Dirty Thirties: An Updated List for 2011, Prt. 2

Here's the rest of the update to my list for 2011. Enjoy!

23. Walk in A.P.'s shoes. My brother suggested that A.P. and I walk in each other's shoes for a month. He says we bicker too much about how we both contribute more than the other. I don't know if I'll truly be able to do this one, or if I'll be able to convince A.P. to do it, but it might prove interesting, that's for sure.

I don't think we're going to do this, but I have been trying to be more grateful for all that he does. Whether he thinks I'm succeeding or not is another story.

24. Take a photography course. I have a groupon for one, so this should be a cinch.

Waiting until the weather warms up a bit for this one since I know I will have to do part of the shoot outside, and I don't want to freeze my tush off.

25. Take a guitar course. Same as above. I heart groupon.

Need to figure out this class as well. It's definitely got to wait until after I'm done working overtime.

26. Do another picture a day project.

I'm still brainstorming a good one. I've come up with nothing. I thought about doing outfit a day, but I wear such stupid clothes these days. I'm all about being warm and comfortable.

27. Get regular about doctor appointments. Before grad school, I was super, super diligent about going to the lady doctor and to the dentist. Since grad school started, I've been not so diligent. Time to get back into old routines.

I went to the dentist, and now I'm trying to find a lady doctor. I'm not sure if I want to go back to the one I had since I'm now at an age where I'm realizing that my lady doctor might also be the one who delivers my future unborn babies. I want to be with someone I really like and feel comfortable with. I'm not sure I 100% loved my old doctor. Plus, this is really weird, but the woman I used to nanny for coincidentally had the same doctor, and all I can think about now is that that doctor has seen both of our lady parts. Plus I used to refer her to my friends all the time. She's seen too many of our lady parts. She knows too much. It's time to move on. : O )

28. Journal again.

I thought about this the other day. Does that count?

29. Go someplace new in Florida, possibly Disney World. A.P. is a Floridian, born and raised. Every year, at some point, we make the trek to Florida. And I hate it. I'm bored, and all I see are the insides of people's houses. I feel like I've been to Florida three times, but I've never really been to Florida. I told A.P. next time we go, we have to take a day trip somewhere. I voted for either Disney World, or Eatonville, the birthplace of Zora Neale Hurston.

We're going to Disney World. It's been decided. I'll cross this off, though, when we've actually gone.

30. Go on a hot air balloon ride. I bought A.P. a gift certificate for a ride for his groom's gift, but we still haven't used it. It's time to cash that baby in.

Weather has to warm up significantly for me to do this.

31. Get our finances completely in order. I think we finally found a money management software, which is going to be awesome once we figure out how to use it!

This is my responsibility and I've for sure been slacking. A.P. and I have had conversation after conversation about this, and I still just haven't made us sit down and get it done. I'm always working , it seems.

32. Call my parents more. Call my great aunt more. Part of GTD is to schedule things like phone calls. That may sound silly to some, but I'm the sort of person who at 7pm as I'm cooking thinks, "Oh crap, I have to call my mother," but don't because it's inconvenient at the time. Then, at 11:30pm, I remember again and it's too late. The cycle starts all over the next day. So scheduling a phone call wouldn't be the worst thing.

I've been so so about this. It's been harder with my crazy schedule, but I do feel like I'm better about this now. I've called my father more, and made a point to see him more since we have a car. My mother has been trickier, but I've been trying. I'm not crossing this off, because I still think I can do better.

33. Blog five times a week on this blog, and 2-3 times a week on my other blog (that we write for our family only). That's a lot of blogging! But I think if I try hard enough, I can do it.

I don't know, guys, should I cross this off yet? With the exception of two weeks where I missed a fifth day, and this past week where I only blogged once, I've blogged five times a day here and for the most part at BlogHer, too.

34. Prioritize. Family first. Hopes/dreams/personal goals second. Work third. I'd hate to be 40 and still wondering why I haven't done what I wanted to do.

I think I've been better about this, but I've still got a lot of work to do. I'm managing my time better, but I also calculated how much work I've been doing on average the past few weeks, and it adds up to about 63 hours a week. That's exhausting, no? Plus...I miss my husband and being calm around him. I'll wait until the end of the year to asses and possibly cross this one off.

