Tag: 101 in 1001

Goals Update Redux

Goals I have accomplished recently…

#5. Make David’s lunch three times a week for a month – This is something that helps us save money and makes it easier for David to eat healthy. It’s just not going to get done unless I do it, and that’s fine with me because I like taking care of my man. I’m not always consistent with this, but the goal did get completed.

#23. Transfer my old 401k – This should have been as easy as a conference call, but turned out it was no simple matter, friends. It was actually a YEAR-LONG PROCESS. I am not exaggerating. My financial adviser said that he has never encountered such a difficult transfer. When I got the checks in the mail I rejoiced. I worked for this one.

#27. Sell something on eBay – I sold a book on Half.com. I’m totally counting it.

#32. Take the preceptor class – I am officially “qualified” to precept new nurses, so says my hospital. The class was boring, the end.

#68. Obtain a vacuum cleaner – We got SO lucky on this one. A coworker of David’s recently got married and ended up with two vacuums. She just GAVE us one. We’ve had it for a few months now, and it is my favorite chore. I don’t know how we lived so long without it.

#83. Start using reusable shopping bags – I have been doing this for awhile now, just haven’t written about it. I hang them on a hook by the back door, so they are easy to grab when I’m on my way out to the store.

#84. Send Mary, the child we sponsor in Uganda, a picture of us – mailed a picture from our wedding to her in my last letter. She’s only 4, but hopefully she’ll like it!

Goals I’m actively working on…

#20. Pay off my credit card bill –

#21. Put at least $1000 in my IRA – We have $100 a month automatically going toward that. Eventually we’d like to increase that amount, but we’ve got to get ahead on our finances first.

#24. Implement a system for David and I to save our change – A system involving a hollow ceramic shell on our mantel has begun, but before I call this one complete I want to follow it through until we cash the money in. Somehow, the change seems to disappear again once it makes its way into the shell.

#40. Read all the books I own but haven’t read – Finished a couple lately. The problem is, I keep buying more books. Must stop this.

#74. Get pregnant – No comment.

#75. Send 10 “just because” cards – I sent one, and it was so much fun to do. This is something I plan to work on soon.

#81. Donate blood once a quarter – I think I am actually going more often than this, because every time Gulf Coast Regional Blood Center calls me I schedule an appointment. Sometimes my hematocrit isn’t high enough to donate, but so far I’ve gone 3 times total.

#87. Complete NaBloPoMo – Obviously.

#92. Memorize Philippians 3 – So far I have my favorite verses memorized, verses 7-12, which our church used to use as a corporate benediction every Sunday.

#96. Complete a Beth Moore Bible study with homework – I have been working through Beloved Disciple on my own, and I have the CD’s to go along with it.

#99. Become a true fan of the Texans by watching every game and discussing with David – Two weeks I had to settle for listening to the game on the radio when we were out of town, but I have watched every single other game, even if I had to DVR it and watch after work. It’s actually been really fun, except when they pull something like last week.

Goals that I’m beginning to think may be impossible to complete…

#13. Spend an entire day at the spa – I think I might have been dreaming here. Unless someone wants to give me a bunch of money, I don’t see us being able to afford such a luxury.

#26. Learn CSS/HTML/PHP well enough to design and run my website independently – I just don’t know if I’ll ever have the time it takes to learn this. I’m still hoping, though.

#42. Learn conversational Spanish – This isn’t exactly something you can just pick up easily. It will take a lot of time and work. Not sure if it’ll happen in this time period.

#54. Drive down the California coast – Another one I’m not sure we’ll be able to afford. Maybe in a couple of years.

#67. Build a pretty and well-organized home office – This one worries me because the office is not my top priority on rooms to fix up, and again there’s the money thing.

I’d say it’s coming along nicely!

November 12, 2009
Book Club: Olive Kitteridge By Elizabeth Strout

Gush, gush, gush, gush, gush! I LOVED this book. Go read it, now!

