124/1001 - Crossing a few things off the list

It’s been a long while since I’ve written about my progress, but I find I’m juggling my 365 Photo Project blog and have resurrected my Life blog as well (sort of).

Since I last updated on my Day Zero Project, I’ve crossed at least five other goals off my list.

#15 – Send 10 postcards via www.postcrossing.com: I really enjoyed this task. I sent postcards to Finland (x2), Taiwan, Belarus, Germany (x2), Poland, China, The Netherlands and Ukraine. This has been a cool experience and I’m going to continue with it. I’ve got 4 postcards traveling out there right now, so once they’ve arrived I will have sent 14 postcards.

#36 – Take the dog to her next round of training classes: I just finished this one on Saturday. We took Blaze to intermediate training and I really enjoyed it. I think puppy liked it, too. She was in a small class and one of her classmates from the puppy classes was in her intermediate group. We’ve already signed up for another round of classes that start in March.



#60 – Bake something to bring into work: My director is a huge fan of sweets and so is one of my coworkers. I used to bake once a month and bring it in to work, but I haven’t done that in over a year. I made thumbprint cookies, one of my coworkers’ favourites. They barely lasted one day.



#66 – Perform a song in front of an audience: I play in a band and while we do have a regular gig, we don’t really play real concerts or in front of a paying audience. It’s been a long time since I’ve performed in front of a ‘real’ audience, until this November. My band was asked to be one of the opening bands at a concert. I started getting nervous the morning before and felt sick by the afternoon. I hadn’t been nervous like that since…the morning of my wedding. Haha. It was a great experience though. It really brought the band together, we did a good job, so it also gave us some confidence. I’m looking forward to the next real gig.

#69 – Vote in a municipal election: At the end of October we had a municipal election. I’ve never much been interested in municipal elections, but the more research I did, the more I realized that municipal governments make the most decisions about things that impact my life on a day-to-day basis. There wasn’t much choice in the candidates. No one I voted for was elected. Maybe next time.

56/1001 - In progress

Life has been really busy lately, especially work. I keep saying things will slow down, but they never do. Ugh, slow down, life! You're moving too quickly.

I haven't checked off a lot on my Day Zero list. A lot of the stuff on the list are things that take time. But I have a lot in progress right now.

#6. Take a picture every day for a month: I'm trying to complete a 365 Photo Project again. I tried it out last year and failed miserably. This year, I'm trying to stick to it. Plus, it helps me get through number 6 on my list. Here's a link to my 365 Photo Project so far. I think I'll try to find themes for the day to stay inspired.

#15. Send 10 Postcards via Postcrossing.com: This is a really cool thing that I'd never really tried before, because I felt I was too busy. It took me a long time to finally get my first 5 postcards in the mail. It's interesting, writing postcards to strangers. I got an email the other day saying that my first postcard had arrived in its destination in Finland. Hopefully the other four I've got out there in the mail system will find their way home soon, too. I'm halfway there.

#19. Start my own business: This is something that has been a dream of mine for a long, long time. I've done work as a consultant for years now and I wanted to make it all official. I finally decided to take the plunge and register my business name and get a MBL. I'm in the process of this now, and it's really exciting. My buddy Jason went into business for himself a few years ago. I admire his guts and am inspired by his success, but I am no way confident enough to leave my current job to start out on my own the way he did. But I'm slowly building a client list and hopefully things will come together.

#41. Read 30 Books: Not much to really give an update to on this one. I think I've read three books, which isn't a lot for me, really. But like I said, I've been busy. I will say that I'm reading 'Eat, Pray, Love' by Elizabeth Gilbert. I was refusing to read the book after the recent hype from it now being a film. I hate hype. But I was curious and started reading it in a book store one day. Loved it. So, here I am...reading it, despite the hype.

#63. Do the 200 situps challenge: I don't want to brag, but I'm finding this easier than I thought it would be. That sounds awful, doesn't it? I'm halfway through week 2. My initial test was really good, but I was sore afterwards. Just have to stick to it.

40/1001 - #43 - Celebrate our First Anniversary in Style

I honestly cannot believe it has been a year since our wedding. The year has just flown by, it's a little scary how fast time goes the older you get. We made plans to go to the Falls for our first anniversary. I love Niagara Falls. M thinks is has something to do with the power of it. We've visited Niagara many times over the course of our relationship, so it was a faily natural choice to pick that location as our anniversary celebration.

