"Now there was a time" - what song is that from?

It has been so long since I have been able to post anything about the list or life, mostly because of laziness, but here is an update! I was able to cross three more items off of my list which is exciting:

#73 Win a game of scrabble.

This one was of those items that I figured was unreachable and I would spend countless attempts trying to conquer, but I didn't win one game, I won two! No I didn't play against a bunch of 3rd graders (they probably would have beat me, those kids are smart!), I played with my mom, my sister and my fiance, some of the smartest people I know! Being realistic, I am pretty sure that they all let me win, because I am no word whiz by any stretch, so thanks for humoring me girls!

#78 Get an internship

This one was a huge relief, because if I wasn't able to find one, I would have been up a creek and probly wouldn't graduate for another semester! I am really excited about it too, mostly because I will be done with classes in May and the internship is the final stretch before graduation! The first half of it will be at a PT clinic in Ft. Collins, CO. I can't wait to spend two months in the town voted best place to live, with the Rocky Mountains next door and great biking and recreation all around! The second half will be here in town so I can get ready for graduation, the wedding and look for jobs.

#99 Give myself permission to change any of these because life happens sometimes.

Well I guess life is happening all the time, but regardless, I wanted the freedom to give and take. I added #35 Complete a half marathon under 2 hours and 10 minutes. I will be doing the Vancouver half marathon on June 26th and going for a personal record (PR) of 2 hours, 9 minutes and 59 seconds or faster! I have run two half marathons previously at 2:26 and 2:17, so I am hoping to shave 7 minutes off my time.

#34 on my list was to run a 5K under 24 minutes. My previous PR was 27 minutes (with Nicole in the Turkey Day 5K in Charleston). I ran a 5k last Sunday hoping just for a PR of any time with an outside hope of breaking 24 minutes. I ran it with a friend, who I also trained with a few times, urged me to go for 24. The race was really fun and relaxed (only 23 runners) consisting of a couple laps around a block on campus. I ran a 24:12, a mere 12 seconds off!! It was so close to the big time goal, but it was still a PR by almost three minutes (thanks for pacing me Vince!).

Spring Break is Finally Here!

I guess spring break actually started on Friday after my last class of the week, but today was the first day of no school when I normally would have school, and it was Glorious! It started with a trip to Home Depot for a flower pot for the flowers I got Nicole for her birthday, and some gardening supplies for her new gardening interest.

Then I got the chance to take up the paint brush after about a 6 month absence to finish the painting I started, and crossed off another one!

#43 Finish My Painting

It is a painting of Piney Lake where I worked two summers ago near Vail, CO when I was on Summer Project with Campus Crusade. The lake sits at the bottom of Mt Powell which is 13,700 ft. I did it based on this picture which was taken in June! There was so much snow left up there and when we left in August, there was still a good amount of snow left. It was great being up there in the mountains all summer and at one of the most beautiful places in Colorado. My favorite memory of being up there was when a very large bull moose charged a group of tourists that were trying to get close for a picture right down there where the dock is in the picture.

But the best part of the day was yet to come.....

For the rest of the afternoon, probaby about 4 or 5 hours, Nicole and I played with Legos!

#86 Build a house out of legos

Before we started painting, we swung by my parents house and dug out my old boxes of Legos and Playmobile, two of the best toys ever made! It brought back so many childhood memories of building houses and cars for days on end with all the peices spread all over the floor of my room. Today I built a house with a deck on top, with a club house connected to it, and a garage that is way to small for the truck I built.

The first day of spring break was great, lets see if we can top it tomorrow!

Special Post for a Special Girl

Today the most beautiful girl in the world turned 23! I got to spend the whole day, and most of the weekend with her and it was awmazing. Thank you to everyone who came to the party lastnight and to lunch today to make it a special day for her.

Nicole,

I hope that your birthday weekend was full of happiness and joy. We are all so blessed that you are a part of our lives and you truly make the world a brighter place! I can't wait to spend the rest of your birthdays with you and make you feel special every day of your life. I hope that your 23rd was a day to remember! Happy birthday babe!

