Goals

Sometimes I really set my sights too high.

Remember my list of 101 things in 1001 days? I’m just about halfway done, with less than a year to go. That means I need to get to work soon. (Of course, here I use “need” in the sense that I’d like to neatly cross everything off the list. I don’t expect any real cosmic consequences to not finishing – I’d simply prefer to feel like I lived up to the challenge.)

Here are a few selections of remaining items on my list:

1. eat a Kong Kone. One of the local grocery stores sells a really enormous soft serve ice cream cone. I mean, it’s gargantuan. I tried to eat one a few years ago. Two-thirds of the way through I vomited. I’m not exactly sure why I want to take on this particular challenge again.

10. see a movie on opening day. You know how the last Harry Potter movie comes out this week? It would be nice if someone offered to watch my kids so the Romgi and I could go see it together.

12. potty-train the Bwun. At the time I made the list, this seemed reasonable. The deadline is April 19 of next year, and the Bwun will be a little over 3 years old. Possibly doable, but, thinking about it, this isn’t something I have a ton of control over.

16. finish my degree. Technically, I’ll still have a few days left of classes/finals when the deadline rolls around, but I plan to count this as accomplished anyway.

19. hike the Y. It’s true – after living in Provo for almost 10 years, I have never hiked Y Mountain. My goal is to wait until the very last day of the challenge to do this hike. (I don’t have anything against Y Mountain; it struck me as comical that I’ve never hiked it, so I’m putting it off because it amuses me.)

56. read at least 50 of the books on my list. Right now I’ve read 45, so this will be easily done.

67. create a piece of art and frame it. All I need is the frame!

68. travel internationally. Well, I didn’t envision having a second child before the deadline arrived, and I’m not convinced that travelling internationally in the next year is realistic. Also, we’re poor, making a trip abroad even less likely.

92. do yoga 5 times. I have a yoga mat and a dvd titled “Evening Stress Release.” The problem is that our living room is laid out the wrong way to look at the tv, do the instructed poses, and not hurt my neck and/or fall over.

98. watch all the Harry Potter movies in a week. Since last Friday I’ve watched 1-5, and 6 and 7.1 are scheduled for the next few nights. I carefully planned it so I’ll finish watching 7.1 just before 7.2 comes out (and I get to go see it, because you offered to watch my kids, remember?).

I have an old notebook (my beloved Miquelrius) where I started a list of things I wanted to accomplish in my life. A lot of the 101 in 1001 goals were taken from that list. One thing I’ve noticed as I look through the notebook is that my life has changed in unexpected ways, making some goals unrealistic and others unimportant. For instance, I had planned to major in English with an editing emphasis, so I made a goal to work at a publishing company. Along the same lines I also wanted to write and publish a book. I no longer want to edit or write, so those goals don’t interest me anymore. As much as I appreciate a neatly completed list, I’m ok with leaving a few items undone – like “Use up an entire box of Kleenex in one sitting,” which now seems a little…emo. If it ever does happen, I’m fairly certain that pregnancy hormones will be to blame.

On a different note, I don’t have anything else to say on the subject.