Check another two off...

(FYI, I began this post on 12/10 but it's now 1/3, so I'm going to try to finish it up quickly and move on to some other updates)

91. Visit France (with Brian this time)

It may have only been for a weekend - 2 full days - but we walked our legs off and we got to see all of the sights in one day. At least the major ones, without actually going inside (i.e. Louvre, which would've taken a day just to experience!)... Sunday morning we got an early start, went to a cafe for breakfast (near our hotel in Montparnasse), then walked to La Tour Eiffel... the weather had been terrible, but it cleared up that morning, so we were able to get some blue sky shots of the Eiffel Tower. After that, we wandered down the L'Arc de Triomphe, then continued down Blvd du Champs Elysee, stopping in the Louis Vuitton store to drool. I was thinking that getting a good deal would be possible... HAHA!! I couldn't believe how much those things cost! We saw a suitcase in there that cost over 10,000 euro!! That would be over 15 grand!! Craziness. Anyhoo, we wandered down Champs Elysee to Jardins Tuileries, the gardens that lead to the Louvre.. in summertime it's gorgeous and full of people.. not as many people there, but we did pass some enjoying a picnic. Stopped at the Louvre for pictures, then continued on to Notre Dame... of course by then it had started raining, so we stopped into a cafe by Pont Neuf for a late lunch. The rain let up a little, and we trekked back to our hotel from there.. we were going to walk through Les Jardins Luxembourg, but we were exhausted from all the walking and just wanted to get back and take a nap!

51. Learn French (enough to be able to get through a day in Paris unassisted)

I'm checking this one off. Despite my frustrations with my french teacher, she did force me to learn the language... albeit in my own way and with minimal help from her!! I also earned an A in the class, but believe it or not, the weekend trip to Paris didn't help. However, back to my "enough to be able to make it through a day in Paris unassisted" - I certainly did that (in broken French, I'm sure). I purchased our Paris trip passes which was supposed to allow us to use all of the RATP in Paris, I got us from the airport to our hotel by using the RER and Metro, I ordered for myself and Brian in every restaurant we went to (we also had the best cup of coffee in either of our lives at Cafe Leffe in Montparnasse by our hotel), and on the last day while traveling back to the airport on the Metro, I got myself out of a messy situation when my Paris pass stopped working and I got stuck on the wrong side of a gate. :-P We also had a funny moment on Sunday when we went off on our own... a French woman stopped to ask me if I knew where a certain place was, and I said "Je suis Americain, je regrette, je ne sais pas!" (I'm American, I'm sorry, I don't know!" And she smiled at us and said "Ahhh, uhh... Happy Day!!" It was so funny and sweet! And people think that all French people are rude. ;)

So that's my story!! :)

I have more things to update... must post now.

Batteries and brokerage

10. Buy another battery for my digital camera (Day 172)

My battery finally came in… it wasn't cheap, either! I think I paid $30 for the damn thing. I haven't had the chance to use it yet, but I imagine that it works. ;) Hopefully I'll have the opportunity to use it next month in Paris. Speaking of which, I don't know if Brian will be going with me or not.. As it looks now, he won't be - he was able to get off on Christmas, but not for that weekend. We're going to try to trade for the best trip(s) possible for that time period and then advertise it with some cash incentives! Hopefully someone will pick it up and we'll be able to go. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

59. Open a brokerage account and start investing – including transferring my WTC stock (Day 182)

This is as good as done (so I'm checking it off)… since it's a federal holiday and every other bank but ours is closed, I decided to rebel and open this account today. Actually what prompted me to open it was that I was looking at ExpressJet's stock price and thinking "wow, under $3 a share?? That's gotta go up soon!" So I figure I can buy a hundred or so shares now and get a nice return. Capital gains be damned! Anyway, advertised right next to the stock price was "100 trades free" with E*TRADE. Plus I like their commercials. Okay, well I know that's a bad reason.. Anyway, I think the 100 trades free only pertained to accounts over $50,000… which I don't have…. Yet. At any rate, I'm overnighting them my WTC stock certificates and I've also filled out the paperwork to transfer my prudential stock holdings at computershare. I'm trying to get my finances a little more straightened out… or at least get all of my stock (except for my 401k) in the same place. Right now I have securities in two different places. Along the same lines, two months ago I opened up a high-yield savings account through WT Direct - it's my company's internet bank. Of course when I first opened it, they were offering 5.15%, now it's down to 5.06%... I think they started at 5.25%. Anyway, I'm moving some money around since I have this E*TRADE account now. My Bank of America CD matures next April.. I'm probably going to take some of that and put it in the E*TRADE account… I'll put the rest in my WT Direct account. It's a higher yield.
Hopefully I'll get some juicy stock tips and buy a bunch of shares of the next Google. :)

