101 Things in 1001 days

The eagle-eyed amongst you might have been expecting to see a New Year goals post from me – something about how much weight I intend to lose this year (which would be 1kg more than the weight I was intending to lose last year), something about how many books I intend to write and publish (actually, I will be doing one of those posts over the next week on my author site), and maybe even something about a word of the year (or WOTY as it’s abbreviated to).

Not this year.

As an aside, the word of the year thing has worked for me in the past. Last year though? Nope. My word was HEART and it was supposed to inspire me to get heart healthy, but I forgot all about it by the end of January. I seriously have the attention span of…something with a very short attention span.

This year I’m doing things differently – for no reason other than it’s time I mixed things up a tad.

Normally I’d begin a new diary/planner on January 1, but this year I bought myself one of those undated planners and started it in December. It’s from Octaevo and titled “A Year of Sun.” It opens flat, has travel planning pages, notes pages, a lovely yellow ribbon place-marker (that I use in my travel planner pages) and hand painted blue page edges. I mark my spot with a lobster bookmark from the same company.

Usually, I also begin January with a fresh new bullet journal/notebook, but this year I just continued with the one I’d started at the beginning of December. It was all part of me reminding myself that January 1 was just another day with another sunrise, another sunset, and another new opportunity.

Instead of resolutions and words, this year I’ll be focusing on the list of 101 things to do 1001 days that I, inspired by The Annoyed Thyroid, posted at the end of August last year.

For those who missed it, the challenge is to come up with 101 things that I want to achieve in the next 1001 days – that’s about 2.75 years which takes me through until May 2021.

The theory is that for people like me with long-term dreams and a short-term focus, this sort of time period gives you a better chance of achieving the big stuff – it covers seasonal considerations and provides ample time for bookings, training etc, but also allows for lots of smaller wins along the way. Sometimes it’s those small wins that keep you going – you have no idea how stoked I was to nail the perfect poached egg the other day.

It’s about ticking off achievable milestones along the way to bigger projects.

The hardest part of the challenge? Coming up with 101 things – and keeping it reasonably realistic. To do that I chunked it down into categories and, where appropriate, aligned each to bigger long-term goals. Although me being me, I’ve also thrown in some pie in the sky stuff too.

And for the positive living police, the weight loss thing is there for health reasons. My big aim is to do a 100-mile walk in 2020 and at my current weight that’s way too much pressure and stress on my joints, heart and back. I wrote about that yesterday.

Anyways, in the interests of accountability, here’s an update. Spoiler alert – I haven’t ticked much off yet! My primary long-term goals are in bold.

Health and Fitness – Operation Excess Baggage

1. Lose 5kgs. I’m guessing the 2kgs I lost and gained 3 times in 2018 doesn’t count. Me and Sustainable Change aren’t, as yet, friends. As at this morning, I’m 3 kgs into the first 5kgs.

2. Lose another 5kgs

3. Lose another 5kgs

4. Lose another 5 kgs

5. Take a tai-chi class

6. Take a yoga class

7. Take a pilates class

8. Walk the path from Pt Cartwright to Golden Beach. I’ve done 2 segments of this walk now: From Point Cartwright to Kawana, and from Currimundi to Moffat Beach.

9. Nail the Lara Drive stairs

10. Walk up the Ballinger Rd hill without stopping. I reckon it will take me 6 weeks before I can get to the top without stopping for photos to find a lung for a breather.

11. Walk up the Dixon Rd hill (there are a lot of hills in Buderim) without stopping.

12. Do the Noosa National Park Walk along the coast to Hells Gates and back via the inland track

13. Do the Noosa National Park Walk to Sunshine Beach

14. Walk up Emu Mountain

15. Walk up Mt Coolum

16. Average 10,000 steps a day for 30 days. Done – back in September. This is now updated to at least 30 minutes activity every day for 30 days.

