Week nine update

085 Keep a list of movies I’ve seen and books I’ve read

I grabbed all the movies I’ve rented from Netflix and put them in an Excel worksheet then moved them over to Listography.com. My Netflix list officially has a link too.

044 Stretch daily (get to the point where it doesn’t hurt)

I started stretching in class yesterday and I realized you don’t have to have a set time or place to stretch. You can do it anywhere, anytime. So as I’m sitting there in my seat listening to a lecture I stretched my arms.  Now I need to work on the rest of me…heh.

067    Maintain a 3.5 GPA each quarter (change if I feel I can maintain higher) [0/6]

Okay okay, so I know this is maintain a 3.5 GPA, but here is my mid-quarter grades.

Class one

Class two

Class three

021    Take a Photography course (other than the one I’m taking in school)

Okay so I’m signing up for a Photography course at school so I know that doesn’t count, but I wanted to mention it because I am so excited! I hope it’s not full by the time I can register for Winter Quarter.

050    Crock Pot a meal once weekly for a month (if economical, continue on) [3/4]

This week I had a Pot Roast in the freezer, so I threw in the Crock Pot with some potatoes, carrots, garlic and onion. I seasoned the Pot Roast with some Garlic Salt because that’s all I had on hand…and yes it was a little bit of garlic overload for me, but the man liked it. Wanna see??

A big hunk of meat laying on a mound of veggies

On my plate ready for some fork action

I couldn’t very well toss out the savory drippings that came from my wonderful roast so I packaged it (and the garlic cloves) all up in this cute tupperware and will make gravy with it this weekend. The garlic cloves are already all soft and cooked so I can just spread them on some nice French bread and be set for a tasty snack.

This is going to make some great beef gravy!

047    Mail [Private] a postcard monthly [2/21]

Getting ready to send out one today 🙂

036    Clean out storage unit and donate no longer needed items

My mom got me a storage unit the last time I moved and she just rented a bigger one  to share so I will be forced to go through my stuff which I’m kind of jazzed about.

076    Become punctual (officially changed 10/28/09)

I was late to work one day this week which is a great improvement since I’m usually at least a minute or two late everyday. I wasn’t late to school at all.

What have I been doing different? Getting up earlier that’s it. That’s the big secret. I actually woke up at 7 this morning and unloaded the dishwasher, Mr. Man pulled the laundry out and then I grabbed the French bread dough out of the bread machine and threw it in the oven (the smell of fresh bread in the morning is heavenly).

Can you smell it?

Then, I got ready for work and was still here with 10 minutes to spare.

Week six update

I’ve added The List to it’s very own tab at the top and edited my original list to be just that, my original list. Any changes to the original list will be made there to simplify altering two lists and keep me from deviating too much from my original plan.

012 Take a trip on a train

I read somewhere this morning that the airlines are jipping us this holiday season. We used to be able to wait for last minute deals just before a holiday because they were hoping to fill those last seats. However, with the economic downturn this past year (or more) the prices will be jacked up to high heaven just before the holidays. Why am I concerned about this? Because I have to go pick up my little man just before Christmas if I want to see him this holiday season. My ex and I still haven’t set that decision in stone, but me mentioning “I could try and pick him up this time” looks like it’s turned into a sure thing. Which leads me to this goal. It may be cheaper (although longer) to take the train down and back. I really need to think about this one as I need to have the time off from work (I’ll already be on Winter Break from school). I don’t know how little man would enjoy a two-day journey on a train and would that make it less enjoyable for me?

100 Create a workout mix 50+ songs (upbeat only) and create a 500+ all time greatest mix for iPod

This goal was for my iPod and may still ring true, however I dropped it and the screen is now half blocked by a black blob and a few cracks. As some of you may know I have an iPhone and I happened to have a 16g so I there’s plenty of room on there for a workout mix. But who wants to bring their phone (and everything else in the world that’s on it) to a workout? Ugh, I may just use the iPod since it still plays music just fine and the buttons work to skip a song if need be.