Wishing that I'd made an easier 101 list

I was thinking this week while looking at other's 101 lists that mine has some pretty huge tasks on it. Probably the most daunting of all is cleaning out my dad's house. Well, I guess that would be my house. There are just so many small steps to doing it that I would've made it seem less... well... daunting. For those that don't know, my dad was a hoarder, and he also lived in filth. He's the most intelligent man I've ever known, but his genius was not in cleaning or giving things away, that's for sure. He was so obsessed with finding good deals and not shopping for things new (except for certain high-tech gadgets and instruments) that he probably spent more money on buying multiples of everything just in case one broke, or wow, look at this... it's only $20... they cost $200 new - I MUST have it! Not to mention the case of the cut in half flip-flops. Please people...
1. Have a Will, or at least make your wishes known should you meet an untimely demise.
2. Make it easy to find important documents in your house.
3. Keep your house in working order.
4. Do your dishes at least once a week.
5. Try to keep your home free of dead rats.
6. When the ceilings start caving in and you have buckets collecting water around, please fix the roof. (I guess that goes with #3)


Oh, there are so many others... but I need to stop my rant now. Anyway, I didn't want anyone to think that I was "slacking" on my list... a lot of the problems I'm having now are time-oriented. Not to mention the incredible cost of some items on my list. I mean...

Buy a house, buy an original piece of artwork, complete my AA degree, buy a Bose sound dock station, Get my tattoo removed, Go to HMI, Go on a Caribbean Cruise, Have my teeth professionally whitened, Learn to fly, See the Redskins at home & away vs Cowboys, Weekend trip to Europe, visit Nancy in Australia, try laser hair removal, Visit: winery in CA, France, Key West, Lake Tahoe, etc.

Yeaaaaaaah. Estimated cost of these items: well... it depends on the cost of the house, really. But we'll just go with the downpayment that I'm planning on... around $30k. Hmm. Well, of the items I listed, I could see those all costing around at least $45k. And I would also imagine that I'll be paying for a wedding in the next 2 years as well. So...... yeah. Some of these are going to have to be trimmed down, I imagine. I just can't afford it... even with the free/reduced airfare, it ain't gonna be cheap.

Anyway, back to my baby steps wish. Sigh. Yeah. I wish that I'd put more in here about organization... I'm planning on renting a storage place so I can move some of the things out of the house in Denton that I'm keeping. This will also come in handy for all of the camping crap that we now have... and I'm also planning on sorting through those lovely school books and putting those in storage as well. My grand plan is for us to have more shelving when we buy a house so that I can have a wall of knowledge. Right now our DVD's are taking over our lovely IKEA bookshelf thing and we have no DVD rack... so I ordered one that should fit nicely by the wine tower.

Well, I'm just procrastinating... right now I need to be doing an assignment for my computer class, so I guess I'll get to it. Bonne nuit!

Don't these people know I have something to check off on my 101 list??? sheesh!

Hello Lauren,

We are writing to let you know that we are experiencing a delay in being able to fulfill one or more items on your order #35562032.

We apologize for any inconvenience this might cause you. The item(s) affected by this backorder notification are:

Order #35562032

sku: 202749505

description: Olympus LI-42B LI-42B Lithium Ion Battery qty: 1 --------------------------------------------------------

Grr. Well, it isn't for lack of trying!!

In other news, I think that I may be understanding a little bit better in my french class. Yay!

Je pense que je comprends un peu francais!

