things I didn't do (list 17 of 52)

Things I didn't get done this month but should have. Or, why am I so busy? A list.

1. Go see a nutritionist
2. Write a letter back to my grandma
3. Clean up and organize my workspace
4. Clean the kitchen
5. Make 2 malas
6. Make some toy samples to send to my cousin for his new shop
7. Any of my homework
8. Write my yoga bio
9. Take photos for my yoga bio
10. Yoga studies (anatomy, reading, marketing)
11. Have gifts ready ahead of time for all of the birthdays
12. Plan Easter (no sweet treats or creative festivities this year!)
13. Be ready for Mother's Day (again, nothing. Fail.)
14. Respond to most of my emails
15. Celebrate Earth Day
16. Get my life in order

I swear I did do some things, I need a better to-do list system. Any ideas of pure productive genius?

faves (list 16 of 52)

Things I love, a list

• languages
• baking
• reading
• yoga
• learning
• doing
• paper tape
• making things
• home-made anything
• bikes
• bailey's
• pedicures
• the smell of fresh orange peels
• cloves
• ice cream
• haircuts
• scruff and shaved heads
• beard and mustaches
• dancing
• exploring
• lists and data
• trees and cool plants
• obstacle courses
• kitties
• things with stories

...on and on

things I deserve a gold star for (list 13 of 52)

Things I do and do well, a list:

1. picking up languages
2. icing cakes
3. getting lost (just saying, if you want to go somewhere new and confusing, follow me)
4. the shaving and mohawking of heads that are not my own (I'm practically a seasoned professional)
5. dyeing hair
6. dreaming
7. cartwheels (my form is superb)
8. scratching heads (of animals and humans alike)
9. deviating from a to-do list by finding something more entertaining to do (so, not being productive)
10. making healthy things taste delicious

things I will probably never get an award for (list 12 of 52)

Things I could improve on but probably won't, a list:

                                           Source: maryruffle.tumblr.com via nole on Pinterest

1. Organizing my email inbox
2. For that matter, remembering to respond to emails
3. Making caramel (working on it)
4. Parallel parking
5. Driving a manual car (sad, I know)
6. Doing/listening to one thing at a time
7. Braiding my own hair
8. Putting on eyeliner
9. Talking to 6 year olds
10. Sitting still/quieting my monkey mind (an endless process)

guiltiest pleasures (list 11 of 52)

+Dairy Queen vanilla softserve with that hard cherry coating..I know it's not real food

+An abundance of accessories, tops and skirts that don't match with anything I own

+Cheese fries, with real cheese, and then covered in parmesan

+Good olive oil

+Sub-par horror movies, old and new

+Embarrassing nail polish colors

+Wedding blogs

+Sample sales

+Old-school rap

+Coke floats

+Friends

+Bacon, on anything

reasons why I probably won't go back to school (list 10 of 52)

truth

• finals
• midterms
• money
• commitment issues
• I want to do too many things
• I don't think I'm cut out for normal school
• math
• because I want to teach yoga and cook more than I want to do chemistry problems
• planning is hard

reasons I might go back to school (list 9 of 52)

rationalizations, listed

• to learn (really?)
• to be qualified for work I actually want to do
• for a more stable career
• vacations
• schedules
• study dates
• new pens
• packed lunches

...not very convincing

how to find your true calling (list 8 of 52)

My mom regularly sends me a box of old magazines that have piled up around her house. I guess it's her way of recycling? One of the magazines I get too many copies of to keep up with is O. One of this issues is all about "finding your true calling". In it, frequent contributor and life coach Martha Beck provides a 4-Step Plan to Get Your Life on Track and figure out what it is you're meant to do with yourself.

Steps to figuring your life out. A list. (This counts right?)

Step 1. Stop making excuses. I'm too busy, there's too many choices, what if I miss something? Man up.

