#68 – Host a game night.

Dave and I have hosted a handful of Saturday night game nights this winter, all of which have been lots of fun!  It’s a great new tradition with dinner and friends.

In addition to hosting game nights, however, Dave and I have been playing a lot more board games with just the two of us.  We bought a couple new games for Christmas last year and it seems to be a cheap evening activity that we both enjoy.  I am aware of the nerd factor.

My sister-in-law brought up an interesting point recently in the comments section.  When you eliminate something negative from your life, you should replace it with something positive…lest you become bitter and grouchy for not having the thing that you gave up in the first place.

This concept definitely applies to our giving up cable TV.  I’m embarrassed for how difficult of a decision this was for me, but I’m glad that I’m no longer watching hours and hours of Intervention every Monday night.  The uncontrollable crying at 1 AM was making me look hungover at work every Tuesday morning!

Anyhow, games are just one of the positive things we are using as a replacement for crappy TV.  Dave and I have also been reading a lot more, although we’re a very long ways away from mastering the art of reading the same book and sharing an intelligent conversation about it.  As Dave said the other night, “Time to indulge in our respective forms of literary crack.”  Vampire novels and car magazines… you can guess who likes what.

I started running the numbers on my 101 in 1001 list, and I’ve successfully crossed off (and properly documented) 22 items.  There are a few others which I have completed, but have not yet written about on the blog.  And there are a handful of items which are already in progress.  Check back soon for more posts.

Anyway, all this means is that I still ONLY have 556 days to complete and document the remaining 79 things.  For you mathematicians out there…that means that I am 22% done, while I have used up 45% of the time…but if you’re really a mathematician, you could have figured that out on your own.

And I’m just now noticing how very unrealistic (#84 – Every work night, be in bed by 11 PM…clearly I had just suffered trauma to the head when I wrote that) and expensive (#73 – See Yellowstone National Park, #74 – See the Redwood Forest, #75 – See the Grand Canyon, #76 – See New Orleans…we’ll just ask our bosses for 50% raises and 3 months of vacation time) some of my ambitions are.

I might make a few tweaks to my list, but for the most part I still agree with all of these goals…I just need to work faster…and be willing to carry a few of these goals over to the next 101 list!

#2 – Professionally print and frame pictures from our wedding.

The pictures are in fancy frames, so we must be really married now.

#65 – Watch a movie with Dave once a week (6 weeks).

This is another of my goals that I actually completed before the end of the year.  It all started when I was sick and watched a lot more movies…instead of…you know…cleaning the house or going to work.

You may ask why I had to actually make this a goal.  I know that most people watch a movie at least once a week.  I don’t though, and I know that Dave wishes I would watch more movies with him,  so that’s why it was on the list.

Last summer when we were in LA visiting Dave’s family, my mother-in-law pushed me for an answer about what my favorite movie is.  I fumbled on my response.  Honestly, I have never been a big movie person.  It’s true that I don’t actually have an all time favorite movie.  I’ve tried to think about why this is.  I can watch hours of mindless cable without blinking, but watching a movie…I don’t know.  Maybe I have a short attention span.  Maybe I didn’t watch enough movies as a kid.  Maybe I like my entertainment to be in the form of mindlessness that can be turned off at any time.  Who knows?

So the movies that Dave and I watched together over 6 weeks include…Hot Fuzz, Shaun of the Dead, Gattaca, Paranormal Activity, The Village and Up.  I promise…I stayed awake for all of them.

Oh, and speaking of the cable, we did cancel it in December.  I have been reduced to watching crappy network sitcoms and public television.  I am still going through serious withdrawal.

#51 – Read a science fiction book.

I have actually completed a handful of the things on my “To Do” list recently, all of which I will write about shortly.

I had never read a genuine honest to goodness science fiction book before, and Dave challenged me to do so.  That’s why this goal made the list.

First, I chose to read The Invisible Man, by H.G. Wells, because I had actually heard of H.G. Wells, Wikipedia referenced it as one of the original science fiction works and, I’ll be honest, I was browsing the book store in my office building one day and I noticed how short it was.  Dave told me it didn’t count…no spaceships!!

My second choice, after realizing the spaceship criteria, was Ender’s Game.  Another quick search online revealed it as a quintessential spaceship science fiction book.  Turns out that Dave had recently read the same book.  Shame on me for not actually caring what he was reading, just lumping all of his selections into the evil category of science fiction.  But there it was, we already owned a copy of the book.