Leave a comment and give Nicole a birthday wish!

Saving and Savory

This fun and eventful day began this morning with Nicole and I starting the first lesson in our Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace University course. We are really enjoying it so far and like all his good ideas!

#40 Take a Dave Ramsey Course

This first lesson we are learning about saving. There are videos of him lecturing, journal entries for us to post and quizzes about each lesson. This morning, the lesson kept being interrupted by both of our stomachs growling, so we cut it short (we'll finish the lesson tomorrow) and headed to my parents to cross of another item...

#62 Make French Toast

Today was a great day of hanging out with Nicole and my parents including hiking to dripping springs, seeing MVCS move on in the state tourney (Go SonBlazers!) and going to Alice in Wonderland in 3D. But before all this, we had to fuel up with some good ole home-cooked breakfast. I cooked french toast for the first time in my life and even made up my own recipe! The breakfast was completed with some fresh fruit, scrambled eggs and Nicole cooked some amazing bacon! It was tasty and I'm excited to make it again!

Should We All Toss the Running Shoes?

Since my shoulder surgery, one of the only things I can do for my workouts is ride the stationary bike which gets boring but is also a good time to get some reading in. As I started peddling, I flipped through the pages to find where I left off, and to my surprise I was only about three chapters from the end! So today I completed my third book of the year, Born to Run by Christopher McGougall.

This book features an acient group of people in the deep canyons of Mexico called the Tarahumara who are legendary for their super athlete abilities, distance running eliteness and peaceful and secluded lifestyle. Christopher McDougall is a journalist with a resume that includes The New York Times, Runners World, and the Associated Press as employers. Also a runner himself, he seeks to track down this elusive culture in search of their secrets for endurance, strength and peace.

Along with discovering that their diet consisted mainly of corn and beans, that their society functions without money and that they can run any distance in 100+ degree weather, he was surprised mostly by the thin sandal-like peice of rubber they wore on their feet to run through the hot, rough desert. The book also discusses some of the most successful ultrarunners in history that trekked down to Mexico to race the Tarahumara.

One of the most interesting parts of the book is when McDougall lays out the facts about running shoes. Not one study has ever shown that high tech, expensive running shoes prevent injuries any better than chepaer shoes or, get this: no shoes at all. Eh? He interviews some of the greatest runners, running coaches and sports scientists about the topic and many believe that running shoes actually prevent your feet from having control while running (which is what the "control" running shoes are supposed to do) and it actually causes your feet to get weaker and more prone to injuies.

Well what about the cushion from running shoes?? After all, just like some are specifically for control, others are specifically for cushion. While running, the force placed on your feet can be higher than 3 times your body weight. Shouldn't some cushion help? One specialist argues that with soft soles (like cushion shoes have), the foot instinctively comes down hard when they sense something soft and cushy underneath. "When you run in cushioned shoes, your feet are pushing through the soles in search of a hard stable platform." Studies have found that ground reaction forces have no difference in soft shoes compared to hard ones. So the bottom line of the argument was that the stiffer the shoe (or in the extreme case as some ultrarunners have adopted, the lack of shoes all together), the stronger your feet will be, the more stable you will be and the less prone to injury you will be.

Now I am not about to toss my Nikes and go running down the street in my bare feet. In fact the specialists (of course not all, the shoes companies are still out to make money) don't suggest it. They suggest easing back into stiffer and easier-on-the-wallet shoes. Running injuries have incresed over the years sense back in the day when everyone ran in Converse. Take it as you wish, I will think twice about spending $100 bucks on running shoes next time.

If you don't want to read the whole book, read chapter 25 where this info came from. Good read!

