Well hellooo dearie...

Well, I did exactly what I swore I wouldn't do. I started a blog and disappeared. It's been a very busy couple of months, but that's no excuse! I'm back and I'm planning on keeping this up. Promise.

I'm finally ready to start what lead me to wanting to do a blog. It's called 101 in 1001, and the point is to set 101 goals to be completed in 1001 days. I've always wanted to "get out there" and do cool things with my life, and this is my chance to decide the things I want to do and stick to them. So here goes..


The Challenge:
Complete 101 preset tasks in a period of 1001 days.

The Criteria: 
Tasks must be specific (ie. no ambiguity in the wording) with a result that is either measurable or clearly defined. Tasks must also be realistic and stretching (ie. represent some amount of work on your part).

Why 1001 Days? 
Many people have created lists in the past - frequently simple challenges such as New Year's resolutions or a 'Bucket List'. The key to beating procrastination is to set a deadline that is realistic. 1001 Days (about 2.75 years) is a better period of time than a year, because it allows you several seasons to complete the tasks, which is better for organising and timing some tasks such as overseas trips, study semesters, or outdoor activities.

Family + Relationships

1) Start my 101 in 1001 after we move into our 1st apartment!

2) Kiss in the rain

3) Re-connect with 2 old friends

4) Write my own wedding vows

5) Host a dinner party for 8 of our friends

6) Write a letter to my future children and grandchildren

7) Organize me and Pat’s history- letters, pictures, cards and mementos 

8) Start writing our story into a book

9) Legally change my name on credit cards, checks and licenses once we're married

10) Watch Christmas Eve on Sesame with my dad

11) Write a letter to me and my husband to be opened on our 10th anniversary

12) Do something super special for my parents

Be creative + learn!

13) Create a Christmas card list and send out cards before Christmas

14) Learn to make Pat’s grandma’s cookies

15) Learn to make a good pot of sauce

16) Enter a photography contest

17) Learn to sew 

18) Read 50 books (0/50)

19) Read 5 biographies (0/5)

20) Try 25 new recipes (0/25)

21) Learn about 2 religions (0/2)

22) Learn how to use all of the features on my camera

23) Make sushi

24) For my wedding: design a monogram, create programs and place cards

25) Brew a good pot of coffee (not a K-cup!)

26) Refurbish a piece of furniture

27) Buy a cookbook and try 10 recipes from it (0/10)

28) Make a beautiful big wine rack (…or buy one)

29) Complete a 26 Things list on sh1ft.org

30) Bake an awesome birthday cake for someone 

31) Take a painting class

Entertainment + travel 

32) Go away for a mother/daughter weekend

33) Visit a random city in the US

34) Visit family in Arizona

35) Go to Montauk

36) Hike in the Grand Canyon

37) Take Tamber away for a weekend

38) Take a drawing class

39) Go ziplining

40) Start seriously planning a trip to Egypt or Morocco

41) Spend a tourist-y weekend in the city with my boy

42) Attend 6 concerts

43) Go horseback riding

44) Go to 3 different museums

45) Go rafting

46) Buy a piece of original art while on vacation

Get organized!

47) Start putting recipes in my recipe book

48) Organize my old photos into albums/print new photos and put in albums 

49) Purge my closet each spring

50) Organize family and friends birthdays into a calendar and send birthday cards to at least 20 people (0/20)

51) Find the right piece of furniture for the bedroom

52) Get thank you cards out within 2 months of our wedding 

For myself 

53) Go apple picking and then come home to make an apple pie

54) Walk 6 miles a week 2 out of 4 weeks per month for at least 6 months (0/6)

55) Write a living will

56) Reach my goal weight and stay there 

57) Be able to do an entire hearing test in Spanish

58) Hike

59) Do hot yoga at least once

60) Get a tattoo

61) Graduate with a 3.85 GPA

62) Run three 5k races (0/3)

63) Do a full body detox

64) Eat fish at least once a week for 12 weeks (0/12)

65) Cook every meal at home/bring lunch from home every day for 2 weeks

66) Take a self defense class

67) Get out of credit card debt

68) Get paid to photograph something

69) Get a job

70) Save at least 25% of each paycheck for the future (10% wedding, 10% house, 5% retirement)