Things were falling into place, I booked a vacation day from work for the Friday, M got the Friday-Sunday off from work. And then last Saturday, after band, I was cleaning up, fell and badly sprained my foot and ankle. It's not pretty. Swollen, hard to walk on... And being a soft tissue injury, it was going to take quite a lot of time for it to get better.

I followed the advice from my med-school attending brothers and friends obsessively; keep it elevated, iced, do NOT under any circumstances compress it, and take advil for the pain and inflammation.

Still, a week later, I wasn't very mobile. M and I talked about postponing the trip, but we didn't want to pay the cancellation fee, so on Friday afternoon (after I put in a full day of work), we headed to the falls anyway. We spent the evening in our hotel room, which had a fantastic view of the falls, had room service for dinner and shared a bottle of champagne. We didn't get out to do the walking along the falls or the shopping that we had wanted to do. But we did have a great time.

Saturday, we were back in time for band and it was so much fun. I played with a great group of musicians and while it wasn't perfect (there may have been a slight incident where a vocalist didn't come in on time for Save Us All), it was a lot of fun and we did sound great. Saturday night, M and I visited with my family. All of my brothers were home from school, including my future sister-in-law. We had dinner with them and had a lazy Sunday, dinner with my mum and she had made us a replica top layer of our wedding cake for dessert (my mum had made our wedding cake and there was a slight accident with the top layer after the reception).

All in all, it was a fabulous weekend and a great anniversary celebration.

35/1001 - #65 - Spend a day barefoot

Sooo...I busted my foot. I was cleaning up after band on Saturday and was climbing a short staircase (four stairs), carrying a tray and stuff piled on the tray so that I couldn't see OVER said tray. I thought I was at the top of the stairs. But I wasn't. My toe caught the lip of the stair, my knee went in one direction and my toes, the other. Ick.

Luckily, having medically inclined brothers (a nursing student and a kinesiology student), I didn't have to spend the night in the emergency room. They diagnosed a severe soft tissue damage and lots of brusing. I have to say I agree with them. It's mighty gross. But colourful.

So, to heal, I've been ordered to stay barefoot, so that I don't compress the injury. And because it's too hard limping around with one shoe on, one off, I've spent the last few days barefoot. A surprising and not too pleasant way to check that one off the list, eh?

30/1001: #64 - Take my in-laws out for a meal

So M's parents came down to visit, followed shortly by his sister and her kids. It was nice to get the chance to see everyone. We hadn't seen M's mom since July, M's dad since Thanksgiving and we hadn't seen his sister and the kids since our wedding.

I couldn't get over how big our niece has gotten, and our nephew was just as energetic and busy as always.

It was a chaotic visit. They were here for about a week, but I'd used up all of my vacation for the year and M didn't have any vacation, either.

My sister-in-law and the kids flew out on the Saturday evening and my mother-in-law and father-in-law planned to head back to Nova Scotia on the Sunday morning, so we planned to take them to Cora's for brunch before they headed out.

So task #64, completed.

20/1001: #49 - Organize front hall closet

This task was a relatively minor one, but one that makes me insanely happy to have complete. Since we moved in, we haven't really made good use of our giant front hall closet. We've stashed wedding and shower gifts in there, a coat or two, had shoes strewn across the floor, to the point where I have no idea what shoes I have actually moved into our house, and a bunch of other random items that have just been tossed in there in a mad dash to clean up the house as someone was walking up the driveway, stopping by unexpectedly.

But when M's parents called to let us know they were planning a visit and that M's sister and her two kids would be joining us, we figured it was time to make that closet functional.

Pulled everything out of it, swept the floor and washed it, and then organized and put back the stuff that belonged (shoes, coats, mittens, gloves, hats, scarves) and put the stuff that didn't belong away where it did (wedding and shower gifts, a bottle of booze). There is actually room now to fit the vaccuum and the dog's food storage container in there now.

I know this may seem like an insane thing to be this excited about, but if you're an obsessive compulsive neat freak like I am, you'd understand.

#49 - Done! Now to just keep it organized...maybe that should also be part of the goal.

19/1001: #22 - Buy a car

This is a task that I'm surprised I crossed off the list so soon. But with M's job moving him to the next city over, sharing our one car wasn't really feasible anymore. So I started looking into purchasing a car through a private sale, something affordable and something that would get me through a few years. Essentially, I was looking for a clunker.