So, I read it, and it was good.  Not like John Steinbeck good, but I did honestly enjoy reading it.  It had lots and lots of spaceships in it, and it was well written and entertaining…until the big plot twist…which I read standing up on a Chicago Avenue bus one day and it made me want to put the book down and give up on my goal all together.  I won’t reveal the plot twist, but I will say that I didn’t see it coming and I really kind of hated the book and gave up on it for a couple days.  But I did go back and finish the book.  In retrospect, I would give the book 3 out of 5 stars.

Anyhow, something that struck me in reading this book are the similarities between science fiction and the scary horror books that I always enjoy.  Stephen King is one of my favorite authors.  He is known for the dramatic, the inappropriate and the gruesome.   But often times his books have an element of fantasy or, quite honestly, science fiction.  I didn’t fully appreciate this until I read a genuine honest to goodness science fiction book.

Turns out our interests in reading aren’t that different after all.

#82 – Throw out all of my old pots and pans and start cooking on all stainless steel cookware.

Over Labor Day weekend, Dave and I were in California, but my family was staying at our apartment in Chicago.  I believe it was my sister-in-law, Katrina, who made vanilla pudding that weekend in our kitchen, and it turned out to have flakes of Teflon in it.  They didn’t eat the “Teflon Pudding”, but my Mom did start to worry about us dying from cancer from eating Teflon.

So thanks to an early Christmas present from my parents, we were able to go out and buy a very nice new collection of stainless steel cookware.  I wanted to go the stainless steel route because the high performance, quality and durability.  I am hard on pots and pans.  Obviously I can not be trusted with non-stick cookware.  I will use the metal spatula, I will.

There is a bit of a learning curve in cooking with stainless steel – like preheat the cookware, and don’t turn the burner all the way up unless you want to boil water – but I’m getting the hang of it.  When I follow the rules, I haven’t had any issues with food sticking.  And I get to use all the sharp and pointed tools I want.  I am also learning to cook more with my cast iron skillet and my new cast iron griddle.

We did throw out all the old scratched Teflon cookware.  Hopefully we didn’t eat too much of it.

#86 – Hem a pair of pants.

Funny story. I actually completed this task for the first time over Memorial Day weekend…yeah, a while ago. Then I wore the pair of pants to work the next day. I always wear sneakers on my way to work, as I walk a mile to the train. I have a collection of heels in my office that I can change into.  So it wasn’t until I was looking at myself in the full-length mirror in the office bathroom that I remembered you’re supposed to measure the hem while wearing the shoes you will normally wear with the pants before you actually do all the work.

Elementary school taunts of “high-waters” came clearly to mind, and I wore my sneakers around the office the rest of the day.

I have since repaired the damage and hemmed a few other work pants as well, so I’m calling this exciting chore complete.

#36 – Return all of the pictures I used for our wedding to my Mom and to my Mother-in-law.

As part of the decoration for the reception at our wedding last year, we framed 120-something of our favorite family pictures.

This required sorting through boxes of old family pictures, which I always love to do.  Of course it also required buying 120-something frames, 120-something mattes, cleaning 120-something pieces of glass, scanning seemingly 10 times 120-something pictures, and printing the best 120-something of them.  We totally blew the color ink budget for 2008.

It was worth it.

Big thanks to both Moms who let us rummage through boxes of old pictures and were patient with us when we didn’t return all those pictures until the second year of our marriage.

And now we have 120-something matching frames in a closet.

#99 – Do light weight exercises with arms every day (90 days).

#100 – Do sit-ups every day (90 days).

I was thoroughly convinced that I would possess some sort of super human strength after a few little exercises every day for only 90 days.  Alas, I do not.  I am, however, more toned.  And this has been a big help in the whole weight loss thing.

I will keep it up.

#22 – Return to Whitewater, WI for our one year anniversary.

We have been married for a year.

Wait, what?  We have been married for a year???  But, when and HOW EXACTLY did that happen?  No, honestly, we don’t know what we’re doing!  I have nothing profound to say here.  Dave is a patient man.

But not yet mastering the art of married life did not stop us from a good celebration.  We celebrated both Dave’s 31st birthday and our first wedding anniversary this past weekend in style.  We returned to the place in Wisconsin where we got engaged over two years ago.

We stayed at the same B&B.

We took the same five mile hike where Dave proposed to me.

We were pleasantly surprised to see that the exact bench on which Dave asked me to marry him has since been appropriately graffitied.

We won the Wisconsin state lottery.  And then blew our winnings on another lottery ticket.

We enjoyed the nature.

And of course, I got Dave a remote controlled helicopter for his birthday, the only appropriate gift for a 31 year old man and his cat.

And we relaxed.  It was wonderful.

I has been a whirlwind first year of marriage, Dave.  Here’s to the second year being half as hectic and exactly as enjoyable!