038    Budget monthly (keep register daily, pay bills weekly or with paychecks) [1/21]

I’ve been slacking a bit here in the register department. I mean, I’ve been updating it and paying my bills but I think I may or may not have have gone off budget a little. Damn you Starbucks!

044 Stretch daily (get to the point where it doesn’t hurt)

I neeeeeed to start this goal! With the winter chill setting in, even at the ripe age of 27, I can feel my joints getting tighter and bones cracking a little more than they used to. I’d also like to me able to touch my toes. 😉

029 Get to and maintain last goal weight [2.5/6]

I’ve lost 2.5 lbs since starting this on 9/9/09. I admit to slacking in the dieting area especially around dinner time recently. I did catch myself slipping the week-before-last and gained a little, so I hunckered down a bit on my snacking and dinnertime meals and am back to my 2.5lb weight loss. Now is the time to lose so I’m prepared for the holiday season (my favorite time of year!) and the extra couple of added pounds that comes with it. That way when, not if, when I gain those few pounds next month I’ll be prepared and not be too far over my goal.

004    Learn more history of Everett Seattle

I’ve officially changed this goal to Seattle as referenced in my Week four update.

067    Maintain a 3.5 GPA each semester (change if I feel I can maintain higher) [0/6]

I got my first A in college this week! Woot! I haven’t put this in progress yet because the goal is maintain a 3.5 GPA. Which has me assuming my first quarter I will earn at least a 3.5 GPA and the goal is to keep that up.

My first A in college!

030    Buy a new camera

I follow this guy (@ScottBourne) on Twitter because his site has great advice and he knows his stuff and well um, he has giveaways all the time. So he has a website, obviously, and he tweeted his blog about his take on the new Nikon D3 that was announced on Wednesday. In that blog I learned that he switched from Canon to Nikon almost 2 years ago after photographing with Canon for the better part of 17 years. That got me thinking since the type of photography that he does is in Nature and that’s what I’m most interested in doing as well. So I placed an imaginary pro next to Nikon for my future purchase.

A way you may have noticed how I’m torn between the two brands is my goal links are separate with the “new” being linked to Canon and “camera” being linked to Nikon.

050    Crock Pot a meal once weekly for a month (if economical, continue on) [0/4]

This week Cost Cutter has whole chickens on sale for $0.78/lb so I’ll be picking one up today and making Crock Pot Roast Chicken. Then putting the carcass back in the Crock Pot for another round to get my ohsodeliceous homemade Chicken Broth. Shortly there after (or not since the broth is easy to freeze in “can sizes”), I will be making Crock Pot Chicken Noodle Soup with the leftover chicken pieces, broth and choice veggies.

I got the idea from my handy dandy bargain blogger Gayle over at Grocery Cart Challenge. She posted a 2-day blog on how you could use every-single-piece of a chicken. And for $0.78 lb this week on chickens I’m going to give it a go.

I may start my goal this week if I actually get out of the house today and down to Cost Cutter. Heh.

072    Bento once a week (work up to daily) for school

While I wouldn’t say I’ve started Bento-ing. I have packed a lunch everyday I’m at school, so it’s a start.

065    Find a way to become more carbon neutral. (Impossible to become completely carbon neutral as I will never get rid of my beautiful, large and in charge Dodge, but there are ways to off set my carbon footprint)

I went to this site and used the calculator to find my carbon foot print. It is 1.15 tons per year. With the average bring 7.5 tons per year. Ew. I am sure mine is much higher than that, but based on their calculator that’s what I came out at, even with my giant truck.

The only way to become neutral is to pay for your footprint and those payments go into building things like Wind Farms which give us sustainable energy. And being a starving college student it’s not in my budget just yet.

076    Document events and thoughts from 9/9/09, 10/10/10, and 11/11/11

I dislike this goal everytime I see it, I don’t understand it’s relevance to me anymore and am looking at a better goal to put in it’s place.

Oh and real quick, a fun fact about yours truly is I turned 10,000 days old on October 15, 2009.