71) Create something I can sell 

72) Write a letter to myself to be opened on the 1001st day

For others

73) Volunteer at a soup kitchen 

74) Donate $200 to charity

75) Donate $10 to a charity for each task not completed

76) Perform 3 random acts of kindness

77) Send a care package to a soldier overseas

78) Grow my hair long and then donate it to Locks of Love

79) Post 3 Operation Beautiful notes in public places

80) Speak at a Career Day at OLMA

For fun

81) Try 8 new local restaurants (not chains)

82) Jump in a pile of freshly raked leaves 

83) Go paintballing

84) Create a blog about getting settled in an apartment and getting married and keep it up

85) Have a girls-only spa day with my closest friends

86) Grow a flower garden

87) Grow an herb garden

88) Come up with an awesome Halloween costume

89) See a sunrise

90) Sleep on a beach

91) See a sunset sitting somewhere special

92) Visit 5 places from Diners, Drive-ins & Dives or Best Thing I Ever Ate

93) Go parasailing, skydiving or bungee jumping

Eco-Friendly

94) Use a reusable grocery bag consistently for 6 months

95) Incorporate organic foods into my routine (fruits, veggies and meats)

96) Go one week without the internet

97) No fast food for 2 months (0/2)

98) Switch over to CFL bulbs

99) Donate old cell phones

100) Try composting

101) Stop buying bottles of water- use Brita and reuseable water bottles 

Start Date: April 22, 2011

End Date: January 18, 2014

Everything in bold has been completed, everything in italics is in the process of being completed. I'm going to try to blog about as much of the list as I can, hopefully this will keep me from going M.I.A. again. Updates will follow soon about the apartment and other things that have been going on. 

I kinda feel like I'm cheating having 2 goals already completed right away, but I put them on the list before I had it finalized, and now they're finished.

#1 is a bit of a gimme.. my first thought was to start this list once we were either officially engaged or had an apartment, and the apartment came first! Even though we moved in almost 2 months ago, I think it still counts.

#69, get a job! I've been work at Long Island Jewish Medical Center for almost the past year as a 4th year AuD resident, and found out a few weeks ago that I will be staying on staff once I graduate. Very exciting, because I love it there AND I don't have to go through the stress of looking for a job =) It'll be so nice to have my first real pay check some time in July!

Thanks for reading this super-long post. I'll be updating much more frequently now (or at least I better be!) so check back. Have a great weekend!
- Kait

Well we're movin on up..

To Glen Head! So Pas and I are finally getting our own place. And I'm back on here. Surprise, surprise, I started a blog and didn't keep up with it. But I'm back, and I'm going to give this a concerted effort again. What's been going on you might ask? Well, the big news is obviously that we found a place. We're subletting the bottom floor of a split-level from a friend of Pat's. It's a great big space, 2 bedrooms, an awesome living room complete with a ginourmous plasma screen TV that we "had" to have because it was a "great deal"... (seriously though, it's amazing) and a kitchen (minus a stove for the moment, that will be installed next month). We're very very excited!!! We're officially moving tomorrow, so tonight is my last night at my house before it becomes my "parent's house." That's so weird..  I know it'll always be my home and my parents will always welcome me back, but it won't be where I go home to anymore. I guess this means I need to be a big girl and get used to cooking and cleaning without mommy. However, I must say that the boy has been amazing through the process. While I was scrubbing the bathroom last night, he was vacuuming the entire place, cleaning walls and baseboards... with a cape on. Our landlord's son thought they'd help?? It looked pretty damn funny.. wish I'd taken a picture! Oh well. They'll be lots of pictures soon. Ok well I'm off to bed, tomorrow's a big day.. work for me while Pat moves a lot of stuff in, then lots and lotsss of cleaning and organizing tomorrow night. Wish me luck!

Grandma

The world lost a very special woman yesterday. Born on March 23, 2011 (yes she was just 2 months shy of 100!), my grandmother was an extraordinary woman. Elfrieda was born in Hamburg, Germany, the daughter of August and Amanda Schmidt, younger sister to Ada. At 12 years old, her father had been killed in WWI, and she and her mother and sister moved to New Jersey. Knowing no English, she was placed in second grade but quickly moved up to sixth, with the highest grades in the class by 8th grade graduation (we even have her report cards!). She worked for AT&T for many years, played on a women's basketball team in New York City and married my grandfather, Joseph Calleja, on November 3, 1934. We had many many photos to go through, and they tell me that Grandma was a very glamorous lady! She and my grandfather traveled the world and had a wonderful family. I'm honored to have been able to call her my grandmother, and I think that all ladies should hope to always wear shoes as cute as hers ;-) Here are some pictures (pictures of pictures actually, I was too lazy to scan) to let you see the lovely lady.

