101 Things in 1,001 Days

List: [list] -noun. A series of names or other items written or printed together in a meaningful grouping or sequence so as to constitute a record.

If you’re anything like me, you love to make lists. Grocery lists**, lists of things to pack, everyday to-do lists, lists of movies to see, books to read, lists of things about yourself, and lists of things you’ve already done just so you can cross things off said list.

The original idea of the ”101 things in 1,001 days” apparently began a while ago and continues at DayZeroProject.com but, since we all know I’m not necessarily an early-adopter^, I sat back and waited for a while just to make sure the thing took hold.   Apparently, it did. So, after much brooding and thinking and mulling and deliberating and reasoning, here’s my list of the 101 things I plan to accomplish in the next 1,001 days. If I start today, I should complete the list by.

So, after much thinking and pondering and mulling and reasoning and excogitating, I’ve come up with my list. Let the crossing off begin! 

Note: I’ve been working on this list for a while and just so happened to do some of the things on the list before I published it. And because I’m the master of this domain, I say they count.

1. Make a personal book of recipes
2. Write a letter to myself to open in ten years
3. Watch the sunrise and sunset in the same day
4. Sleep under the stars
5. See the Northern Lights
6. Join a book club Joined a foodie book club at Nicholas Hoare
7. Go to a showing of Rocky Horror Picture Show at midnight
8. Go to SXSW
9. Send a secret to PostSecret
10. Take a hot air balloon ride
11. Watch a meteor shower
12. Go on a picnic
13. Buy a bicycle — and ride it!
14. Start my own business — I haz ideas!
15. Finish Infinite Jest
16. Make a bucket list
17. Try colouring my hair brown
18. Complete a half marathon
19. Do meditation once a week
20. Go snowshoeing
21. Find out my blood type (I think it’s A-, but not I’m not + )
22. Build and sleep inside a blanket fort
23. Start doing yoga
24. Buy new furniture (dining room table and sofa)
25. Go to the Texas State Fair and eat a fried Twinkie
26. Start recycling
27. Start playing tennis again
28. Drive across Canada
29. Learn to sew a button
30. Delete my MySpace account
31. Visit an apple orchard
32. Visit the wineries in Prince Edward County
33. Go dogsledding
34. Take a multi-vitamin everyday
35. Find and meet with a financial advisor
36. Create my will
37. Balance my chequebook everyday
38. Adopt a cat or a dog
39. Ride the Polar Express
40. Learn to play Hearts and Texas Hold ‘Em
41. Watch “What the Bleep Do We Know” in its entirety
42. Grow an herb garden
43. Go to cooking school for a week
44. Finish watching every season of “Lost“
45. Watch at least one full season of “The Simpsons“
46. Spend a weekend at Le Scandinave
47. Get nominated for the Junior League Board of Directors Nominated as the Communications Director for 2010-11
48. Skate down the Rideau Canal***
49. Watch “Roots“
50. Publish an article in a travel publication
51. Finish knitting the scarf I started in July 2009
52. See A Prairie Home Companion live
53. Watch the complete AFI Top 100 Movies
54. See the McMichael Canadian Art Collection
55. Eat at The Doctors House, Splendido, and Harbourd Room
56. Clear out the 765 emails in my Gmail inbox
57. Figure out if I should keep or sell my condo in Houston
58. Go up the CN Tower
59. Read a book written by someone with whom I disagree (which shouldn’t be very hard)
60. Fly on the new Boeing 787 (cannot. wait.)
61. See the Tragically Hip live
62. Move my blog over to WordPress.org
63. Hike four Ontario trails
64. Attend the BlogHer Conference
65. Find a plane spotting group in Toronto
66. Try Ethiopian food Ate at Ethiopian House in Toronto with my Yelp friends. Let’s just say I won’t be going back. Ahem.
67. Set up the 1TB external hard drive I’ve had for six months
68. Put together a first aid kit for my (newly paid off) car
69. Play golf at Pebble Beach
70. Become a docent at an art gallery
71. Complete a Berlitz French course
72. See a play at the Stratford Festival
73. Go to High Park
74. Frame all the unframed things I have lying around my house
75. Actually finish the Flickr “365-Day Challenge”, rather than starting it and finishing it after 45 days. Ahem.
76. See contemporary dance at the Winch at least six times
77. Start taking hip-hop dance classes again
78. Participate in NaBloPoMo twice a yar
79. Try out roller derby
80. Provide school supplies for an underprivileged family
81.  Buy a MacBookPro, because I’m finally tired of double-clicking
82. Get rid of my landline
83. Fly a kite
84. Go camping in an actual tent and not what I like to call “Hyatt” camping
85. Learn how to use my Canon DSLR I’ve had for two years rather than just shooting on Auto
86. Go see a sport I’ve never seen before (I’m looking at you, soccer)
87. Write down ten things for which I’m thankful everyday
88. Begin the courses towards becoming a master sommelier
89. Get my eyes checked
90. Eat dim sum…and dim some more!
91. Watch 26 movies that begin with a letter in the alphabet
92. Travel to: Asia (Angkor Wot, Thailand, Hanoi, China); Canada (Banff, Halifax, Winnipeg); Chile and Argentina
93. Backup my computer
94. Skate at Harbourfront Centre
95. Complete my digital afterlife
96. Build a snowman****
97. Stop swearing for a whole month
98. See a baseball game at Wrigley Field
99. Make a key lime pie
100. Try to make heads or tails of the Canadian government system ;-)