(did I get that right?) I'm finally understanding a little of adjective placement, masc/fem form and plurals. I seriously doubt I'll ever get the tenses down, but that won't be for another few classes anyway. Nothing better than immersion, though... I am READY to go to Paris!
Je suis pret aller paris? S'il vous plait, pardon ma francaise broken!!

Completed #5

Taking a break from my 217 page Excel Lab to finally copy & paste this entry...

5. Beat Brian at a video game in an arcade

It was no easy task, and he kicked my @ss more times than I could count that night (we were at the Goodwill Gridiron event at Dave & Buster's), but I beat Brian at a few different games… most of them driving games. Once on Need for Speed, twice on Nascar, and once on the Hyper Bowl game. :) I won't mention that he also shut me out 7-0 at air hockey.. But I did say "video game", not table game. So that works. Hurray!

I also ordered another battery for my digital camera, but I won't check that one off until I actually get it.

#95 Completed and an update on where I stand with some other items on the list

I've been typing this for probably the past week - working on it whenever I think about it, but didn't get a chance to post it until tonight. And of course I should be working on my ridiculous pile of homework instead!!

13. Complete my AA degree

I was hoping to finish this in the spring, but my plans have been foiled by the lack of an intermediate algebra class being offered during the winter mini-semester. I also found out that once you get into the remedial algebra classes, you can't re-take the accuplacer test. Of course, I feel like I'm finally getting algebra, and would be able to do fine in a regular college algebra class now (with perhaps a bit more studying)… but alas, it was not to be. Nothing my advisor or anyone else can do. I figure that I've already harassed one department head this semester, I guess I'll leave the math department head alone. At least I'm making progress! Right now I have a 3.8.. I'm hoping to get up to a 3.9gpa by the time I graduate. I'm still pissed at myself for screwing up my 4.0. My rationale at the time (for not being too upset) was that I was bound to get less than an A when I began my math and science courses. Of course, I have a nearly perfect score in my math class - I got a 99 on my first test, and a 100 on my second. I'll get my 3rd test back tomorrow, but I'm guessing that although it was difficult and time-consuming, I will most likely get an A on it as well.

34. Go through old class books & notebooks (throw out or give away the ones I don’t need anymore)
I began this process last weekend (10/7) while Brian and I were straightening up for company. I have a habit of diving into side projects while on larger cleaning ventures, and I began going through notebooks and school books while dusting the shelves of our giant bookcase/DVD-CD storage/junk place. I've come to the realization that it's going to be hard to part with a lot of the information. A lot of the crap is from my psych classes, and actually is a) interesting stuff and b) will most likely come in handy further along in my education for reference material. So I'm afraid that this project will be stalled, or will be checked off just from my inability to get rid of the stuff. Just as long as I don't turn into my dad, I'll be okay. I don't seem to have a problem getting rid of old shoes & clothing, at least. I'll also dispose of old novels that I've read.. I just need to get back into selling stuff here and there on eBay. I probably should've made it a goal to sell 1 item a month on eBay.
48. Hike Old Rag
I wanted to hike Old Rag this weekend (10/20), but when I brought it up, Brian reminded me of how stressed out I am and how I keep making plans when I can't handle them. Not to mention the cost of staying at a B&B for a night or two, plus food out, etc. Not to mention the horrific shape that I'm in at the moment… an 8 or 9 mile hike might do me in! Of course instead of hiking Old Rag, I believe that we are now going to the Renaissance Festival. Fine with me, I've been wanting to go this year!
51. Learn French (enough to be able to get through a day in Paris unassisted)
Well… this is going……. Hmm. Well, a little bit better. Despite my teacher's initial best efforts to get us all to drop the class, a lot of us hung in there, and I do feel that I've learned something since we started. It's not entirely her fault; she's never taught before, et le livre est terrible! See, I'm learning something… I didn't even have to look that up. To go along with #91, we are planning a weekend in Paris (12/8 & 9), which is incidentally the weekend before my final exams. I think that French immersion right before a French final exam is probably the best study guide I can get!