My dad was watching his internal internet board and saw a few cars that looked like they might work. After doing some research and investigation, I settled on a white pontiac sedan. A friend of the family is a mechanic, so we had him look the car over, and we felt satisfied that it was a good purchase.

On Friday, I had a hectic day of arranging insurance, license and the cash to pay for it. Picked it up Friday night and made arrangements to have the car go in to a shop to be safety tested (law here says a car of a certain age must pass a safety test before it's licensed fully). I drove the car short distances over the weekend, as I have a temporary permit on it while we're waiting for it to go in for the safety. My dad volunteered to take the car over today for the test, as he had also offered to pay the $75 for the safety. An hour goes by, and I don't hear from him. As the safety test should have only taken an hour, that stresses me out a bit. So I texted him. He texts me right back, 'Call please.' Uh oh. 'Call please' is my dad's code for 'Bad shit is going down.'

I called him, and yup, sure enough...the car isn't going to pass safety. There is trouble with the brake lines and they're leaking fluid. They need to be replaced in order to pass the safety test...and it's going to cost me nearly $1000. Ouch.

The car itself only cost me $1500.

So...I guess I'm paying an extra $1000 to get the car on the road. All in all, this car will get me 5 years of use...so I keep telling myself that $2500 for that is a good deal.

So goal number 22, done.

3/1001: 50 Questions to Free Your Mind

So one of my goals was to answer the 50 Questions that will free you mind, and actually take time and think about my answers. It took me two days to properly work through them.

Without further ado...

Here they are:

1.How old would you be if you didn’t know how old you are? How could I count something? I think I'd be 20-something forever.

2. Which is worse, failing or never trying? Never trying, hands down.

3. If life is so short, why do we do so many things we don’t like and like so many things we don’t do? You have to prioritize in life, and sometimes that means having to do a lot of stuff you hate, so you can get to doing that one thing you love.

4. When it’s all said and done, will you have said more than you’ve done? I think I will have said more than I've done. But I'm going to make a concious effort to say less and do more.

5. What is the one thing you’d most like to change about the world? The urge to make systemic changes so that the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. We need more balance, more 'middle' class.

6.If happiness was the national currency, what kind of work would make you rich? Creative work.

7. Are you doing what you believe in, or are you settling for what you are doing? It depends on the day, (whether or not it's a work day). On work days, I tend to settle for what I'm doing. In my free time, I try hard to do what I believe in.

8. If the average human life span was 40 years, how would you live your life differently? I probably would rush more.

9. To what degree have you actually controlled the course your life has taken? Probably less than I think I have.

10. Are you more worried about doing things right, or doing the right things? Are they not one in the same? It depends on perspective. I like to do 'the right thing' right.

11. You’re having lunch with three people you respect and admire. They all start criticizing a close friend of yours, not knowing she is your friend. The criticism is distasteful and unjustified. What do you do? I stick up for my friend.

12. If you could offer a newborn child only one piece of advice, what would it be? Listen to the 'Wear Sunscreen' song and take that guy's advice.

13. Would you break the law to save a loved one? Within reason.

14. Have you ever seen insanity where you later saw creativity? All. The. TIME.

15. What’s something you know you do differently than most people? Play piano. I have a unique way of playing it. And I'm told so frequently.

16. How come the things that make you happy don’t make everyone happy? Because everyone is different, everyone has lived different paths.

17. What one thing have you not done that you really want to do? What’s holding you back? I really want to go back to school. Practicality and finances are holding me back.

18. Are you holding onto something you need to let go of? Yes, I tend to do that. I’m working on letting go more.

19. If you had to move to a state or country besides the one you currently live in, where would you move and why? That’s a tough one. If I absolutely had to? I’d like to say somewhere like Scotland or England, because it wouldn’t be too far away from my family. But I think I’d probably like to move to Perth, in Australia. I did like living there. And I think I would like living there more if I lived there with someone I loved instead of someone I felt indifferent to. Plus, I wouldn’t have to deal with that person’s family anymore, either. A big plus.

20. Do you push the elevator button more than once? Do you really believe it makes the elevator faster? I try not to. Because I know it’s probably only slowing things down.

21. Would you rather be a worried genius or a joyful simpleton? …Joyful simpleton? I wish that could be my answer. But that’s not me. I’d rather be a worried genius.

22. Why are you, you? Because I am me. I’m me because of the family I was born into, the experiences I’ve had and the people that have come through my life. So I’m me, because I am.