 

^ although I’m not necessarily a late-adopter either; to wit, I have three close friends who don’t even have Facebook pages. Also, they drive horses and buggies.
** I <3 the Grocery app on my iPhone. No more losing my arm in my purse looking for a pen and paper!
*** Completion which requires actual cold weather and not this hovering-right-above-freezing all winter. The skateway is actually closed because it’s not cold enough!
**** See above. This task also requires snow and we haven’t had any snow this year. In fact, Vancouver’s having to *ship it* in for the Olympics. Global warming, indeed.

How Do I Do This Again?

They say everybody needs a little time away.  In my case, I needed about six weeks away. As it turns out, blogging had become somewhat of a chore for me — something I felt I had to do, and not something I wanted to do — and we all know what that means. What does it mean? It means that I don’t like to feel forced into things and, when I am, I turn into Miss Uncharming Grumpypants — someone none of you deserves to meet.

I didn’t just sit around fretting about my lack of blogging, though — I was super busy during those six weeks! I traveled to both New York City and Houston, was nominated to serve as the Communications Chair on the board of directors of the Junior League of Toronto, had my first Canadian hospital experience when my blood pressure skyrocketed over 200 and I nearly had a stroke (where’s my walker, anyway?), ate rabbit and Ethiopian food for the first time, joined a foodie book club, bought some new URLs for some super secret exciting projects on which I’m working, wondered when the snowpocalypse was coming (FYI: to date, it still hasn’t), and saw Rent at the Mirvish. Busy indeed! There’s just no such thing as rest for the wicked.

I realized this weekend that I’d blogged every month in 2009 and just could not bring myself to break that streak in 2010. I’m happy to say that I’ve been storing up a motherlode of adventures to share with you during my time away and am back with a vengeance…and, of course, bringing sexy back with me. Fire up your laptops, everyone — you now have my permission to officially take your laptops off simmer!

Turn Your Laptop To Simmer

I’ve been blogging fairly consistently since January, which means I’m exhausted from the non-stop publishing of the most mundane things about my life – nearly twelve entire months of talking about my adventures in Canada has, frankly, worn me out.  Therefore, in the interest of my readers, but mostly my own, I’ve decided to take a blogging mini-break. 

So, put your laptops on simmer and I’ll see you all again very soon.

xo.

New York State Of Mind

Can’t blog. On my way to the best city on the face of the planet, by which I mean New York City (!), to see some art, watch some contemporary dance, gallavant around Central Park, do serious damage to my credit card, and gawk at the holidayed-up shop windows! Also, to birthday-celebrate.

Post-NaBloPoMo Depression

The collective theme around here for the last 30 days was all NaPoBloMo, all the time. After posting every single day for 30 straight days, I may or may not have developed an unhealthy attachment to my laptop. So today when I was working  got home from work⁰ and started thinking about what I was going to blog about, I began to shake violently when I realized that the jedi-mind trick I thought I was having was fo realz — I didn’t have to blog.  And I immediately fell into the motherlode of all depressions, ran to my laptop and banged out this post. I guess coming down is always the hardest part.