52. Learn to fly (complete a solo)
I've begun my journey. I now have logged 1.1 hours dual time in a Cessna 172. I only felt like I might vomit once, and I think it had more to do with my hangover than the actual flying.. Well, maybe it was a combination of the two. Brian is completing his CFI renewal online… I thought he was being sweet and doing it just so that he could teach me, but it turns out that he doesn't want all that money spent on his CFII & MEI ratings to go down the drain. So much for chivalry! For the meantime, flying is going to have to take a backseat to school. Before taking my second lesson, I'd like to have begun reading Jeppesen's Private Pilot… http://www.sportys.com/acb/showdetl.cfm?DID=19&Product_ID=9589&CATID=175The hangover also wasn't much help when he was trying to explain why the plane yaws to the left after take-off (aka the 4 left turning tendencies). Terms such as P-factor and torque reaction don't mean much during your first flight.. Well, I hadn't done my homework, either. Yeah, I was a little nervous. He treated me like a real student, and I don't know if I liked that so much! Next time I'm going to have to take off on my own. He said that ALL of his students take off on their second lesson. Next time I'm going to be prepared. At least a little.

72. Sell Denton house
Well, selling will happen after the clean-out. I keep saying it, but I'm going to hire professional help somewhere down the line. It's getting a little worse, because the plumbing isn't working now, either. Joy! Just thinking about having to go through all of that exhausts me and freaks me out. I'm going to begin by renting a storage unit.. We're running out of room at the apartment anyway. Buying the camping stuff pushed us over the edge.. There are a lot of boxes in the spare closet of the bedroom, and we can't put anything else in there. There's about an entire box of photos in there that I just don't have the energy to go through. I'm leaving some of my large projects for whenever Brian is gone for upgrade training. I figure that I'll be getting a lot done while he's gone, just to stay busy.

75. Send Anthony a wedding present/card
I was all ready to do this when I realized that I don't have his address. So I've emailed him to ask for his address. I should also make it a point to finally meet his wife.

91. Visit France (with Brian this time)
Brian and I should be spending the weekend in Paris on Dec. 8 & 9. It's all for academic reasons, of course - I'm studying for my final exam in my French class. ;) Actually, I'm/we're hoping to meet up with my Aunt Nancy & Uncle Darryl (from Australia) on that weekend. They've never met Brian, so that will be cool. Nancy is like a female version of my dad, only with more common sense, and certainly more fashion sense! Sorry Dad - I know that you'd agree, and wouldn't care either! Hopefully their laid-back travel style will rub off on Brian a little. We've agreed to limit the touristy stuff to the Eiffel Tower and L'Arc de Triumphe. There won't be enough time for the Louvre, although it's something I'd like to see eventually. When I went last time, I only saw the Eiffel Tower from a distance, kinda wanted to wait until we could see it together to go up in it. We're planning on eating in the restaurant there… it's expensive, but what the hell. We're paying next to nothing for airfare, so we can splurge elsewhere. Keeping my fingers crossed that all works out well for this trip… Christmas comes first, this trip second. Brian says that he's already going to miss Easter next year (we're planning the cruise for that week), so he needs to do holidays this year. Although I like the holidays and enjoy spending time with family, I would trade Christmas to see my aunt in Paris. Guess that goes with the whole family theme. We were never big (at least my dad wasn't) on celebrating actual holidays…we had a Christmas poinsettia instead of a tree plenty of times.

95. Visit Lehigh Valley, PA area to see if I might like to live there (changed from San Antonio, TX to Lehigh Valley, PA on 9/12/07)
We got to visit the Lehigh Valley area on September 16th, looked at some houses that were for sale in some different neighborhoods. We'd really like to live in Easton, PA… there's a community there called the Highlands that looks perfect for us. It has a mix of townhouses & single family homes, some built in the late 70's, but they are still developing some land there as well… most of the housing was built from 1985-2000. It's an interesting community. Easton seems like an up & coming area, and best of all, it is the birthplace of PEEPS!! Okay, I'm a dork. Anyway, there are lots of good colleges in the area… Penn State Lehigh Valley campus is about 30 minutes away, Lafayette College is 10 minutes away… there's also Lehigh University about 15-20 minutes away. I'm sure there are a few others close by as well. My company also has an office in Bethlehem, which would be a 15 minute drive to work - better than my current 45+ minute drive into Baltimore.

