs.
72. Plant a garden in our yard.
73. Spray the poison ivy in our yard.
74. Make and use a batch of compost in the garden.
75. Organize my photos and post the best ones online.
76. Go zip-lining.
77. Go ice-skating. 
78. Go tubing down the river.
79. Go canoeing.
80. Catch and eat a fish.
81. Go visit Eliza in Richmond.
82. Go to a Unitarian church.
83. Floss every day for a month.
84. Go a week without spending any money.
85. Get my picture taken in front of the Big Chair.
86. Do all my Christmas shopping at local and small businesses one year.
87. See a live theater production. The Importance of Being Earnest, Feb. 2
88. Make annual donations to the Boys & Girls Clubs, St. Jude's, Heifer International, and the United Way.
89. Solicit a donation from someone else to the Boys & Girls Clubs.
90. Go to an SCA event.
91. Make a medieval dress.
92. Make a mix CD.
93. Get makeup done once by a professional.
94. Go to a barbeque festival.
95. Go to a beer festival.
96. Go through a corn maze.
97. Wake up early on a Saturday and go to one of those Ruritan country breakfast fundraisers.
98. Make a list of all the places I want to see before I die.
99. Call an old friend.
100. Organize a mini-reunion with high school friends I haven't seen in forever.
101. Keep volunteering for local organizations.

What you'll notice isn't on the list (yet): Buying a house. Having a baby. Moving to new town. Even though these are all things I want in my "five-year plan" (if I had one), my 101 in 1,001 list is more about getting ready for all those big scary life changes. By the end of this, hopefully I'll be in better financial shape to do all of those things. And I'll have gotten some bucket list items out of the way (like Machu Picchu) that Future Baby would make VERY difficult.