23. Have you been the kind of friend you want as a friend? Not lately. I’ve been a pretty horrible friend. Something else I need to work on. I should never be too busy for my friends.

24. Which is worse, when a good friend moves away, or losing touch with a good friend who lives right near you? Loosing touch with a good friend who lives near you. If a friend moves away, you can still be friends. You can visit, you can connect in other ways. But loosing touch with someone nearby…that’s totally within your control to prevent.

25. What are you most grateful for? All the wonderful people in my life; starting with my husband, my family, my friends, my bandmates. They are such a fabulous, supportive bunch and they’ve always been there for me, as I try to always be there for them.

26. Would you rather lose all of your old memories, or never be able to make new ones? Oh, this is tough. Neither. I guess…loose all of my old memories? Really hard decision to make. I’ve got some great old memories. But there is also a lot to come, so I’m looking forward to making new ones, too.

27. Is is possible to know the truth without challenging it first? No, I don’t think so.

28. Has your greatest fear ever come true? No, and I’m lucky for it.

29. Do you remember that time 5 years ago when you were extremely upset? Does it really matter now? Not in the slightest.

30. What is your happiest childhood memory? What makes it so special? I don’t really remember a lot about my childhood. Is that bad? I remember playing basketball with my brothers and dad in the driveway.

31. At what time in your recent past have you felt most passionate and alive? Last weekend. All just felt right with the world.

32. If not now, then when? Good point.

33. If you haven’t achieved it yet, what do you have to lose? It depends on the achievement. Sometimes you really have to put yourself out there and that’s scary.

34. Have you ever been with someone, said nothing, and walked away feeling like you just had the best conversation ever? Yes.

35. Why do religions that support love cause so many wars? I think there are two reasons, that are so complicated, but I’ll try to keep it concise; I think that it’s because people are passionate in what they believe in. The other reason is that sometimes people manipulate and use situations to further their own agendas and I don’t think religion is immune to that.

36. Is it possible to know, without a doubt, what is good and what is evil? No, those kinds of things aren’t always black and white.

37. If you just won a million dollars, would you quit your job? If I loved what I was doing and felt I was making a difference, no. If I hated my job…Yes.

38. Would you rather have less work to do, or more work you actually enjoy doing? More work that I actually enjoy doing.

39. Do you feel like you’ve lived this day a hundred times before? No, not this particular day.

40. When was the last time you marched into the dark with only the soft glow of an idea you strongly believed in? It’s been a long time since I’ve done that.

41. If you knew that everyone you know was going to die tomorrow, who would you visit today? That’s a horrible thought. I’d visit them all.

42. Would you be willing to reduce your life expectancy by 10 years to become extremely attractive or famous? Nope.

43. What is the difference between being alive and truly living? It’s the difference between living to work and working to live.

44. When is it time to stop calculating risk and rewards, and just go ahead and do what you know is right? My mum says when it’s when you turn 40.

45. If we learn from our mistakes, why are we always so afraid to make a mistake? Because we’re afraid to fail, and many equate making mistakes with failing.

46. What would you do differently if you knew nobody would judge you? Be more open about what I do with my spare time, talk more about my band.

47. When was the last time you noticed the sound of your own breathing? The last time I was sick.

48. What do you love? Have any of your recent actions openly expressed this love? I love music, I love being a part of my band. I’ve spent the summer playing in band. Every. Single. Week. By choice.

49. In 5 years from now, will you remember what you did yesterday? What about the day before that? Or the day before that? Probably not the menial day to day stuff. The big things, I’ll remember.

50. Decisions are being made right now. The question is: Are you making them for yourself, or are you letting others make them for you? It’s a little of both. Sometimes decisions are made for you that you have no control over. Those things, you just have to roll with. But otherwise, it’s good to take ownership of what you do and how you live.

0001/1001: The beginning

I stumbled upon this project completely by accident. I read about it on a forum I belong to and thought it was a cool idea. Then I got distracted by something else and forgot about it. About a week ago, I saw the thread on the forum about it again, so I went to the Day Zero Project website to read more about it. As I was reading through the details of the project, setting 101 measurable goals to be completed in 1001 days, I read about how 1001 days works out to be about 2.75 years. Just about how much time until my 30th birthday. I started thinking about this project more and thought that it would be a great way to mark my 30th birthday. So here I am, starting on my 1001 day journey. To quote Reggie Evans, let’s get it.