Million Miles an Hour but Slow Progress

After making some good progress on my list the first two weeks, the progress has slowed considerably. Life is quite busy right now with school and work and other commitments, so it leaves little time to accomplish some fun stuff unfortunately. I've realized that the time to try to tackle the things on my list is going to have to be the weekends. I always really look forward to the weekends because it means a break from school and hopefully a chance to something new or exciting. This weekend though, I am gonna take a break from the list. My favorite sister and favorite brother-in-law are coming into town tomorrow for the weekend so I am just going to enjoy spending some time with them!

Although I am not completely crossing things off, I am working a few items.....
I am in the middle of my third book (still way ahead of schedule by the way :) ) and enjoying it. I know I said that the book by Bear Grylls would be next, but it hasn't come in yet so I am reading Born to Run about a super athlete group of people in the Mexican wilderness called the Tarahumara that can run incredible distances.

Yesterday I read the book of Philemon for the first time I think. If I had read it before, it was without the background information I learned yesterday. Nicole got me an ESV Study Bible for Christmas, which I love, that has an introduction for each book that tells the themes, purpose, occasion etc. for that book. Anyway, yesterday I read that the book of Philemon was written by Paul to Philemon pursuading him to reconcile with one of his former slaves. Philemon was a wealthy Christian slave owner in the town of Colassea and Onesimus was one of his slaves. Onesimus stole from Philemon and fled to Rome. There he met Paul and became a Christian. Paul knew that the relationship between Philemon and Onesimus needed to be restored so Paul wrote the book of Philemon to convince him to receive Onesimus lovingly as a brother in Christ and not as a slave upon his return. Paul even says, "Accordingly, though I am bold enough in Christ to command you to do what is required, yet for love's sake I prefer to appeal to you..." (vv. 8-9). Paul......what a cool dude.

Also in the works: I have watched three movies taking care of P, S and U (Post Grad, Surrogates and Up). Surrogates and Up were both pretty good, but I'm still holding off on the "great" critique, hopefully I'll see a great one soon!

My loose change bucket is seeing some growth, I got 4 pennies today! haha. It does make me laugh to myself that now i caught myself scanning the ground for coins, but hey! Why not?!

Two Down...Making Progress

Tonight I settled into the recliner after AFC and after a long day for some light reading. With a rare quiet house and some rain "pitter-pattering" on the skylight, my light reading turned into some extended reading. I was able to finish the last fifth of my second book in about two hours.

Ford County by John Grisham is his latest book released and is a set of short stories about people and happenings of Ford County in Mississippi. Usually, some citizen with a rough past has found some kind of trouble and the story takes you through the whole drama. It was a good read, it kept my interest in every story but one I think (there were anout 10). Overall I liked it, but almost every main character had a rather messed up life and the county was made out to be pretty judgemental and ignorant, which wasn't the happiest of themes. However, I do like Grisham's writing style and I enjoyed it.

The first book I read, I actually finished earlier this month. It was another by John Grisham, The Last Juror. I really enjoyed this book! It was my second John Grisham book (my first was The Testament, which is one of my favorites) and it was about a recent college grad that buys a small town newspaper in Ford County, Mississippi (same county for the basis of the above book) and gets involved with the reportings of the biggest trial the town had ever seen. Years after, the jurors from the trial start getting murdered and the reporter takes it on himself to solve the case. Good page turner, and a lot of colorful characters!

So I wanted to read one book every three months and so far, in less than a full month I have read two! haha Anyone that knows me well understands that this is highly unusual, but I am pretty proud of myself and would really like to keep up this pace! So if anyone has any good book recommendations, I am open for suggestions!

I have a few more in mind that I want to read.....next up is The Kid Who Climbed Mount Everest by Bear Grylls!!!

Also in progress:
#38 Read everybook of the Bible. I finished II Thessalonians this morning. I and II both have some pretty straightforward content about the second coming, very intersting stuff to think about!
#96 Start a loose change bucket and save $500. I'm probably around $5 dollars, but its a start!
#98 Get three people to start lists of their own. Nicole started one and its great! Check it out! And I am tryin' to get my mom to start one!