So that is where I stand at the moment! Another post coming soon - I have something else to check off.

P.S. on vet visit & french class

Took the cats back for their check-up after having to use the ear mite stuff for a week (they hated me). In the course of that time, Draco came down with some kind of cold. Turns out he has some kind of infection/cold, so now I drop another hundred bucks on that visit, get some antibiotics and now I'm squirting this nasty stuff down both of their throats twice a day. Yup, they run from me every time they see me now!

And on the french class... I just can't seem to catch a break with my french teachers. The person originally scheduled to teach the class was highly rated on ratemyprofessors.com and myspace. Of course they ended up switching her at the last minute with some woman who's never taught before. No syllabus, no structure. It was terrible. After the second class with no syllabus and her saying it wasn't important, I complained to the department head. She cleaned up her act a little bit but she's still terrible. What makes it worse is that her first language isn't English OR French. She's Lebanese. So I guess her first language is Arabic?? All she has done is tried to concentrate on the pronunciation of the SOUNDS, without saying what they mean. And add to that, she's not even pronouncing them correctly. So I've been relying on reading the book on my own, since she can't seem to figure out how it goes together... and I've been listening to my French lessons in the car on my iPod. It's the only way I'm going to learn anything. So I'm doing my damndest. It just sucks that I actually want to learn now and I get a crappy teacher. Grr, grr, grr.

/rant

#38 - Whitewater Rafting (day 111)

Awesome experience. I can't wait to go back! The Class IV rapids were almost too easy, but I think that was in large part to our guide being so fantastic. I'm sure that we would've taken a swim once or twice if it weren't for his knowledge of the river. We've decided that we're going to try the Cheat River in WV first - it's supposed to be a good introduction to Class V rapids. It's mostly Class IV and V rapids. The only problem is that it isn't dam-released like the Youghiogeny, so it can only be run in the spring. Can we say cold? So I look like a dork in the picture with my mouth hanging open. C'est la vie.

Well, I noticed that I accomplished my 10th item on day 111, so I'm more or less on-schedule for my 101 things. I figure that I should complete about 10 things every 100 days to stay on track. So far, so good!

Change to # 95.

Okay, I'm making another change to my 101 list - 95. Visit SAT to see if I might like to live there is going to become "Visit the Lehigh Valley area to look at homes/neighborhoods/towns/cities for move in 2008." Or something like that. For some reason, I was under the impression that there was a chance that we might move to Texas (SAT is one of ExpressJet's branded hubs in San Antonio). The reason that we are moving is to be near base when Brian upgrades to Captain, so that being on reserve won't be as bad - he'll be able to spend time at home instead of sitting in a crash pad away from home. The job is hard enough on our relationship - the commuting just makes it worse. The other nice thing about living closer to base is our non-rev possibilities… no longer will we have to drive 3+ hours to EWR or pray that we will make those flights to and from BWI that are frequently canceled. All we have to do is drive ~1 hour to EWR and hop on a direct flight to the city of our choosing (of course, that is provided there are open seats). No more connections to worry about! Anyway, the ultimate plan is probably going to be to get on with Southwest, which will mean moving back to MD in a few years. I was pushing him towards Continental, so we can keep the international travel benefits, haha. We'll still have them through interline travel, but it will be a bigger pain than we have right now. So we're just going to try to get our major travel done in the next few years (i.e. Japan, Australia, and hopefully South Africa), before kids and while we're young. Once kids come into the picture, we won't be jetting off to Paris for the weekend! We haven't exactly jetted off to Paris for the weekend yet, but hopefully we will soon. ;-) When we do jet off to Paris, it will most likely be in November or December of this year. So that will take care of #91 and will be a test for whether or not I've completed #51.

#83 complete - after 2 hours and $200!

Just got back from taking the cats to the vet... both of them got distemper and rabies shots... and they also both have EAR MITES!

The vet washed out their ears and I have ear drops that I have to give them twice a day. Should be fun!

#4 Officially complete... with 3 more items in the works!