35. See Spring Awakening. If A.P. won't buy the tickets, I will. I've wanted to see this for a long, long time.

Tickets just went on sale, and I think I'm going to buy them this week when I get paid on Friday. So you can check back on my list page later this week to see this bad boy crossed off!

36. Learn to sew. More on this later.

I've still not really talked about this. I feel a post coming on...

37. Eat out less. Eat fruit more. Eat candy less. Eat dairy more.

Working on this, and getting somewhat better. But those 12 hour days are killing me. And frequently the last thing I want to do is come home and cook. I am trying to do some crock pot cooking. That's tough, too, though.

38. Play with our guinea pig, Henry, more. Yes, we have a guinea pig. It's a long story.

I haven't been playing with him more, but I've been buying him more treats and petting him more. It's hard to find any time to play with any of the animals. Pretty much all of the playing we do these days revolves around falling asleep on the couch while watching TV.

39. Find a good pair of gym shoes.

I looked again today. I'm hoping to buy these soon. My knee is longing for comfortable shoes!

40. Digitize all of our photos.

I was getting really good at this and I was super on top of it for a while. Alas, I got behind. I'm hoping to get started again soon.

41. Record my father talking about the Olympics. My father was an Olympian. He didn't win or anything, but he won a lot of awards in the Asian Olympics. It would be so cool to record him looking at photos and discussing both. How cool would that be to show to our kids one day?

I haven't done this at all. I talked to my father about his next hang out session with us being at my house. Perhaps I shall set up our video camera to do that.

42. Visit my sister and her husband in India. I wish I could have traveled to India before I met A.P., by myself. I think it would have been amazing. I've always wanted to go, see where my father was born and raised, and I'll be excited to do that. But the thought of traveling to such an exotic place with my picky eater husband, and staying with my sister kind of makes me dread the whole thing. Maybe that's a good thing, though. Maybe if we do go, the trip will be awesome because I had such low expectations.

A.P. and I have talked a lot about this. I don't think this is going to happen. A.P. has only been at his job for a year, and I don't have the time off yet, either. And while we might have the money for the plane ticket, we probably couldn't afford the plane ticket, the visa, the medical, etc. That's the kind of thing that requires a lot of planning and frankly, we can't even plan for a trip to Florida. So needless to say this is on the way back burner right now.

43. Get A.P. to put his keys and wallet in the same damn place every day. This won't happen, but wouldn't it be awesome if it did? And I didn't have to hear, "Have you seen my [insert keys, wallet, glasses, headphones, bag, etc. here]?"

Yeah, still on progress on that shit.

44. Throw at least one party. Back in the day, I threw awesome parties. I would cram up to 30 people into my one bedroom apartment throughout the night. It sounds crowded, but it never felt like it. It always felt awesome. The last party we threw was our housewarming party when I first moved in. Instead, we've been focusing on hosting holidays for our family. I'd like to throw a kickass party again. It's a lot of work, but always so much fun.

I didn't end up throwing myself a 30th birthday party at all. I decided I didn't want to throw it myself and nobody really was offering to throw it for me, so I skipped it altogether. I was going to do something small with some close friends and family and that didn't work out either. So instead this has been all about hanging out with my best friend, A.P. And that's been okay with me. But we will throw a party soon. When things die down.

45. Clear my skin. This is the year, I've decided, that I'm done with acne. It sucks to have adult acne. And what's worse is I can never seem to find a product that clears my skin. This is the year I find a dermatologist, and start to look like a grownup, not a teenager!

I'm on it! I found this amazing blackhead/whitehead cleaner and I started using the Zeno system on some of my more stubborn cystic bastards on my chin. It's been good so far. My skin is much clearer. So we'll see how it goes. I may still go to the dermatologist.

And that's it. I feel like I haven't made much progress yet, but so many of these things seem to be time or weather dependent, and I hate to say it, but me having more time off closer to summer is going to be key in me crushing out a bunch of these things. Still, it's good for me to go through this list every quarter or so. How is everybody else doing with their New Year's to do lists/resolutions? Any progress? Or have we all given up?