This Weekend I want to go for maybe #5 Write a book review (since I just finished one) or maybe #42 Create a mosaic out of bottle caps or #43 Finish my painting!

Sangria Perea

I started off my first day of workin' on the list with a bang! After waiting so long to actually complete the list, I was excited to get started. Along with starting this blog to complete #1, I set out to take on #54 and make some deliscious sangria. I found a recipe on the Food Network website and it turned out to be pretty good. Nicole and I made dinner for my roommates and Brandon, I made the sangria and she made her first lasagna (which was amazing by the way). The meal was completed with some squash and zucchini.

The recipe*:
3 cups of ice
1/4 cup of lemon slices
1/4 cup of lime slices
1/4 cup of orange slices
1/4 cup pineapple chunks
1/4 cup seedless grapes
2 cups red wine
1/2 cup peach brandy
1 cup orange juice
1 cup lemon/lime soda

*The recipe said it would make six glasses. We were planning on 7 people so I just doubled everything so we would have plenty. I mashed up the grapes and pineapple and squeezed the juice from the lemon, lime and orange slices into the mix and then put all the slices in the pitcher with all the drinks. I let it sit for about an hour (stirring occasionally) to let the wine and the fruits fuse together. It ended up making only 5 full glasses, which was just enough, but I expected more. We served it with slices and pineapple and grapes in the glasses, so after finishing it, we ate the rest of the fruit from our glasses. I also couldn't find peach brandy so I used apricot brandy which did great.

I would use this recipe again, but I would use a bigger pitcher and add the slices after letting it sit.

All in all it was a success, I made my own sangria!

Finally!!!

I first heard of the 101 in 1001 when my sister sent me her list and a link to her blog. She had a great list and it inspired me to start my own. Originally I didn't want to start a blog because I didn't think it was really my thing, but after realizing it would be the easiest way to let people stay up to date with my progress on the 101, I started to warm up to the idea.

I began putting my list together over a week ago and finally it is complete!

1. Start a blog

I didn't want to publish it until it was finished so I am excited that it is out there now. Here are a few notes about my list:

• I may have cheated on one......#85 becoming an uncle. I know it shouldn't technically count because it involves no effort on my part. However, I think it would be awesome to be an uncle, something I've always wanted o be. So Matt and katie, if ya'll could help out a little on this one, that would be great haha. No rush!
• I am most excited about #12 Hike a 14'er, #30 Play Lacrosse, #46 Take 3 really good pictures to blow up and frame, #51 Pick a honeymoon destination with Nicole, #59 Make a pizza from scratch, #69 Go to a Broncos game, and #82 Get married!
• The hardest ones will be #28 Finish a century bike race under 6 hours and 45 minutes, #36 Read a full novel in a week, #65 See the northern lights, #73 Hit a hole-in-one, #74-76 Pass my classes with A's, and the hardest of all....#72 Win a game of scrabble.

Also on the list for today is #54 Make sangria.....I need to find a recipe so I can go to the store.

About the 101

Howcome the 101?
I have always thought of different things that I want to do, make, accomplish or see, but I always seem to forget them or put them off. By creating this blog and doing this project, I will be able to keep track of all my goals, let other people stay updated and give myself a reasonable timeline to complete them in.

The Challenge:
Complete 101 preset tasks in a period of 1001 days.

The Criteria:
Tasks must be specific (i.e. no ambiguity in the wording) with a result that is either measurable or clearly defined. Tasks must also be realistic and stretching (i.e. represent some amount of work on your part). I will document, as best I can, the completion of each task.

Why 1001 Days?
Many people have created lists in the past - frequently simple challenges such as New Year's resolutions or a'Bucket List'. The key to beating procrastination is to set a deadline that is realistic. 1001 days (about 2.75 years) is a better period of time that a year, because it allows you several seasons to complete the tasks, which is better for organising and timing some tasks such as overseas trips, study semesters, or outdoor activities.