Okay, now that I’ve gotten that out of my system, I’ll tell you a little about it: Olive Kitteridge is a retired schoolteacher in her early seventies living in the small coastal town of Crosby, Maine. She is sometimes harsh and sarcastic, sometimes witty, sometimes feisty and possessive, sometimes strangely compassionate and intuitive. She is deeply flawed, and yet I loved her.

Each chapter in this novel is a story unto itself. In many of them, Olive is the main character, but in some she just passes through, or is briefly mentioned. We learn about her husband Henry and her grown son Christopher, as well as a host of other townspeople. There wasn’t a single story that I didn’t like. I must have marked a dozen passages that I want to go back and read over and over again because they are so perfectly described, so poignant, so true, so inspiring.

This book is supremely well-written. It’s easy to see how it won the Pulitzer Prize. I didn’t breeze through it, but took the entire month to read it. After each story I wanted to decompress, to take it all in. The main thing I liked about it was that it made me appreciate life. It made me not want to take anything for granted, which seems to be a theme with me lately. I kind of feel like I’m an elderly person stuck in a 27-year-old body, for all the premature nostalgia I experience on a daily basis.

Five out of five stars, no question. I’d like to read it again someday.

***

Next month’s book will be The Guernsey Literary Potato Peel and Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer. As always, you’re welcome to read along!

November 9, 2009
#47. Go To Another Dynamo Game

The Dynamo are Houston’s major league soccer team. I know most of you are probably like, “Who cares?” and that’s fine. If you were writing about, say, water polo, I would have the same reaction. But I love soccer. I have played it since I was seven years old, and I pretty much lived and breathed it from the time I was in junior high through college. I’ve been playing on adult teams since then, but because of my schedule I can now only play during the summers. So I consider it my duty to support our pro team.

I was so excited when my parents told me they had an extra ticket to today’s game! It’s the first round of the playoffs, it would be a fun chance to hang out with my family, and it was free! We had great seats that enabled us to see the whole field well, with the bonus of a nice view of the Houston skyline.

A sea of orange!

It also gave me a chance to wear the super cute Dynamo jersey I own.

My mom, me, and brother David. My husband’s not really into soccer, unless I’m playing. :)

I tell you what, there is nothing quite like soccer fans. They are wild and tireless. There was a small section of Seattle fans right across the aisle from us, and every time our goalkeeper took a goal kick they would shout, “You suck, a**hole!” It didn’t take our fans long to catch on, and every subsequent time they would repeat the phrase, but directed at the Seattle section. I was thinking to myself how tacky the opposing teams fans were, until I realized that every time Seattle’s goalkeeper took a goal kick we were shouting this which, if you grow up playing soccer in south Texas, you learn is Spanish for something not very nice at all. I can’t even bring myself to type it, because I try to keep things family friendly around here. So apparently it’s just vehement hate on both sides.

Enjoying the game

But guess what? We won! 1-0 in overtime. My husband says soccer hasn’t caught on in America because there’s not enough scoring. But I say that the entire game is exciting even without the goals. You will rarely see The Wave being started at a soccer game, because The Wave is a sign of boredom. (And for the record, I detest The Wave, and yet find it strangely fascinating.)

Celebration at the end of the game

Seeing soccer made me so nostalgic for it. There’s just something about lacing up your cleats, stepping onto the grass, and having that whole field in front of you. The feel of the ball at your feet, and coming together as a team. I’m lucky I still get to play at all, but I miss the competitive days of my youth where I could play three full games during a summer tournament and wake up for another the next day. My body would revolt if I tried that now.

At least I can still be a fan!

November 8, 2009
This Is The Way We Were

“Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it?–every, every minute?” –Emily from “Our Town”

In life there are a lot of big things that happen–for example, when we moved out of the city when I was 10, when I went away to college, when I traveled to Europe, when I became a nurse, when I got married–and those are the things that we take pictures of, that we write about, that we remember. But those aren’t the things that really make up our lives.

