November's Dream List

Here is a list of things I hope to get accomplished in November:

• have a clean house when I leave for vacation so I can return home to a clean house
• Have a marvelous vacation
• Register for the Fargo Half Marathon
• Run at least 55 miles
• Participate in at least 6 Group Power Classes
• make dinner reservations for Disneyland in January
• Clean & Organize my loft space
• Make cutout cookies (a tradition on Marc's family that they always decorate Christmas cookies as a family the day after Thanksgiving, it is apparently Marc & I's turn to make the cookies for everyone to decorate)
• Thanksgiving Trip to Wisconsin
• Middle School Gathering
• Mail Christmas Cards
• Get curriculum written ahead of time (I am writing curriculum for our Family Faith Journey at work and I would like to be more than a week ahead)
• buy new running shoes (yes, I am finally committing to it)
• Keep 2012's 366 project life up to date
• Finish my 2011's (yes, you read that correctly 2011, yes, yes, I am way behind on this one) shutterfly book
• Make progress on 2012's shutterfly book
• Finish 2011's (yep way behind on this one too) Disney trip photobook
• drink at least 100 ounces of water every day
• walk at least 15,000 steps a day (I have gradually been increasing this, when I began in September my goal was 10,000 steps, October 12,500 steps - some days these goals are totally easy and other days they take some serious commitment to getting my steps in - will be an interesting challenge while on vacation)
• Begin working on summer 2012's mission trip photo book

What's on your November dream to-do list?
Has November arrived ridiculously fast for anyone else?
Do you have any fun projects you are working on?

20 Chore Tuesday

Talk about a pre-vacation to-do list. I leave on Thursday for vacation and couldn't be more excited, I feel like it has been quite some time since I have been on vacation where the goal is to relax and doesn't have a purpose [going to a wedding, running a half marathon, moving a friend/family, visiting 10,000 family members].

My pre-vacation 20 chore Tuesday includes:

• ensure family faith journey is prepped for someone to fill in my place
• run off weekly handouts for family faith journey
• Camp V meeting at noon
• teach swimming lessons
• call one of my favorite people to wish her a happy birthday
• make my bed [seriously I love crawling into a made bed but hate making my bed every mornign and I massively got out of the habit of making my bed and am now slowly getting back into the habit of making it every day - yes, this seriously makes me sound like I am five and my mother is yelling at me to make my bed - which surprisingly my mother never ever ever cared if our beds were made]
• laundry
• run
• update my project life 366 2012 photobook
• empty sink of dishes that has built up [seriously how does this always happen, why can I not get in the habit of throwing the dishes in the dishwasher as soon as I use them]
• walk the dog
• buy Halloween candy to hand out tomorrow [I am way behind on this one, obviously]
• pull out suitcase to pack in
• start packing
• call cake woman for wedding and tell her we want to go with her [soooo many details for a wedding who knew]
• ball yarn/make sure I have the yarn I want to take on vacation
• update kindle - download a new book for vacation
• return books to library (books are due while I am on vacation and I refuse to get a late fee - small pat on the back - which seriously no one really cares about this - but for as long as I can remember I have never had a library late charge, which is a small miracle given how many books I check out of the library.)
• square away other details at work for while I'll be on vacation
• empty memory cards on my cameras for vacation (seriously who doesn't have a couple cameras that they plan on taking on vacation - oh yeah, most people - I have a dslr camera I plan on taking as well as a point & shoot)

Project 366 in 2012

Every Sunday night I seem to have patterns of things I always do such as:

• I always look ahead at the next week's calendar to get a grasp at what this coming week will look like
• I always make sure my laundry is folded and put away (not certain why I like to start the week with clean laundry and have it put away but for some reason I like not having piles of laundry on Monday morning)
• I always run the dishwasher - living by myself it takes me several days to fill the dishwasher and by Sunday nights it always seems to be packed - I hate waking up Monday morning and not having a clean cereal bowl - yes, I know this is trivial and I could wash a bowl by hand, but I like having clean dishes out of the dishwasher
• I always take Dakota for a good long walk - one last super long walk before the week begins
• I always update my Project 366 shutterfly book.

Last night as I was updating my shutterfly book (meaning I add pictures from the last week, get the layout as I want it, add descriptions, blah blah blah, you are catching on - so that at the end of the year I don't have to attempt (because I am pretty certain it would be nearly impossible to remember which picture went with which day) to put the whole book together) and as I was scrolling through the pages to get to last week's pages I was in awe of how fabulous the year has been. I am loving the every day project. I am loving that I can look and get a glimpse at what was happening in life. I love that I have pictures of piles of dirty laundry, a clean kitchen, construction, unexpected visitors, my sweet puppy, running paraphanalia, and some totally random things that I have seen while out hiking.

I entered into this project for no real reason, other than I wanted to take more pictures, this project has for sure required me to be creative in what I take pictures of, not every day is there something monumental to take photos of. However I have more than realized that life is made up of just as many little moments as big ones. I also enjoy that it is a leap year so we get 366 days in the year. I loved looking back in the album and remembering things that I have already forgotten this year. I love looking and seeing how my sweet puppy has grown over the year and some of the things she has gotten into.

I originally thought this project would be a pain in my butt but I am loving it, every second of it. I think this could be continuing on at least another year. I had no expectation that it would but as long as I am still loving it, the project will go on. I don't ever want it to become a chore - that will mark the end of the project.

Thanks be to God for fun projects!