4. Back up my computer files DONE! The back-up process took 12 hours... I think that it's partially because the laptop kept going into sleep mode. I may change the way that I backed things up, though... I just used the software that came with the drive, so it backed up all of my programs and everything else... I was more concerned with just backing up my pictures, documents & music. Oh well... at least it's finished. Hopefully I can keep that up to date!
38. Go white water rafting - I will be doing this next Sunday! We're rafting the Youghiogheny in a little over a week. :) We're also going camping, so I just ordered the tent from Amazon... I figure (hope) that we'll be camping more frequently. I haven't decided what to do with the cats yet - I haven't emailed our pet sitter!

51. Learn French (enough to be able to get through a day in Paris unassisted) - I will be starting on this journey next Tuesday. My French class begins then... just bought my books for all of my classes... it was almost $500 for all of my books. I still have to buy a graphing calculator, too!

83. Take Piper to get the rest of her shots in 2007 - I am taking both Piper and Draco to the vet next Monday (27th) to get all of their shots. I'm a bad mommy, I've never taken them to the vet!! They're both fixed and Draco had all of his shots when we adopted him, but Piper still needed her rabies and distemper shots. They'll be real happy with me when we're done, I'm sure!!


I was just thinking of when I'm going to complete #60 - Open Champagne from France trip in 2006. There are 3 occasions that would be worth opening that bottle up in the next year - Brian upgrading to Captain, us getting engaged, and buying a house. If I had to bet, I would say that we will be opening it for Brian's upgrade. I guess at that time we'll decide whether to open it when we get the news or after he passes his checkride. Hmmm.

#4 nearly complete!

As I'm typing this, my StorageSync Backup is humming along. Currently there are 3 Gigs that have been backed up... there are about 37 to go. The external hard drive came with the storagesync software... it's pretty handy! After this initial back up, subsequent back ups should be a lot easier. The program has been running for a while... I'm just going to let it run when I go to bed, since I don't know how long it will take. I'll post again once it's officially backed up.

Woo-hoo!

An update on my progress... or lack thereof

It's been a while since I've made an entry, so I thought that I would make one to say that I haven't done much of anything. My internet time became a little too involved in following the "Toddler on a Plane" story... I had to put up a good fight, of course!!

So I've been spending more time doing nothing and less time doing something.

But that's okay because classes start in less than 3 weeks and I will have no life after that. :( I'm taking 11 credits and am working full time. I must really be a glutton for punishment! One of the classes will be taken online, so at least I'll have a little bit of flexibility. That's also my test for how disciplined I can be.

Well, my 160 Gig hard drive is still sitting in it's factory packaging. It's an awfully expensive knick-knack, so I may have to think about doing something with it. My goal is to accomplish #4 this weekend. I swear. Brian will be home, so I'm hoping that we can both motivate each other to get our crap on there.

On the cleaning out Denton house (#12) topic, I have decided to hire professionals for the job. It's been two years since my dad died (2 years on August 5th), and I need to get my ass in gear. It's expensive, but they specialize in hoarders and big messes like that. I'm hoping that I have more success in selling it (the house, not the crap - but I'd like to sell as much as possible, since a lot of it is quality junk... my dad loved ebay!) than Crystal has had with her house in MI. I've been planning on using part of the funds from that for the downpayment for our house in PA.

Yes, in case you didn't know, Brian and I are moving to PA next year so that he can be closer to work. Commuting sucks, and it's taking a toll on both of us. Once he upgrades to Captain, he'll be back on reserve and our QOL will be nil. The good news is that my company has offices in PA, and my boss loves me. Of course, he's going to be pissed when I leave (he told me that I needed to give him 6 months notice), but said that he'll support me in whatever I want to do. He's a good guy. :)

Well, it's getting late and I am super tired. Guess I'm getting old. Thanks for reading!