A week ago my husband and I went to see the play “Our Town”, and quite honestly I can’t get it out of my head. There’s no big premise to it, no crazy plots or wild characters. It’s just the story of a small town in a particular time in a particular place. There is a stage manager, or narrator, who is present throughout the performance, and at the beginning he gives a speech that I think accurately describes the purpose of the play. He is talking about how a new bank is being built in the town, and there is going to be a time capsule buried in the foundation.

We’re putting in a Bible . . . and the Constitution of the United States and a copy of William Shakespeare’s plays. What do you say, folks? What do you think?

Y’know, Babylon once had two million people in it, and all we know about ’em is the names of the kings and some copies of wheat contracts . . . and contracts for the sale of slaves. Yet every night all those families sat down to supper, and the father came home from his work, and the smoke went up the chimney, same as here. And even in Greece and Rome, all we know about the real life of the people is what we can piece together out of the joking poems and die comedies they wrote for the theatre back then.

So I’m going to have a copy of this play put in the cornerstone and the people a thousand years from now’ll know a few simple facts about us more than the Treaty of Versailles and the Lindbergh flight. See what I mean?

So—people a thousand years from now—this is the way we were in the provinces north of New York at the beginning of the twentieth century. This is the way we were: in our growing up and in our marrying and in our living and in our dying.

I want to hang on to every last piece of my life. I don’t want to forget what it’s like to wake up in the morning smushed between my husband and my dog, and even though I have to pee so badly I tough it out for thirty minutes longer because of how perfectly lovely the moment is. I don’t want to forget how I feel when my husband and I sit down to dinner and he tells me how good it tastes and how much he loves me, or all the times when I’m singing on stage during church and I look out and see my whole family there, or at least most of them, and how when I sit back down to listen to the sermon my father-in-law passes me two pieces of dark chocolate and my husband puts his hand on my leg and whispers in my ear. These little things are my life.

This month as I write here every day, and from now on, I am going to try to capture my life, accurately. I’ve already forgotten so much.

So–people a thousand years from now—this is the way we were in the southeast of Texas at the beginning of the twenty-first century. This is the way we were: in our growing up and in our marrying and in our living and in our dying.

(Although hopefully I won’t have to tell you much about that last thing, at least not yet.)

November 1, 2009
#57. Take David To Tabor’s Homecoming

In case you didn’t know, before I became a nurse I graduated with a BA in youth ministry and philosophy from a small school in Kansas called Tabor College. Now when I say it’s a small school, I mean small. Smaller than your small school. Like, 500 people small. And the town? 3000 people, no stoplight. A rotating selection of restaurants that can never stay in business long. In the middle of nowhere, surrounded by farmland. In other words, a lot different than Houston.

My experience at Tabor was amazing, and it really shaped me as a person. Not to mention a couple of my very best friends still live in the area. When I tell people that I go to my college homecoming every year, they are kind of confused. But since the school was so small, I pretty much knew everyone, and it’s the perfect excuse to visit friends. I didn’t get to go last year because I was a little busy getting married, but this year I wanted to take David so he can understand a little more of why I am who I am.

I forgot my camera, so I only took a few token pictures with my iPhone. We stayed with my best friend Becca, her husband Micah, and their one-year-old boy Eli, who is adorable.

We watched Tabor get their butts kicked in football, 79-6, but at least it was in a brand new stadium.

Did I mention that it was COLD? I promise I checked the weather before we left, and I saw 40’s. I was forgetting that Kansas is a very windy place, not to mention that hello? Forty degrees is very cold in the first place! All I packed was a heavy sweater, so I had to bum extra gear off Becca. And David? Well, I’ll show you how he coped:

That’s Becca’s hat, a wool blanket, and a blanket/poncho combo. In his words, “I haven’t been this cold in years.”

We spent most of our time just socializing, and it was lovely. Staying with Becca inspired me in so many ways, and I’ll share those things with you soon. But for now, one more item checked off the list!

October 12, 2009