101 Things in 1001 Days

Start Date: January 5, 2006
End Date: October 2, 2008

completed
partially completed

Hit the Road
1. Take advantage of a last-minute airfare deal
2. Take a spontaneous road trip – to the Andes with Couchsurfers and other travelers, 2/21-2/22/08
3. Rent a cabin in the woods/by a body of water for at least a week
4. Visit five state or national parks – 1) Grand Canyon National Park 2/22-2/24/06, I also went to Montezuma Castle National Monument while in AZ but am not counting it as a separate park, 2) Yosemite National Park 3/31-4/2/06, 3) Zion National Park, Bryce Canyon National Park, Arches National Park 4/18-4/21/06, 4) French Creek State Park, PA 9/25-9/26/06, 5) Parque Nacional Iguazu (Argentina) 12/27-29/08
5. Take an overnight backpacking (hiking/camping) trip
6. Take a trip by train (Am going to count the one-hour trip to Tigre from Buenos Aires, made several times in the past year, though I had a longer journey in mind when I made this list.)
7. Volunteer abroad for at least two weeks
8. Visit three countries I haven’t been to before – 1) Honduras 8/25-9/6/06, 2) Uruguay, 8/07

Get off My Butt
9. Be able to do 25 real push-ups in five minutes
10. Run/walk another half marathon
11. Take a dance class – salsa class at Azúcar, Buenos Aires (and many more since then!)
12. Play golf
13. Hike part of the Appalachian Trail
14. Go kayaking
15. Go mountain biking
16. Go cross-country skiing
17. Go snowshoeing
18. Go hang gliding or parasailing or something similarly adventurous – paragliding, La Cumbre, Argentina, 8/19/07
19. Go horseback riding – in the shadow of Cerro Aconcagua, Upsallata, Argentina, 2/22/08
20. Go sailing
21. Go scuba diving – Utila, Bay Islands, Honduras 8/06

Meet Some People
22. Attend a local festival or fair – Red Bank Jazz and Blues Festival 6/3/06
23. Stay with couchsurfers four times – 1) Jay in San Francisco 4/5-4/12/06, 2) Jay in San Francisco 5/10-5/12/07 (Will stay with my third couchsurfer, Leigh in Montevideo, just a week after the deadline.)
24. Host couchsurfers four times – I have way exceeded this goal; I’ll keep a list of them all here for fun: 1) Dale from Seattle 8/07, 2) Vivian from Switzerland 9/07, 3) Ben from Germany 10/07, 4) Marta and Bartosz from Poland 2/08, 5) Inka from Germany 2/08, 6) Masha from Belgium 2/08, 7) Pati from Switzerland 2/08, 8) Toff from Australia 2/08, 9) Jane from Australia 2/08, 10) Ivy from Hong Kong 3/08, 11) Caroline and Matt from US 3/08, 12) Anna from France 5/08, 13) Jelena from Croatia/Holland 5/08
25. Volunteer locally for at least three months
26. Host a dinner party or potluck – Carolynn, Tina, and James for salad and fajitas 8/25/07
27. Host a brunch party

The Homestead
28. Buy/make pillows for pillow covers bought on the road
29. Live by myself for at least one year (Came pretty close: June 14, 2007, to March 24, 2008)
30. Grow my own herbs; start a garden
31. Find a place to live in a new city – I think I may have meant this more in terms of finding a “home.” Can’t say I have found that, but on a literal level this has been done multiple times! 1) Philadelphia 10/06, 2) Buenos Aires 5/07, 3) Mendoza 1/08, 4) Buenos Aires 4/08
32. Buy plants for new home
33. Find way to hang up wall hanging from Vietnam
34. Move the rest of my stuff out of my parents’ house
35. Organize old Cooking Light recipes
36. Figure out what to do with bedspread I bought in India

Cook, Eat
37. Don’t eat out for one month
38. Make something from each cookbook I own*
39. Bake bread – Pain de Campagne, 6/24/08 with Dad (mixing) and Mom (shaping)
40. Cook a dish I learned in my Thai cooking class
41. Cook a dish I learned in my Vietnamese cooking class
42. Cook a dish I learned in my Oaxacan cooking class
43. Make ten new kinds of soup – 1) Creamy Corn and Zucchini Soup 1/06, 2) Mexican Black Bean Chili 1/28/06, 3) White Chicken Chili 1/19/07, 4) Tomato Lentil Soup 3/19/07, 5) Raw Veggie Soup 2/08, 6) numerous ones I made up without a recipe
44. Cook ten new things that aren’t Mexican/Southwest/Italian/Cheesy – 1) Thai Fish Sauce and Lime Chicken 1/5/06, 2) Pork roast, warm cauliflower salad, and spinach salad 5/17/06, 3) Sicilian-Style Greens over Polenta 5/23/06 (okay, maybe this is sort of Italian, but still a totally new thing for me), 4) empanadas 6/07, 5) Tortilla Andina 3/08, 6) several made up curry, etc. dishes, 7) lots of tasty Indian food
45. Do a juice fast/detox for at least three days – Master Cleanse fast 9/20-9/23/06
46. Cut out dairy for a week or more – 9/23-9/29/06
47. Try five new vegetables – 1) baby bok choy 1/5/06, 2) watercress 5/19/06, 3) kale 5/23/06, 4) turnip greens 5/23/06, 5) zapallitos redondos (South American zucchini-type things) 5/30/07
48. Try mushrooms in various forms – 1) marinated mushrooms from Whole Foods salad bar 4/23/06, 2) mushroom fricassee 5/19/06, 3) dried mushrooms from China (in Wild Rice pilaf) 5/22/06, 4) grilled portobello 6/18/06, 5) had them on a pizza somewhere, sometime, 6) homemade mushroom, onion, and cheese empanadas, 7) gnocchi with mushroom/spinach sauce, 8) and the list goes on…