Step 2. Stop thinking logically. What? Go do what you love and keep track of what those instincts mean to you but don't let your rational mind guide what you're naturally drawn to. Beck quotes Jonathan Haidt, author of The Happiness Hypothesis in explaining that "it is only because our emotional brains work so well that our reasoning can work at all."

Step 3. Discover your bliss. Beck equates your instincts to your "inner animal" and she advises following its tracks to get a lead on something. "Make a list of every time you remember being utterly, happily absorbed in an activity, no matter how odd."

Step 4. Develop it. Experiment. With respect to tracking your instincts, try and predict them. Try an activity that may be a little different from what you're used to, but you think will still foster the same bliss. This will help you determine what it is about those activities specifically that you're drawn to like a lion to a herd of antelope. Or something like that.

Step 5. Rinse, Repeat until ou find a track that leads you somewhere. Just keep returning to your list and following new paths until you get somewhere where the track stays hot! Beck suggests finding a common theme and gives examples of clients who followed the obvious paths but it turned out that it wasn't that they wanted to be in politics, but rather that they were drawn more to teamwork and facilitating groups which lead them to event planning. Voilà.

Step 6. Answer the call of your bliss and follow your instincts through the wildness of your fear wherever they lead.

gifts I've loved (list 7 of 52)

Memorable gifts I've received: a miscellany

Bear with me here as most of my childhood had been blocked out due to traumatic photos like this one. No, I did not used to be a boy, I just thought I was apparently.

• "Flexible Flyer" hobby horse. Christmas, 1990. It was like being in a supermarket parking lot, all the time!
• Plastic dollar store alligator. 1990. This was probably my favorite of anything I've ever owned, and the cheapest. I carried it around EVERYWHERE until our dog got a hold of it and it met its sad fate.
• Lite-Brite. 1992. I could sit in front of that thing for hours. That fact is probably still true.
• Girl Talk: a Game of Truth or Dare. 1997? The video is just as exciting as when I tried to make my older boy cousins play with me. Reason #24 why being an only child is awkward.
• A box of inside jokes. 2001. I've known my BFF since we were 2. You can imagine the amount of weird inside jokes that rack up in that amount of time. She filled a box with orange soda, boat flags, trash, you know, standard stuff. It was the most original, hilarious, and personal gift ever.
• One of Justin's first poetry notebooks. 2006. Filled with scratched out versions and first drafts. Fabulous.
• Watercolored sign/decoration thing. 2007. My friend took a painting class, the result, a crazy awesome sign with my nickname and tree bits. I know it sounds weird, but it was sweet, he spent the whole time working on this to surprise me with it.
• Giant OCR3w road bike. 2008. A gift to myself for saving money from crappy college jobs. That counts right? I love this beast.
• Chanel pearls. 2010. A dream come true. Shallow, I'm aware.
• Any gift from my mister. The wrapping is so exciting most of the time it doesn't even matter what's inside.

What ever happened to that voice that seems to be in every 90s commercial? Seriously.

things to do next week (list 6 of 52)

A to do list, how creative:

1. Make headbands - special orders and then some
2. Finish crocheted pillow cover
3. Turn in yoga resume
4. Quit my stinkin job
5. Make homemade pop-tarts
6. Eat at a new restaurant

I'm going to leave it at that. Another exercise. I have a tendency to create over-ambitious goals and to-do lists that never get met. So here's a stab at learning to have a concept of time, and at actually feeling like I'm getting something done!

things I like to make - the kitchen edition (list 5 of 52)

Messes I like to make in the kitchen:

• Apple butter
• My super secret vegan sloppy joes
• Crumbly tasty eggless cookies like polvorones (and most anything from Smitten Kitchen)
• Dough. Pizza, pie, dough!
• Pizza. With pepperoni and mushrooms and spicy sauce or with garlic and broccoli and olives mmmm
• Cupcakes. More the creative flavors and decorating than anything else
• Anybody's favorite, for their birthday or something special. That's the best.

