Update from last week: I will learn curling! I have a date in my calendar with a friend, and we are gonna learn some curling at the Saint Paul Curling Club. You may recognize it as the place where many Olympians train and have trained. I don’t know when I will be ready for the Olympics, but I will surely keep you posted. As will all new endeavors I take on, I look to be properly attired. I have started looking into curling pants, but they are pricier than I expected. I am trying to decide how much the right pants will affect my skills. I figure that at worst, if I suck at curling, at least I can look amazing, right?
On to the next chunk of the list!
61) Spend a day wearing a realistic false mustache in public. Not done—technically. This was in part inspired by an article in Glamour magazine. They used to have this feature where they would send a staffer into the streets wearing a strange trend, or with something off about her appearance and see how the public would react. One time it was a girl with terrible extensions that were falling out, once she had muscles airbrushed on (contouring and highlighting so it looked like a six-pack, ripped biceps, etc.), one was spending the day wandering around in a snuggie/slanket…you get the drift. The one that inspired this was a woman wearing a realistic false mustache. Some people stared, some people were empathetic, some offered helpful tips for places to get it waxed or bleached. One person let her know she had milk froth from her coffee drink at the edges. I thought it was fascinating! I also like to think that if I had facial hair, I would own it. I would grow the hell out of that mustache and/or goatee (well, if it were “or” technically it would be a VanDyke). So, I thought it would be fun to try. I sort of did it on Halloween since my team at work dressed as the Village People. I was “Glenn the Leatherman” aka the biker. I couldn’t find a good looking mustache that matched my hair and had all the elements of a good biker ‘stache. I thought about lacing my own, but wig lacing materials are tricky to find. So, I purchased a goatee and altered it. It looked pretty good. Unfortunately, I am a human furnace, and I kept sweating off the toupee tape. My temperature seems less high of late, so I will try again on a non-costume type day and see what happens. For fun. As you do.
62) Taxidermy a squirrel (that died of natural causes or the like). Not done. I am slightly obsessed with taxidermy. I couldn’t really explain why. It might have to do with my fascination with food that still looks like the animal. Typically seafood. If I get a food that is relatively intact, I make it talk to my tablemates. Sometimes I have it sing or dance. My husband really loves when I do this.
“Hey G, I am so excited to be here with you. Hallo my baby, hallo my honey, hallo my ragtime gyal-al!! I’ll be here all night…try the veal!”
He usually closes his eyes for a moment and takes a really deep breath. I like to think he’s pondering the meaning of life and how lucky he is to be married to me.
Anyhow, somehow dead animals are strangely appealing to me. I really want a taxidermied squirrel (go figure, right??). I keep begging G to get me one, but his response is usually the eye closing, deep breath combo I mentioned a moment ago. My true dream is to make a squirrel chess set, ideally each side with a different color fur, dressed in costumes to represent the different pieces. If push comes to shove, I could deal with dressing them in colored costumes to represent sides. The problem is that such an endeavor would be expensive.
Enter the DIY factor. A few years ago, I ran into a girl at the Zombie Pub Crawl. She had a zombie squirrel with her. I told her of my fascination with squirrels and with taxidermy, and she told me that she ordered the kit online and taxidermied her own squirrel! My mind? Blown. Thus, the goal was born. However, I got leery of the total DIY idea. I mean, great for a zombie squirrel, but less great for one that I kind of want to look like he could climb a tree at a moment’s notice. So, I figured I would take a class. I mean, people have to learn how do taxidermy somehow, right?? There’s a place near where my sister lives that apparently has all sorts of squirrels. I asked her to inquire if they offered classes, figuring I could take one the next time I visit. I guess the guy gave her a look and said it wasn’t really something you learned in a class, you just learned by doing. This didn’t seem quite right to me. Luckily, my niece tipped me off to The Detroit Academy of Taxidermy! I planned to take a course next time I was in the D-town area, but they offer classes in cities across the country. So, next month I am taking a class! The class includes a rat, or I could upgrade to a rabbit. I figured a rat would do just fine. Maybe I will find a squirrel later and take another class to hone my skill. I am super excited to make a little friend. I will definitely share a photo of my work!