17. Get into a meditation habit – 15 minutes a day for 30 days.

Personal

18. Have a photo shoot – outside, casual with decent hair and maybe even make-up

19. Write the family history – on the Lyons side

20. Write the family history – on the Hamilton side

21. Update my will

22. Learn how to take decent food pictures. Not sure how to measure this, but I’ve absolutely improved. 

23. Learn how to style brown food. As above.

24. Drive on the highway without having an anxiety thing

25. Go 30 days without spending money on books or music. Done – February and March 2019

26. Get better at French – duolingo

27. Read 10 memoirs. According to my Goodreads list, so far I’ve read 6.

28. Read 5 craft, business or self-help books

29. Put our France photos into a digital photo book

30. Put our UK photos into a digital photo book

31. Put our Vietnam photos into a digital photo book. Done.

Blogs and Writing

32. Finish writing my France blogs.

33. Send out a monthly newsletter – every month

34. Publish Happy Ever After. Done.

35. Publish I Want You Back (Careful What You Wish For #1)

36. Finish the Tiff Book (Careful What You Wish For #2). Done. It’s been through structural editing so I’m in the middle of the rewrite.

37. Publish the Tiff book

38. Finish the Alice book (Careful What You Wish For #3) In draft.

39. Publish the Alice book

40. Release the Careful What You Wish For series as a box set

41. Write a Christmas novel

42. Publish ebook of recipes used in Wish You Were Here and Happy Ever After and use as a lead magnet for the newsletter

43. Set up kitchen diaries blog – Brookford Kitchen Diaries. Done.

44. Set up Clancy’s Campfire website. Done.

45. Publish Clancy of the Campfire

46. Write The Lilac Queen

47. Write the first book in the Alice Delaney mysteries

48. Write the first book in the Rambling Rose series

49. Mad About The Mac – the definitive mac cheese cookbook

50. Astro site – a monthly newsletter – every month. January done.

51. Astro – Jupiter ebook

52. Astro – Saturn ebook

53. Astro – beginners course

54. Astro – diary and planner

55. Astro – Moon ebook

56. Replace my day job income with income from writing 

Travel

57. Sleep in a tent. Done. Ok, it was a posh tent, but a tent it was. Ketchup’s Bank Glamping.

58. Do a road trip to Cairns

59. Do a road trip to Adelaide

60. Stay at the Eastern & Oriental in Penang Done

61. Walk up Queenstown Hill

62. Explore Agnes Waters and the Town of 1770

63. Explore the Scenic Rim region of South East Queensland. Done. October 2018 – Camping at Ketchup’s Bank Glamping.

64. Swim with sea-turtles

65. Snorkel in the Barrier Reef

66. Ride a horse along the beach at Noosa

67. Take a Noosa Everglades cruise

68. Fly business class

69. Eat at one of the world’s top 100 restaurants

70. Have Christmas in the UK

71. Wear a proper dressed up dress and heels for Christmas in the UK

72. Attend a Christmas midnight mass in a village church in the UK

73. Walk The Cotswolds Way in 2020 – 100 miles 

74. See bluebells in a bluebell wood. I did see some in France, but it didn’t count.

75. Take a cruise to the Baltics for hubby’s 60th in 2021

76. Visit St Petersburg

Foodie Stuff

77. Grow ginger Done

78. Grow garlic

79. Make dumplings

80. Make potato gnocchi that doesn’t bounce

81. Make focaccia. Done.

82. Cook steak to medium rare (hubby usually does this) Done

83. Make an omelette (he does this too) Done

84. Perfect the poached egg (he usually does this too). Done – thanks to Nigella.

85. Make decent scrambled eggs (and this – but I’m great at boiled and fried eggs)

86. Make a piccalilli. Done.

87. Make cannoli

88. Try 10 new meat-free dishes

89. Try 10 new soup recipes

90. Try 5 new ice creams or frozen desserts. So far I’ve made strawberry ice cream and a blender strawberry sorbet.

91. Make mayonnaise by hand Done

92. Make hollandaise by hand Done

93. Make a puff pastry Done

94. Make honeycomb Done

95. Make decent soft bread rolls Done

96. Make lemon curd. Done.

97. Make proper bread

98. Make a Victoria sponge Done

99. Make a Tarte Tatin Done

100. Cook (and blog) my way through Nigella’s “How To Eat”. Underway – The Nigella Diaries

Other

101. Inspire someone else to write down 101 things to do in 1001 days. Done

It’s Lovin’ Life Linky time…

It’s Thursday, so it’s time to look for our happy and share it about a bit. The Lovin’ Life Linky is brought to you by Team Lovin’ Life: Deep Fried Fruit, Debbish, Write of the Middle, and, of course, me.
Inlinkz Link Party