countries I've been to (list 4 of 52)

A tuk tuk at the salt flats in Kampot, Cambodia

Some of these places I will never see again, and some I dream of every day. A list:

1. USA (duh)
2. U.K.
3. Spain
4. France
5. Italy
6. Germany
7. Czech Republic
8. Slovenija
9. Netherlands
10. Russia
11. Austria
12. Hungary
13. Mexico
14. Colombia
15. Costa Rica
16. Brazil
17. China
18. Japan
19. Vietnam
20. Cambodia
21. India
22. Malaysia
23. Namibia
24. South Africa
25. Bahamas (If one day counts)

That's all! So many more that I want to one day explore!

careers I wouldn't mind having (list 3 of 52)

My twirling, shot by the ever so talented Ryan 

What I'd like to be when I grow up, a list:


1. Dancer, à la Pilobolus.

2. Physical therapist. How fun would it be to stretch out  Nenê pre-grame?

3. Archeologist, more discovering, less statistics please.

4. Tree-Climbing Scientist, ever since I saw a picture of someone doing something like this in a National Geographic when I was 8.

5. Designer/Stylist/Image Consultant. Ah, picking out outfits and dressing people all day, yes!

6. Owner of a cafe/shop. Maple bacon peanut butter pancakes and homemade goodies anyone? Time to be creative and do things I love all day? Wait, that's a mom isn't it?

7. Forensic Psychologist/Examiner ish? The mystery, the intrigue! oh and the law! I might be romanticizing this...

Concerts I have been to - that I remember (list 2 of 52)

Dreamy... Justin Warfield of She Wants Revenge

In no particular order, the concerts I can remember...or at least I found ticket stubs to in a shoebox in the closet...

1. MSTRKRFT
2. Savoy
3. Kele
4. Ben Kweller with Sam Roberts Band
5. Ben Kweller with Willy Mason
6. Rooney
7. Bela Fleck with Abigail Washburn and the Sparrow Quartet
8. Paper Bird with Laura Goldhamer and Golden Brown too many times to count
9. Death Cab for Cutie with Ted Leo and the Pharmacists
10. Wolf Parade
11. Secret Machines
12. Cake with the Hot IQ's
13. The Police with Maroon5
14. Miike Snow with Mayer Hawthorne and the County
15. Passion Pit
16. Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zero's
17. Vans Warped Tour 2005 featuring Hot Rod Circuit, etc.
18. Pretty Lights
19. Diplo with Calvin Harris
20. Good Charlotte with Eve 6 and Goldfinger
21. Jimmy Eat World
22. Sarah Bareilles
23. Chemical Brothers
24. The Used

22 before 23 (list 1 of 52)

22 things to do before I turn 23

1. Learn to can/jar

   2. Learn how to really use my sewing machine

3. Start a design/inspiration book

4. Teach yoga at least once a week

5. Complete CPY's Extensions program

6. Teach a yoga class of strangers

7. Find a new job

8. Make headbands to sell

9. Make plushies to sell

10. Learn to knit

11. Settle on a design name

12. Make an Etsy store

13. Try every yoga studio in Denver

14. Practice Sanskrit

15. Study anatomy

16. Start learning my way through Mastering The Art of French Cooking

17. Make crackers (from scratch)

18. Keep a budget

19. Dance more

20. Spend the night in an ashram

21. Practica el Español et le Français

22. Post this list where I see it every day (Wunderlist iPhone app and free desktop program + inspiration board)

resolute

I'm not one for resolutions. Mostly because I can't keep a routine. But I like projects. So, this 2011 I am attempting 52 lists. One list per week for a year. I see it as a good way to actually make me sit still for even if just 5 minutes and write. Regularly. And I'm kind of interested to see what happens when I run out of ideas. 

I've always wanted to do 52projects but it seems a bit much for this already busy year. Something like seemed much more fitting. So with inspiration from other list-lovers and listography, here I go!