Grandma, her father August and sister Ada

Black and white photos are just so cool!

Grandparents wedding photo, 1934

Grandma (on the right) and her friends, dressed up as guys

Me and Grandma, circa 1990

 Funny story. A few months ago, I was reading something.. I don't remember what or where, but a German word struck me, and I actually put a memo with it's definition in my phone. Gemutlichkeit (geh-mayt-luh-kite...???) means an attitude of acceptance, conviviality, and enjoyment of what are you doing and those you are with. Sitting at Grandma's last night with my family, I peeked into her old dictionary, and there were random words on pieces of paper scattered throughout the book. Lo and behold, there was gemutlichkeit, in her old fancy script! I couldn't believe it and made everyone make sure I wasn't crazy. But it was really my word, how weird is that? So I take that as Grandma's lesson to enjoy life and be happy wherever I am. I think if we all live with this word in mind, wouldn't we all be much happier?

Rest peacefully, Grandma, we'll all miss you <3

Great Weekend!

Hey there =) Since starting this blog, I've felt great. Refreshed? Less bored? I don't know but it's good and I'd like to stay this way!

Aside from that, it's just been a good couple of days all around. My dad's away on business so I've gotten to have some QT on the couch with my mom. Tonight I've been in my comfy Christmas-present PJs since 6:30 and I'm getting ready to settle in for Desperate Housewives and Brothers and Sisters. Ahh, this is the life. Too bad tomorrow's Monday again, boo.

At least I like my job most of the time. I'm finishing school to be an audiologist- that means I take care of people's hearing. This year I'm doing my residency at a hospital. I get to do a little bit of everything there- hearing tests on adults and lots of kids, balance testing, and working with hearing aids and cochlear implants. At work on Friday I got to be a part of getting hearing aids donated to a super cute, super deserving little girl. She was so excited for her awesome blue hearing aids and little stuffed mouse that came along with them- she promised me she'd write a story about them this weekend =) It was such a great feeling to help her and her family out, since times are tough for many families now and hearing aids are expensive but so necessary. It's great that I work for a corporation that is able to do things like this!

I spent a ton of time outside this weekend playing with my camera, and freezing my ass off! But I totally enjoy walking around taking pictures. I'll be happy when it's warmer out though.. why didn't I decide I needed a camera for Memorial Day instead of Christmas? Oh well! Here are some pictures I took, and also a link to my Flickr account. I can't figure out how to put the link elsewhere on the page, so here it is for now.

Kait's Table Flickr

Oh, and here's the yummy treat I made for myself tonight. It's just low fat graham crackers around chocolate melted over mini-marshmallows topped with a teaspoon of peanut butter. Somehow, 1/2 of this is only 3 points on Weight Watchers. So excited to eat it! Have a wonderful Monday y'all ;-)

- Kait

Growing Up

Welcome to my very first blog!  I'm beginning a very fun and interesting year of my life, and I think this blog will be a great place to keep track of it all.  Here's a little info about me- my name is Kaitlin. I just turned 25. I'll have my AuD (doctorate in Audiology) in May, and I'm hoping to have a full time job once I graduate. I just bought a digital SLR camera, and still really have no idea what I'm doing with it but it takes such nice pictures! I have an amazing boyfriend who I've been in love with for almost half my life, and we hope to have our first apartment together within the next few months. Hopefully he'll officially become my fiancee within a few months too... ;-)  We have a pretty good story, I'll tell you about him soon. I also have an awesome family who has always been super supportive of me. 

So within the next year or so, there's a lot going on. I hope to be growing up a lot, I'm ready for it- I'm happy with who I am, but definitely ready for some change. Moving out of mom and dad's, starting my own home with the boy, learning photography, joining the workforce, planning a wedding, learning to cook in my own kitchen.. it sounds like a lot, and I don't want to forget a second of it. I've never kept up with a traditional journal, but I really hope to update this blog at least a few times a month to start, and more frequently once I get the hang of it. I'd like to include updates on projects I'm working on, recipes, photographs, etc., as well as basically keeping a journal of what's going on in my life. Even if nobody ever reads it, I know that I'll have this all saved for myself =)

Happy New Year... here's to a great 2011! Here are a few pictures I took on New Year's Day with my new camera, just for fun!