So here are my 101 Things. This'll be a rolling-update sort of thing, with stuff I've started in italics, things I've finished crossed out, and notes or links added as they matter whenever I catch up. Follow with me. Imma be dividing this up into five sections so I can make my whole life better with one list:
Home
- Save up enough to move out into a nice place of my own, that's well situated and closer to what I want, if not ideal
- Move out to said new place
- Move my storage up to here
- Get my stuff out of storage and into my place of living
- Declutter the junk and replace with good things / vintage pieces, or get rid of it
- Set up an organizing system wherever I am that works with my natural slatternliness and disorganization to make me stay organized
- Find a way to have a library so I don't have to keep getting rid of my books
- Plant a garden and keep it alive throughout this project--plant both useful things (fruits, veggies, herbs) and things that make me happy (lilies, poppies, roses, irises)
- Compost and recycle as much as humanly possible, and replace wasteful household items with greener alternatives--start small, build up--one a month
- Find small, cheap, but pretty home-decor projects and do at least one a month with a goal of improving my living space
- Make real friends, several of them, and associate regularly
- Keep up with penpals--for real this time; write weekly to someone, if not all!
- Start making stuff for a trousseaux or a dowry--things I can take to my first house with someone else
- Decorate on the cheap--find as many things I'm looking for at thrift stores as possible (right now, I'm looking for: a floor lamp, a bookshelf or two, wall shelves)
- Make a mock-lambskin rug for the floor so I can have the look without killing any lambs
- Make a bed or a hidey-hole thing for Ninja
- Get Ninja a friend-kitty
- Find picture frames and hang all sorts of stuff on the walls
- Organize all my craft supplies by project and by category so I can just grab and work without digging all over the place
- Make a Tardis of some sort
Work
- Finish Married To The Wind and send it out for publication!
- Start and finish at least one novel a year
- Publish Married To The Wind through traditional publishing, involving an agent, a publishing house and an advance
- Learn how to query magazines for articles
- Query and get accepted at least one article a month, once started
- Write a short story a week
- Polish and submit a short story a week, get as many published as possible; build up the Wesley Dean Smith system into something decent
- Write a poem a week
- Polish and publish a book of poetry
- Experiment with other forms of writing: screenplay, TV script, songwriting, nonfiction, creative essays
- Experiment with writing across genres
- Get back to weekly TV reviews of a number of shows; find places that will pay me for them
- Get back to monthly book reviews; find places that will pay me for them
- Self-publish at least six books before this project is done, and price them in the Sweet Spot
- Expand Incidental Twin until I can size up my supplies and make more bottles ahead of time, assured that they will sell
- Size up Incidental Twin until I can expand into other forms of makeup, then into fragrances, then soap and candles
- Get IT featured on a good nail blog with a following of over 500
- Get someone neat to notice Incidental Twin and mention or retweet it
- Relaunch Cashew Creations
- Go to at least one local craft fair as a seller within the time of this project (bonus points for more than once!)
- Find a way to get membership in SFWA, SFRA, and at least one other writer's association that applies to my writing
Body
- Lose 40 pounds, in stages (10 lbs, 20 lbs, 30 lbs, 40 lbs) and keep it off without any major spikes or regains in the time of this project
- Get my back in shape so it'll stop hurting constantly
- Work out at least three times a week
- In the warm months, walk outside at least three times a week; in the cold, walk on the treadmill at least three times a week
- Do another full year of Seasonal Eating when I'm in control of what I eat more; write a book about it and sell it to a publisher
- Plant a garden and grow my own tomatoes, peppers and herbs; expand as possible, but never decrease
- Tone up so that weight loss isn't just a baggy-skin situation
- Eat as healthy as possible, and document the attempts and results for the blog here
- Fix and regulate my sleep schedule
- Fall in love--naturally, by way of mingling and making friends, which is also beneficial
- Work on coordination with hands and feet by taking up at least one dance and one music skill to learn in these three years
- Drink Oolong for at least two of the week's tea
- Add superfoods; reduce (then eliminate) white carbs, HFCS, etc
- Subscribe to at least one CSA box and keep the subscription going for the length of the project, once started
- Figure out how best to take care of my hair here, since the moisture level of the climate is all different
- Make my own custom skin cream
- Go back to making my own detergent and see if it still does wonders for my skin like it did before
- Have brunch every few months on a Sunday morning
- Go back to yoga
- Learn how to make corsets and waist cinchers--both for fashion and for bad-back days, because they're way prettier than back braces
Mind
- Complete three reading challenges a year
- Read a wider range of books--at least one I wouldn't normally read a month, just to keep me on my brain-toes
- Learn new topics monthly--make my own curriculum and find online resources that will let me accomplish them; document here
- Go back to meditating at least three times a week and journaling the insights and results
- Journal as close to daily as possible in some concerted effort to clear up the brain and make thinking easier and more fruitful--not just listing To Dos
- Find an effective way to learn a language, even if that means finding a class and then figuring out how to pay for it
- Ease all constant stressors--debt, poorness, lack of friends, lack of sex, poor diet, anxiety, depression, etc--by learning what the triggers are, how to improve the situations and then doing it
- Practice mindfulness at least three times a week
- Travel somewhere new because I want to, not out of obligation
- Graduate grad school with a marketable manuscript
- Decide once and for all whether I will actually just keep collecting degrees--if so, decide between Library Science - Archiving and Handwriting Analysis; if not, find some other way to keep learning things
- Make Makeshift Surfaces a place where people can go to meet others concerned with Happiness, Beautifying the World, Geekery, Community, Alternative Learning Styles (Autodiadacts, Introverts, Synaethetes, etc), Cooking and Living Well, Defining Your Own Life, Bettering Yourself and / or The Future (as in, 'there will be one')
- Learn Swedish
- Learn how to read another language well enough to translate their written work--start with poems
- Find a way to improve my memory so I'm not entirely lost without a pen and paper
- Learn how to make something usable from scratch, and do so; document here
- Do morning pages every day
- Document more actual daily events so that I can remember them later; find a way to journal or scrapbook or otherwise store these things so that they are pretty and useful, not cluttery and annoying
- Learn ten songs beginning to end, with all the words in the right order; learning how to sing them well is a bonus
- Learn ten poems by heart
Creativity
- Publish a book on creativity to help others catch and use inspiration
- Make a full-size quilt; document it here
- Make a full-size loom-knitted blanket; document it here
- Make a dress each month, and make accessories to go with it; document it here
- Find fun ways to make the clothes I have last longer, and document them here
- Make 1000 paper cranes, then do something with them, like making a garland or a screen or something
- Plan, write and launch a webcomic with a defined beginning, middle and end; bonus if there is also an ongoing one in this time
- Cook around the world, a new country-theme every four or six meals; document it here
- Make and fill an art journal
- Improve drawing skills with weekly drawing challenges for six months, then daily drawing, once I'm comfortable with actual drawing
- Improve photographic eye and steadiness of hand by going on monthly photo-safaris (also accomplishes the getting-to-know-the-neighborhood thing)
- Paint and decorate a piece of large furniture; document here
- Make jewelry
- Learn silversmithing to make my own bangles and support the habit as well as to sell
- Learn to spin yarn in the lowest-tech way as possible
- Learn new crochet stitches, and make something with them, one a month
- Embroider one very large landscape piece and at least six small pieces during the time of this project
- Get back to video blogging; redefine the purpose of the blog and relaunch; post at least every two weeks
- Create a nail polish color and a tea for each book I read during this project
- Make at least one piece of art--the kind that hangs on walls or sits on shelves--each month of this project
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