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.