#58 Completed - electronically

I met with an advisor.... online, that is. I called to schedule an appointment with him, but then got a message saying that appointments were walk-in. So I emailed my advisor to give a rough outline of what I was trying to accomplish, and I found that my dummy algebra classes don't count towards my remaining 17 institutional credits. So, we had a virtual meeting... it saved time and gas, so I'm all for it. At any rate, what all of this means is that I will not have a life for the next year... no more happy hours or fun for me. I'll be taking 11 credits this fall and working full time... so please understand if I'm in a constant bad mood or don't feel like hanging out. :( It sucks, but I have to get it done... poor Brian is the one that will have to live with me. C'est la vie. OH! But French does count towards my credits, so I'll be working on #51 this way, at least. I'm still hoping to do that long weekend in Paris, but we'll see what happens.

Pray for me, I'm going to need it.

#88 Completed, and I even enjoyed it!

On day 58 (that would be yesterday, 7/11) of my 1001 days, I tried scrapbooking... so, hurray!! 88. Try scrap booking (make at least one page) ... (sorry, I had to try that nifty strikethrough deal that Tiffany told me about at the 101 party.) My friend Kathy's daughter is turning 16 this month (which is crazy in itself, I remember when she was 9, now the girl is taller than me!!)… to celebrate her birthday, her mom is collecting scrapbook pages from her friends, family, etc. I made her a page from the cats, because it was something a little different from everyone else. :) I took a picture of it, I'll have to try to post it with this blog. Actually, I think that I'll begin posting pictures (if possible) of my 101 accomplishments. Tonight I'll go back and edit some of my earlier posts and add in the pics (done). That should be cool. Unfortunately, the only pic I have that shows me at Stonehenge is of the self-portrait variety. I think that Brian might have a copy, but I won't get it until he backs up his files on that hard-drive, too. That will be nice, because we'll finally be able to share pictures. I'm always good (at least I think I am) about sending him pics that I think he'll want, but where are MINE??? :-P I must train that boy!! Hmm, that should've been one of my 101.
Oh, but back to scrapbooking - it was actually FUN! I was so surprised that I enjoyed it, because I've been lacking creativity lately. The nice thing about scrapbooking is that if I decide to take it up, I will have a place for all of those little sentimental items that are hanging around.. Receipts from special dinners, notes, tickets from concerts, boarding passes… okay, well maybe not the boarding passes, I could probably fill up a whole scrapbook just with the boarding passes that I have at the moment. Especially the ones that are printed out first with my SA4P pass travel priority printed on them, before I get my seat assignment. Errr, that is IF I get my seat assignment. Seat assignments aside, this is how my first attempt turned out:

#58 (Meet with an advisor at AACC before 8/10/07 ) is almost complete as well. It turns out that the information that I need wasn't all that complicated. He emailed me back less than an hour after I asked him my questions... this was his response:
Hello Lauren, No problem with the lengthy email. I work from Noon to 8 PM on Tuesdays. The rest of the week my hours are 8:30 to 4:30. I'd be happy to help you if you need any assistance. Our records show that you need 17 more credits to reach the total of 60 that are required. Those 17 credits need to include: 3 cr general education computer technology, 4 cr general education LAB science, and 3 cr general education math. The remaining credits can be electives of your choosing (no Underwater Basket Weaving). Before you take your credit math course you need to complete Beginning Algebra (MAT 011) and Intermediate Algebra (MAT 012). You should have no trouble getting into Penn State-Lehigh. Hope this helps. Welcome back.>Mike
So, I'm waiting to hear back to see if those remedial algebra classes will count against those 17 extra credits that I need. If they don't, I'm kinda screwed, as that means that I will need to take two more electives in additon to graduate. Either way it ends up, the next year is going to be pretty tough. My plan right now is to take my beginning algebra & computer tech course this fall (total of 7 credits), physical lab science & intermediate algebra in the spring 08 semester, and then do one of those intensive mini-semesters at the beginning of the summer for my college algebra course. Full immersion is better anyway, I won't have time to do anything else. If I end up needing to take extra credits (if those MAT 012 & 013 classes don't count), I won't be able to finish until Fall 08. Which wouldn't kill me, but I'm already a little behind schedule. I sure wish that I'd planned this differently!! You know, actually done well after I graduated HS and have at least my BA by now. C'est la vie.