63) Contribute to our Roth consistently for one year. Not done. This was part of a previous goal of nailing down our budget. I am getting in the habit of putting money aside before any bill paying or spending. I particularly want to make sure we are getting our retirements in order. I want to be able to retire young enough to enjoy it, and have enough money to live for a very long time. I have a 401K through work, to which I contribute the maximum matched amount. I do this because of the amount my employer matches…I mean, hey! Free money! However, the downside to a 401K is that it goes in before taxes. Which means I get to pay taxes on it later! Yay! (In case it wasn’t clear, that yay was sarcastic. Where’s sarcastica when you need it?) This is where the Roth IRA comes in. You put the money in after taxes, and it earns for you. It’s especially recommended for young people (a category I still belong to thank-you-very-much). Since it took longer to get the budget situation under control, then the saving situation handled…I didn’t get this far before the deadline. You can save your lectures, I already know.
64) Redesign and update the etherea page. Not done. This is my url for my accessory shop, which used to also be the url for this blog. I had the hubs help me create a simple design, but hadn’t been able to do much beyond that. Currently, I have someone working on a redesign for this blog, and the business page will be next.
65) Make an inspiration board for the office, and mini versions for work. In progress. This should be so easy! It’s cutting out pictures and pasting them onto a board! I just feel guilty when I cut pictures out of magazines and get busy with the glue sticks. You know, like I am doing something fun when I should be hard at work. Though, the purpose of the inspiration boards is to help me reach my goals, achieve my dreams. So, it is work. Sort of. Anyhow, I did finally go through all the pages I ripped out of magazines and things I cut out and start putting things that were for ideas into a scrapbook. A place to keep all the inspiration I find for designing and creating. I also thought about what I want. Material items I would like to have, places I want to travel, what I want to accomplish, and people I admire who inspire me career-wise. I found images of them. I tried to make a collage on the computer to print out, but it didn’t work so well. It looked too cluttered in the space I could conceivably print on. So, I am working on doing a physical cut-and-paste version. The mini versions might not be super mini, but I will figure out a way to make them fit the places I can hang them at work so I can constantly be reminded of where I am going.
66) Host a summer get-together. Not done. In fact, I don’t know why I left this one on the list. This one was conceived when we were living in the condo, with a patio. I did a bunch of work sprucing up our porch and garden. I was also working on getting adorable furniture for the patio, instead of the generic green resin set we had for years and years and years. It was starting to look like something, and I had visions of us having friends over and having a sort of garden party. Refreshing iced drinks, summery finger food, yard games (Jarts anyone?). The problems with this are many. First, I am not outdoorsy. In any way, shape, or form. Most people in these parts can’t wait until the weather is such that they can eat outside, bike outside, camp outside, you name it outside. Not me. I turn pink if I even think about the sun. I am allergic to every kind of bug bite. Most swell absurdly, bruising because they swell so much so fast. Fleas give me nasty blisters. Some give me gross hives. I’m already a human furnace, so there is rarely weather that I feel enjoyable in. Mostly, I’m just sunburned, swollen and pock-marked, and dripping with sweat. Not. Cute. Secondly, while I like throwing parties in theory, I am not much for actually throwing them. I don’t like to cook, and while I enjoy hanging out with friends and being the hostess with the mostest, it’s just so. Much. Work. This means I keep my entertaining to one bash a year, and that’s reserved for my birthday. I get foods from local stores, and it’s in the fall and at night, which means inside shindig. Finally, we moved from the condo, so having a party on the patio just ain’t gonna happen. Unless we just show up and hope the new owners don’t mind. So, I guess I made this goal as motivation to finish the outside projects and get out of my usual comfort zone? Either way, this one was a fail.