Filthy Lucre
49. Buy nothing for at least one week – 2/22-29/08, excluding food (This was easy—I probably do it all the time without even realizing it, but this week made a conscious effort. Would be more interesting to try to go a month or more.)
50. Review IRA investments 2/9/07
51. Cancel credit cards I don’t need/use 2/9/07
52. Sell/reinvest stock
53. Build up savings to cover living expenses for three months
54. Pay off at least $5,000 of student loan
55. Donate to organization(s) that work in areas visited on RTW trip

New Acquisitions
56. A weight set
57. A set of high-quality 100% cotton sheets
58. A sewing machine
59. A good desk chair

Culture Vulture
60. Read ten books by well-established authors I haven’t read before, especially Doris Lessing, Umberto Eco, Bill Bryson, Oscar Hijuelos, Philip K. Dick… (open to suggestions for others) – 1) Art & Lies by Jeanette Winterson 2/06, 2) Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love by Oscar Hijuelos 8/06, 3) The Adventures of Augie March by Saul Bellow 9/06
61. Read ten books I own and haven’t read – 1) Apple in the Dark by Clarice Lispector 1/06, 2) An Equal Music by Vikram Seth 4/06, 3) Daughter of Fortune by Isabel Allende
62. Read an autobiography, a memoir, and a biography about the same person
63. Read a western novel and a mystery/detective novel
64. Spend a whole day reading – 2/24/08(reading Vanity Fair)
65. Read 52 books in one year
66. Memorize a poem
67. Write something for publication and submit to ten places
68. Watch ten Oscar-winning movies I haven’t seen (or don’t remember) – 1) Ray 6/06, 2) Capote 7/06, 3) Lost in Translation 8/06, 4) Gone with the Wind 9/06, 5) Monster’s Ball 10/06, 6) Hustle & Flow 11/06, 7) Brokeback Mountain 12/06
69. Watch ten movies from AFI’s list of 100 movies in 100 years – 1) Annie Hall (#31) 10/06
70. Visit five museums I haven’t been to before – 1) Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) in Los Angeles 3/9/06, 2) Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York 2/17/07 (I’d been to their temporary location, but am considering the new location a new museum!) 3) Museo Municipal de Arte Moderno in Mendoza 2/08, 4) Brooklyn Museum of Art 7/4/08, 5) Museo Xul Solar, Buenos Aires 8/08
71. Buy five CDs of artists that are new to me – 1) You Have Hurt My Business and My Reputation Too, Fifth Hour Hero 5/20/06, 2) Full Moon Cigarette, Gran Bel Fisher 8/9/06, 3) Enter the Sound Capsule, Sound Capsule 2/07, 4) Limón y Sal, Julieta Venegas 10/07, 5) Quejas de Bandoneón, Aníbal Troilo 10/07
72. Go to a taping of a TV show before I leave LA – That ’70s Show 2/3/06
73. Attend live music performance that’s not rock/pop – Carmina Burana, San Francisco, 3/19/06
74. Attend live theater performance – Vagina Monologues, Los Angeles 3/8/06 (International Women’s Day)
75. Attend live dance performance – two live tango shows in Mendoza

Mindfulness
76. Try a more visual, artistic way of journaling for as long as it takes to fill one journal
77. Do a meditation retreat (at least five days)
78. Don’t use a computer for 48 hours – 2/9-2/12/07
79. Sleep out under the stars

Arts and Crafts
80. Take at least one accordion class first bandoneón—tango accordion, like a concertina—class 9/24/07
81. Take at least one semester of Spanish (or study abroad again) – September to December 2007
82. Make scrapbooks of RTW trip
83. Print and frame enlargements from RTW trip
84. Take a photography class – with Ryan Bird at SAE in Buenos Aires, 9/22/07
85. Enter a photo in a photography contest
86. Print, bind my RTW blog (and back up on CD)
87. Knit something besides a scarf – sweater for Zoe Noonan 7/06
88. Do a craft project (besides knitting and scrapbooks)
89. Create something with pastels, charcoal, or paint
90. Create notecards with my own photos
91. Make a DVD of movies I took on RTW trip
92. Organize/back up digital photos
93. Take a web design class and redesign my websites – didn’t take class, but did redesign of nomadchronicles.com 5/06, nomadeditorial.com 8/06

Professional
94. Get a regular monthly freelance gig that pays the bills
95. Complete two fiction editing projects (that I get paid for) – first one completed 7/21/06, second one completed 2/20/08
96. Create an ergonomic, organized, pleasant “office”
97. Add five books to my reference library

Pamper Myself
98. Spend a day at a spa
99. Go out to eat at a fancy restaurant – El Tovar Hotel, Grand Canyon National Park 2/23/06
100. Stay at a spiffy hotel
101. Go to a hot springs

*Cookbooks I Own, Recipes Tried:
The Complete Low-Fat Cookbook
The Best Ever Italian Cookbook
The Paris Cafe Cookbook
The Food of Thailand
Quick and Healthy
Betty Crocker’s Healthy New Choices – Creamy Quinoa Primavera, 2/06
Joy of Cooking
Vegetables
High Fiber, High Flavor
Colorado Cache Cookbook – Chile Relleno Casserole, 9/19/06
Cooking Light Annual Recipes 2002 – Chickpea, Red Pepper, and Basil Saute, 9/7/06
The Complete Cooking Light Cookbook – Thai Coconut Noodles, 8/06
Drink to Your Health

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