Oh, and my plan is to complete #4 tonight (back up my computer files)... I bought a 160 GB external hard drive last week that both Brian and I can back up our stuff on. It's small enough that it will fit in our fireproof safe, too. Hopefully I'll be making that post later. Don't count on it, though. ;)

#63 completed

Read my Aunt Dede’s book - completed 6/30/07... I was able to finally finish reading my Aunt's book last weekend while I was sitting in airports or on planes for 24 hours, getting to or from Lafayette, LA. Her book was quite good! It isn't something I would probably read on my own, I prefer mystery, medical thriller and sci-fi type stuff (I'm a dork), but it held my interest very well. So much so that I would even recommend it to others, and not just because I'm her niece. ;) So I can honestly say that I enjoyed her book.

Tonight I am going to Sara's for her 101 list party! I can't wait!! :)

I think I'm going to have to modify #42

Going without using the internet would be nearly impossible for me, since I use it every day at work... so the only way that I could not use it would be during a vacation. I don't take many 2 week vacations! So I think that this will have to be modified to "go without using the internet for one week." That way is much more do-able. When I first posted my blog, I had planned on allowing myself to change up to 5 items on the list a year, because I don't want to be resistant to change. ;) Sometimes life circumstances change and doing something on your list becomes less important or relative. So consider this modification to be my first change of the year. I have 4 changes left until next May.

#2 and #11 completed!

#2 was completed over the weekend - I headed up to MA for the weekend for my 2nd cousins' (my cousin's 5 month old triplets) christening and my other 2nd cousin's 4th birthday party. I just can't believe that Emma is already 4... she is such a gorgeous little girl... she is going to give mom & dad a lot of trouble when she gets older, haha! While helping to prepare for the party, I happened to mention to my aunt and cousin that I'd never changed a diaper. That takes care of #11 - change a diaper. It wasn't pleasant, but it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be, either. During the weekend, I also had the opportunity to feed the babies and consequently be spit up on. They're the cutest things... must be because we're related, hehe.

Here's my proof... I hate the diaper picture, it might be the worst pic of me ever... but it was taken towards the end of the day after I'd already been spit-up on, and this was actually my 2nd diaper of the day. Not to mention that I'd been outside helping my uncle drag stuff in just as it started pouring down rain. The diaper changing is Will and the feeding pic is Adie (see how nice I looked at the beginning??? sheesh!)

I've also been working on #63 - read my Aunt Dede's book. I'm about halfway through it and I'm really enjoying it! The problem has just been finding the time to do it. Fortunately (or not!) with all of the time that I've been sitting around airports, I've had more time to read. Hurray!

#59 is now in progress as well... I haven't really opened a brokerage account, but apparently I have a Computershares account with some shares of Prudential stock in it. I'm going to see if I can put my Wilmington Trust ESPP shares into that account too. I have the certificates for 20 shares now, and I should be getting certificates for another 50 shares shortly. I imagine that after I get that certificate, I'll open that account. Really.

First post!

Well, it's time to finally make my first post in this blog. I created it about a month ago, but due to my hectic life, I hadn't made any posts. I'm going to deem my official start date of my 101 as May 16th. As best as I can figure out with my horrific math skills, that means that I have until February 10, 2010 to complete this list - which will be 5 years and one day after Brian and I started dating. Today will mark day 31 of my 1001 days. I'd better get on the ball.
However, I began with May 16th because that is the approximate date of the creation of this blog, and it is also the day that I completed #55 - Make a checklist, chart or flow chart of household chores to make life easier. I made both a checklist AND a flow chart and it helped some before we left on vacation.

Both of us have been slacking since we've been home, though. "Real life" isn't much fun. #96 - Visit Stonehenge has also been completed, and I visited Stonehenge on May 28th (Memorial Day), the 13th day of my 1001. Not only did we visit Stonehenge, we were on the Stonehenge special access tour, where we were able to touch the stones and spend a good bit of time inside this ancient circle.

It was an experience that most people will never have, and it was expensive enough that I don't know if I would do it again, lol! The U.S. Dollar is in the toilet, especially compared to the pound. The Euro to US Dollar is bad enough, but British pounds are over double. It's crazy.
Anyway, here I go! This weekend I will complete # 2!