Written in August 2015:
If you’ve been reading here for awhile, you may remember my first 100 Little Things list back in 2014. I loved the process and while I didn’t cross everything off by year’s end, the list was so helpful when I was feeling uninspired or overwhelmed. At the beginning of this year, I tried to change things up, but that quickly crashed and burned.
So it comes as no surprise that as I’ve been learning more about myself, I’ve been thinking, “How do I like to get things done? What fires me up?” And the 100 Little Things list immediately came to mind. I considered starting on my birthday in October or waiting until January 1st, but then I thought, “Why wait? Why put off what I can start right now?” So here I am, making a list of little things I’d like to accomplish, smack dab in the middle of summer.
Like last time, this list is a mix of silly things and important things. They are things that really need to get done and things that just sound like fun. They are things I’d like to do and things I really should do. They are things that excite me and things that scare me. My goal is to finish them all before the end of next summer, but we’ll see. I love the process as much as the finish line.
CURRENT TOTAL: 45/100
1. Donate my hair to Pantene Beautiful Lengths (April 2016)
2. Buy succulents for the house
3. Purchase art for above master bed (January 2016)
4. Take the kids to a baseball game (July 2016, with cousins)
5. Make a pillowcase dress
6. Watch 20 documentaries: Living on One Dollar, Twinsters, That Sugar Film, A LEGO Brickumentary, Making a Murderer, Pentatonix: On My Way Home, The Imposter, 30 for 30: The Four Falls for Buffalo, The Amish Shunned, The Manners of Downton Abbey, To Make a Farm, Trophy Kids, Cooked, Prescription Thugs, Finding Fatima, Poverty Inc., The Day Kennedy Died, For Grace, (Dis)Honesty: The Truth About Lies, Being Ginger (completed June 2016)
7. Read 15 books: Everything I Never Told You, Better than Before, The Journey of our Love, Love Does, The Winter of our Disconnect, John Paul the Great, Second Street Station, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, The Total Money Makeover, All the Light We Cannot See, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, The Hardest Peace, Come, Lord Jesus: Meditations on the Art of Waiting, The Magic of Ordinary Days, 13 Hours (completed January 2016)
8. Read a book of poems
9. Reread To Kill a Mockingbird
10. Read The Temperament God Gave You (January 2016)
11. Print updated photos for around the house (March 2016)
12. Make 2015 Instagram book (made with Chatbooks, January 2016)
13. Make 2015 Around Here book
14. Have our family photos professionally taken (November 2015)
15. Send out Christmas cards (December 2015)
16. Bake a cheesecake
17. Grow spinach
18. Make marbled paper (February 2016)
19. Learn how to French braid
20. Have a picnic lunch (June 2016)
21. Install shelves in the boys’ room (February 2016)
22. Buy new duvet covers for the boys (September 2015)
23. Run a 5K
24. Run a 10K
25. Run another half marathon
26. Make my own vanilla extract
27. See my sister cheer
28. Blog everyday for a month: 31 Days of Contentment Series (October 2015)
29. Move photos to external hard drive
30. Take 4 (out of the house) dates with Mark: August 2015, October 2015, November 2015, February 2016
31. Explore someplace new (found a new icecream spot in Maine, July 2016)
32. Watch 10 TED talks: How to fix a broken school? Lead fearlessly, love hard, Connected, but alone?, Your elusive creative genius, What if everyone had a classical education?, The tribes we lead, How we can make crops survive without water, How to spot a liar, Try something new for 30 days, What makes a good life? Lessons from the longest study on happiness, My year reading a book from every country in the world (completed January 2016)
33. Make an emergency preparedness kit (winter prep kit made for Mark’s car, September 2015)
34. Make a new recipe everyday for a month
35. Armknit another scarf (or a blanket?)
36. Take a bath (April 2016)
37. Wear my hair in a new way
38. Host 5 families for dinner: (1/5) B family in April 2016
39. Complete our wills
40. Purchase a “Thanksgiving meal” to donate to the food bank (November 2015)
41. Buy a birdfeeder (August 2015)
42. Take an online course (February 2016)
43. Potty train Sophia (November 2015)
44. Hang an American flag outside (Memorial Day 2016)
45. Buy a new throw blanket for the living room (October 2015)
46. Make a quilt
47. Start a separate blog for our homeschooling (August 2015) Braveheart Homeschool Academy
48. Do a month-long running “streak”
49. Get carpets professionally cleaned (rented a Rug Doctor and cleaned ourselves – March 2016)
50. Participate in Screen-Free Week
51. Donate 100 items (March 2016)
52. Make homemade soap (February 2016)
53. Make bread from scratch, no bread machine! (September 2015)
54. Get Big White Farmhouse in a magazine ad
55. Purchase vintage items at a big fair
56. Re-do Big White Farmhouse packaging (business cards, thank you postcards, etc) (April 2016)
57. Make a frame for the big dining room picture
58. Grow cucumbers
59. Make the laundry room more functional (February 2016)
60. Send 5 “just because” gifts: (1) S in September 2015, (2) A in October 2015, (3) S in February 2016, (4) M in March 2016, (5) T in June 2016
61. Organize the linen closet (March 2016)
62. Try making new flavors of lemonade
63. Sew Sophie pajama pants
64. Learn flower arranging
65. Buy a bench for the dining room table (June 2016)
66. Find a vintage globe (February 2016)
67. Buy a fiddle leaf fig tree for the house
68. Paint anything on a canvas
69. Make homemade Larabars
70. Make homemade marshmallows
71. Read four books of the Bible slowly
72. Read an encyclical
73. Create a hand-drawn printable
74. Replace the pillows in the living room (September 2015)
75. Buy a wreath for the front door (made a pompom wreath, November 2015)
76. Try 5 new local restaurants
77. Make 20 recipes from my cookbooks: (1/20) 1. Quiche Lorraine
78. Create a “celebration basket”: paper plates, napkins, candles, etc.
79. Go to the dentist (September 2015)
80. Buy a new winter coat
81. Rotate master bedroom mattress (August 2015)
82. Complete T25 or another Beachbody program
83. Launch a special project with Mark (September 2015) Catholic Combat
84. Write 100 blog posts (January 2016)
85. Make strawberry jam with my mom
86. Go to the shooting range with Mark
87. Pay off remaining student loan debt
88. Make my handwriting a font
89. Go strawberry picking
90. Go apple picking
91. Do a pull-up unassisted
92. Take the kids to see something in DC
93. Make a distressed wooden sign for my office
94. Milk paint a piece of furniture
95. Embroider one of Sophia’s drawings
96. Plant flowers in the front flower beds
97. Find a new playground (June 2016)
98. Buy milk glass containers to hold art supplies
99. Do something special to celebrate our 10th anniversary (renewed our vows, November 2015)
100. See a movie in theaters