67) Make all the gifts I give for a year. DONE. So. Done. I put this on the list for a few reasons. I like making things, but I often procrastinate, or doubt my skills. This was a nice excuse to force me to get creative. I also hoped it would save a few dollars. I am always buying supplies because I see the potential in them, but don’t always have an exit strategy. At least, I didn’t. When we moved, the rule became no buying without a plan. It has saved me many dollars, and much space. Anyhow, this would be a good way to use some of the things I bought because they were so beautiful, but didn’t have a concrete plan for. Also, if I didn’t have something appropriate, I could plan out when I would buy the supplies to get a good price. The balance of the expense would be my time, which is worth something. I learned a lot from this whole process. In some respects, it made gift-giving more difficult. Some people are hard to buy for anyway, and adding in the homemade aspect makes it even more of a challenge.
Also, I am the type that buys gifts as they strike. If I see something perfect for someone, I buy it, wrap it, and put it away. I had to suppress that urge many times. No buying gifts. Make the presents! With some of the health issues I’ve struggled with, it made it more of a challenge, in that I didn’t have the energy for making all the time, so I had some later-than-I-would-have-liked present making sessions. Also, some of the things I was inspired to try didn’t work out the way I envisioned. Despite having looked at tutorials and talking to people who did some of the things, some things just did not work for me. Boo.
So, going forward, I will go about my gift acquiring my usual way. When something strikes me, I will go for it whether it’s store bought or homemade instead of forcing myself to do it all one way.
68) Get eight hours of sleep each night for a week. Not done. That I know of. I made this goal before the whole narcolepsy saga. I have been a night owl for as long as I can remember. My folks would put me to bed. I would climb out. They would bust me. I would try to be sneakier about it. When my bed was in the middle of the room, I would sit on the side away from the door and get out blocks or read by night light. When I was feeling bolder, I would sit in the hallway, watching Johnny Carson through the archway. It didn’t matter when they put me to bed, or how they scolded me, I would just be up. Eventually, they dispensed with the bedtime since I was going to be up no matter what I did. Fast forward to an adult me. Still a night owl. Unfortunately my current job requires being at work at seven. A.M. Ouch. I only like coming at that hour from a night out on the town. Not waking up and being functional. I thought that I would get used to the schedule, but my system is just really determined to be up after dark. (Not even kidding. Sunshine makes me sleepy.) I’ve read all the research that says how important sleep is, but it just doesn’t help. So, I thought baby steps. If I could get through a week of full nights of rest, I could then try for two weeks, then more. Ha-ha! I tried, I really did. I would get through three, four days, tops. That was only with the aid of my headache meds that also knocked me out cold. I would get through those few days, forcing myself to stop and take my meds and get into bed. However, my nocturnal tendencies would surface and next thing I knew I would be up too late. Then, the whole narcolepsy situation arose and forget it. Of course, with that it didn’t matter how much sleep I was getting, because I wasn’t actually sleeping. So, this one was a fail, but damn I tried so hard. Maybe once I am recovered, I will try again. Or maybe the getting what sleep I can and it being good quality is enough.
69) Weed out CD collection. DONE I love music. I am not talented in that area, but I love listening to it. Nay, feeling it. For bands I really love, I used to go to the music store on release day to make sure I had it the moment it came out. I loved looking at the liner notes, reading lyrics like poems, seeing what tidbits the band offered up, admiring the art. I hit a certain point (moving helped) where I realized that while the physical copy is important for some really beloved tunes, the really important part is the piece of music. I only have space for so many things, and if I can have a collection of music I love in the space of my beloved Zune, then done and done. Plus Microsoft in their smartness has made it so easy to have back-ups of the back-ups and to acquire music, I felt much more secure in letting go of some discs. I am keeping the discs of my top bands (ie. SMASHING PUMPKINS, Nine Inch Nails, Tori Amos), but don’t need every CD of every song I’ve ever liked. Also, anything signed was kept. We were able to get rid of a very large and heavy box of discs and it felt good. It also makes the collection of the ones we kept more special. Those are the really treasured ones. It will be nice when we move again to have less to haul, and it is nice to have more space to enjoy.
It was also a lot of fun to question some of the musical choices of the hubs. Natalie Merchant? Really?
70) Find out my blood type. DONE Super simple. Blood typing booth at the state fair. As I waited, I crossed my fingers for a type that would get me a button in a good color (like red or fuchsia). O+ I don’t know why I never knew what my type was, but it seems like a good thing to know. And knowing is half the battle.