101 Improvements in 1001 Days

The 101 List

Start date:  January 1, 2010

End date:  September 28, 2012

Alex & Family:

1.  Buy/make Alex 5 random “because-you’re-awesome” gifts.

2.  Attend a concert of Alex’s choosing with no complaints.
3.  Complete 5 projects/tasks for my mom.
4.  Take my dad out to 5 different events.

5.  Host my family for dinner at our house.
6.  Frame Alex’s signed Chrebet jersey.
7.  Do something extra special for Alex’s 30th birthday.

8.  Cook a meal for Alex (without his help).
9.  Buy a year’s worth of birthday cards, sign them, address them, and stamp them all at once. (February 2010)

Food:

10.  Try 5 foods I have never tried before.
11.  Retry 5 foods I don’t like to see if I can like them.
12.  Bake cookies in December for our friends/family and package them in decorated boxes/tins.
13.  Bring someone new to our favorite restaurant, Nicholas.
14.  Eat at the Chef’s Table at Nicholas. (July 2010)
15. Go to 5 new restaurants.
16.  Try 5 new cocktails.

Home:

17.  Sell our townhouse.

18.  Buy a house.

19.  Obtain copies of our parents’ wedding portraits, frame them, and hang them in our home.
20.  Hang the curtains (that have been sitting in a cabinet for a year) in our bedroom.
21.  Add 5 oomph! touches to our house.

22.  Add 5 organizational elements to our house.

23.  Adopt or buy a dog.
24.  Properly train said dog (sit, down, stay, no, out, etc.).
25.  Buy a plant and keep it alive for one year.
26.  Complete our good silverware set.
27.  Create a collage of baby pictures (one of me, one of Alex) and hang in the house.

Health & Well Being:

28.  Stick to my Weight Watchers diet and lose at least 10 pounds. (March 2010)
29.  Lower my cholesterol and keep it that way. (August 2010)
30.  Practice yoga at least twice a week.
31.  Try a spin class at the gym.
32.  Learn to meditate and do so once a week for a month.
33.  Do not re-injure either of my ankles. (2010:  success!)
34.  Take a multivitamin and vitamin C  pill daily with breakfast.
35.  Decrease the number of migraines I get per year (usually 9-10 per year). (2010:  4 migraines)
36.  Work up to running 5k (not a race). (March 2010)

Professional & Intellectual Growth:

37.  Interview for supervisor/administrative positions and actually get one.

  • Roxbury, February 2010; Bordentown, July 2010.
38.  Continue my professional development by attending at least 5 conferences/workshops.
  • NJASCD Master schedule workshop, March 2010.
  • NT Camp Philly, July 2010.
  • NJEA Convention, November 2010.
  • Ed Camp NYC, December 2010.

39.  Read 3 books by Joseph Campbell.
40.  Write a “Thought of the Week” on my classroom whiteboard.

41.  Read a Shakespeare play I haven’t yet read.
42.  Reread a Shakespeare play I haven’t read in awhile.
43.  Reread The Iliad.
44.  Reread 5 ancient Greek dramas.

Hobbies & Recreation:

45.  Watch 5 I’ve-always-wanted-to-see-movies-but-just-never-got-around-to-it-movies.

46.  Watch a live performance of an opera.
47.  Finish my wedding scrapbook.
48.  Finish my honeymoon scrapbook.
49.  Submit one of my scrapbooks to the Monmouth County Fair’s craft competition.
50.  Visit a museum I’ve never been to before. (National Aquarium in Baltimore)
51.  Visit a foreign or domestic city I’ve never been to before. (September 2010)
52.  Go on a cruise.
53.  Ride in a hot air balloon.
54.  Witness an astronomical event.
55.  Try to read the Lord of the Rings:  Fellowship of the Ring.
56.  Watch the sun rise on the beach. (July 2010)
57.  Watch a majority (it’s up to 10 now) of the films nominated for Best Picture.
  • Fail – 2010: Up, Inglorious Basterds, District 9.
  • 2011: Inception, The Social Network, Toy Story 3, Black Swan.
58.  See a Jets game in the new stadium. (October 31, 2010)
59.  See a Yankees game in the new stadium.
60.  Try curling (the shuffleboard-like game on ice).
61.  Attend a performance of a Shakespeare play.
62.  Try 10 new board/card games.
  • Dominion: Alchemy.
  • Gen Con 2010 (Adventurers, Dixit, Priests of Ra, Crokinole, Dominion: Prosperity, Zombie Dice, Stars Are Right, Dungeon Lords, Settlers of America, Egizia, We Didn’t Playtest This At All, Nuns on the Run).

63.  Introduce a non-gamer to the world of games
64.  Beat Alex 10 times (gaming).

65. Purchase a hot new game at Gen Con and sell it on eBay to defray our own purchases.
66.  Visit a winery.

Style (Items to Buy from Tim Gunn’s Essentials List):

67.  Classic black dress. (June 2010)
68.  Trench coat. (April 2010)
69.  Dress pants. (February 20, 2010)
70.  Classic white shirt. (August 2010)
71.  A great pair of dressy jeans. (February 20, 2010)
72.  Any occasion top. (February 20, 2010)
73.  Flirty or business skirt. (May 2010)
74.  Day dress. (June 2010)
75.  Fitted jacket. (May 2010)
76.  Sweatsuit alternative.
77.  Indulge in a trendy item. (August 2010)
78.  Boots. (February 20, 2010)
79.  Ballet flats.

