This is the End of the Line

Well, yesterday was the completion date for my Day Zero List.  

How did I do?  The list was 60% complete as of yesterday.  But honestly...I'll bet that's better than most people do.  

And now, a breakdown.

Items that I just wrote down to fill up the "100 Things" list and probably never was going to do:

37.   Ride in a hot air balloon

63.  learn how to throw a football with my kids

100.   Put $5 in our savings account for every item not completed. 

Items that I thought that I wanted to do, but later on it turned out that I had no interest in doing them:  (Hey, people change!)

1.  Read "Anna Karennina" by Leo Tolstoy.  

I gave this a good try.  I had bought it five years before because it was part of "Oprah's book Club" and the sheer number of pages was intimidating.  Guess what....it turns out that I didn't read it not because of the number of pages...it was because it was boring as hell.

55.  send flowers to someone “just because”

It turns out, it is really hard to send flowers "just because."!  Every time I thought of sending someone flowers, I had a reason to send them.

77.  Renew our passports

Passports are damned expensive.  And with nowhere to go, really, why bother?  I'll get the passports when we need them.  I'm not at an age where international travel opportunities just "present themselves" and you need to hop on a plane NOW.  

27.  take a cake decorating class.

It turns out that I don't care if I decorate the cake.  I just want to eat it.  Hell, half the time I want Hubby to bake it and me to eat it.  :)

51.  Send a secret to Postsecret

I mulled this one over a lot....but really, I don't have any juicy secrets.  None that would be interesting to post on Postsecret's blog, anyway!  I'm pretty boring.  

And lastly...

Items that I still want to do but ran out of time before the list deadline

12.  take the kids to the following places in PA:  Sesame Place, Crayola Factory and the “Please Touch” Museum.

This list item is partially finished.  We went to the "Please Touch" Museum and loved it!  I heard recently that they may lose their funding and I hope that isn't so, because we would love to go again.  We decided that not only are our kids too old for Sesame Place, I'd heard a lot of unsavory reviews from friends about them.  We still want to go to the Crayola Factory, though.  

29.  take the boys to their first drive-in movie

We're lucky to have two drive-ins nearby.  It's just a matter of picking a night to go, next summer!

35.  Get a tattoo

I have a design picked out and I've decided where it's going.  I just need to find a good place to go and then GO DO IT.

44.  build a snowman with the boys

We had a ton of snow last year and by the time I remembered this item, it was too late.  This winter for sure.  

45.  go tent camping

50.  See a Flyers home game with Brian.

Again, just ran out of time.

57.  visit the Ben and Jerry’s factory in Burlington, VT

I may actually get to do this one next Spring.  The annual RSC conference is in Vermont and a group of us were talking about hitting this on the way home!

76.  Ask my parents to tell stories of our family’s past, and write them down.

83.  Knit sweaters for my husband and children

I knit a sweater for Sean and he got it for Christmas last year.  I'm working on Will's for his birthday next month (I think I can, I think I can!) and I have the yarn for Brian's in the house.  I'm kind of glad I've waited this long, though.  He's lost 30 pounds in the last few months and his sweater would've been too big after that.  I'll start it after the holidays.  

99.  Visit Washington, D.C.

Sooooo......did I learn anything?  I did, that it's fun to make a list and try to stick to them.  And it's a lot easier if it's fun things instead of the tedious, never-ending to-do list.  Will I do another Day Zero list?  Probably not.  But it certainly helped me to prioritize and find time to do fun things with my family.