Tech:

80.  Start a blog.

81.  Have my students use technology in a new way. (Glogster, Wallwisher, Titan Pad)
82.  Buy an SLR camera.
83.  Properly using the SLR camera, take 10 pictures I can hang in my home.
84.  Reach 1000 tweets (August 2010) 5,000 tweets on my Twitter.
85.  Accumulate 1,000 (March 2010) 5,000 hits (October 2010) on this website.
86.  Upgrade our home desktop to Windows 7. (January 2010)
87.  Buy an awesome smart phone (Android/Nexus/iPhone). (July 2010)

Service:

88.  Donate 1 pint of blood (I have difficult veins and a hatred of needles).
89.  Donate $100 each to at least 5 charities.

90.  Donate staples to our local food pantry once each season.
91.  Donate items to our local animal shelter twice a year.
92.  Register as an organ donor. (February 22, 2010)

Miscellaneous:

93.  Write 3 thank you notes to influential people in my life.
94.  Surprise 5 friends with something unexpected.

95.  Instead of buying gift cards, buy 5 people real gifts instead.
  • Coach purse for Sammi’s 17th birthday.
  • DS games for Juliet’s birthday.
  • Christmas 2010:  basically the whole family.
96.  Buy our beach badges during December.
97.  Go see the Twin Towers of Light on 9/11.
98.  Visit 5 of our friends’ homes that we’ve never been to before.
99. Begin buying Christmas presents in September to spread out costs.
100.  Inspire someone else to challenge themselves to the Day Zero Project.

Comments on: "The 101 List" (13)

  1. Jamie K-L said:

    I know how much you hate shopping so I graciously volunteer to assist you in that category!

    I love what you’re doing- especially the adopt-an-animal/donate to a shelter stuff.

    I have the Lord Trilogy- maybe if you actually borrow them from a friend you’ll feel more inclined to read and return them in a timely manner.

    Congratulations on a great start to the New Year!!

  2. Thanks for volunteering me to help shop; I need all the help I can get. As for LOTR, Alex has multiple copies. It’s not a matter of getting a hold of the books – it’s getting through them. I tried once before and hated it. Love the story and especially the movies, but it was a difficult, slow read.

  3. Steph – Great idea. My cousin Evan is actually in the middle of doing the same thing. Check out his list to see if anything inspires you.

    http://threewordchant.com/101-in-1001/

  4. Mike "Big Jim Catfish" S. said:

    Steph – This is very cool. I don’t know if I’m motivated enough for the blog thing but I think the big list is a fantastic idea. In terms of help… I’d be happy to play host for some travel (domestic city you might never have been to.) I live in a small mountain town just outside of Yellowstone national park. Actually I’d love to get a bunch of the old crew together …. maybe do some whitewater rafting / tubing. Anyway… Good luck on your list and please come visit if you’re at all interested.

  5. List suggestion: shoot a gun.

    I always wanted to go to a shooting range. Let me know if you’re up for a dangerously exciting adventure. =)

    I love your style list. very inspiring!

    I have no doubt that you can accomplish each of the items on your list. Good for you!

  6. This is terrific! Since you mentioned donating blood and registering to become an organ donor, you might also want to blood platelets. I did it at the Red Bank blood bank. It only took about two hours, it wasn’t painful or uncomfortable, and it allowed me to register to be a bone marrow donor. http://www.givelife2.org/donor/apheresis. / http://www.marrow.org
    Good Luck!

  7. Heather O'Scanlon said:

    I’m very impressed, Steph! Let me know if you need company for the opera – I’ve never seen one and would love to!

  8. Thanks Heather! My opera plans don’t include going to the actual Met in NY, but rather one of the HD Live performances (either at Monmouth U. or North Brunswick). Live simulcasts of Metropolitan operas. Just waiting for one I’m interested in seeing. None so far on the current schedule. Ideally, I’d love to see Turnadot.

  9. Beth: considering how difficult it is to get a vial of blood from my veins, donating one pint of blood will be quite an accomplishment. Oh, and I HATE needles.

    Bone marrow is a bit beyond me. I’ve been told it is extremely painful. Unfortunately, I will only donate marrow if someone in my family needs it.

  10. [...] OK…. So a long lost friend of mine started a blog at the beginning of the year.  Steph 101 is her version of something called the day zero project.  The long and the short of the idea is [...]

  11. eventhough I dedicate most of my working day on the internet having fun with online games like myspace poker or mafia wars, I nonetheless like to put aside some free time to start reading a number of sites on occasion and I am content to report this most recent page is in truth rather good and quite superior than 50 % the various spam I read today , at any rate i’m off to have fun with a couple of rounds of facebook poker

  12. Definetly take a spin class. So fun! Go to the new Yankee stadium, dogs are cute and cuddly but cost as much as a child…except children grow up to be teenagers….maybe a dog is better!!!. Watch Inglorius Bastards. Great movie. Love the list. Very inspiring just like you!

  13. I came across this somewhere, so I read your complete list of DayZero goals, and I must say it was pretty awesome! I loved how it really involved really funny and random things.

    We’ve made a blogpost trying to inspire as many as people as possible to participate (one of our goals was to write this ;) . Perhaps you want to leave a comment of what you thought your best or most interesting goal was?
    http://worldwakeupcall.blogspot.com/2011/01/dayzeroproject.html

    Would be awesome :)
    - Griffith.

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