Normally, there’s a monthly NaBloPoMo “theme¹“, but thanksbeto the blogging gods, there was no theme for November, thus allowing me to flaunt my wicked blog posting skills and write about my adventures² in Canada. I know it’s probably awkward that you tuned in today to find zero posts about the blogging madness, but on the off-chance you haven’t heard, I’m not NaBloPoMo-ing this month. For good and valid reasons³. Good and valid reasons I’m going to share with you like right frickin’ now!

1) I’m far too busy posting pictures of my shoes. And, what’s more, too busy buying shoes of which to post pictures.

2) Two words: December sweeps. (So help me, NBC, if you break up Pam and Jim.)

3) Reading all of your blogs. My Google Reader is seriously on fire. I mean, we all can’t participate in NaPoBloMo or there’d be no time to read all the mind-blowingly spectacular words filling up the intertubes, so I’m taking one for the blogging team this month. You’re welcome.

4) Laundry. There is simply nothing witty to say about laundry.

5) Cooking! I have a plethora of recipes to test out and even have a new folder in my inbox called ”Recipes” (that should really be entitled “What I did before I blogged”).

6) Speaking of cooking, watching Everyday Italian. Giada makes the most amazing dishes. And my friend J, with whom I watch, is Italian so he’s all, “Let’s get back to my roots!” And, I’m all, “Let’s be honest here, we’re both watching this show because she has great boobs.” And he’s all, “Word.”

7) (Still) Reading Infinite Jest because, NO, I didn’t finish it in November as planned. And, FINE, I think what I have read so far is so tedious and intense that my brain has been nearly blown to bits. But I will finish it, damnit, so I can at least rant about it with some amount of validity.

8.) Finding new and clever ways to get my parents drunk out of their minds so when I bring up the possibility of their purchasing me a few pairs of Tory Burch ballet flats, they’ll slur “shuuure” instead of “woman, we are not a bank”.

9) Trying to master Photoshop because all of my Christmas gifts are going to be framed photos of Toronto. Sorry if you were holding out for an iTouch or a tea cosy. I have a shoe obsession to fund and debt to chip away at, which brings me to…

10) …WINNING THE LOTTERY⁴!

11) Re-designing my blog. It’ll be done by [redacted]. (I know, you’re thinking about the Infinte Jest timeline promise, aren’t you? Why do you hate?!)

12) Living my life, by which I mean going out, socalizing, and bringing sexy back, all of which require oodles and oodles of time.

13) And, really, I post like all the damn time anyway. For me, it’s all about the quality and not the quantity. But don’t worry — I’ll be reading and commenting as often as I can on all of your lovely everyday posts, because I admire each and every one of you. Even more so when I’m able to give all the tools in the nerd kingdom a rest for, like, five minutes and when it’s not 3am and I have to work the next day after staying up all night blogging and reading TMZ.com about things like Tiger’s escapades⁵ until the wee hours of the morning.  Your point?

…

⁰ After I saw Julien Smith at Third Tuesday Toronto. One word: hawt. Yes, please.
¹ For example, December’s theme is “mitzvah”, which, although I’m not Jewish, assume means “giving”. Each day you’re supposed to do something nice for someone and blog about it. As if.
² By which I mean nothing in particular, thank god.
³ By which I mean ”lazy”.  If you’re thinking to yourself, Yeah right, we all know she’s going to spend the entire month watching Veronica Mars reruns, you’d probably be spot on.
⁴ Because, you know, if you win the lottery in Canada, you pay ZERO tax on it. Can you believe that? On the 1 in 142 million chance that you actually win the lottery, you get 100% of the winnings! Forget that you pay 75% of your income in taxes the rest of your life…if you win the lottery, you pay nothing! Reason #476 to live in Canada, nón?
⁵ For shame.

Food. And The End. (Day 30!)

It probably goes without saying what a complete thrill it was to see Thomas Keller speak live and in person tonight at the Toronto Reference Library. If you’re not certain who the heck Thomas Keller is, see if these names ring any bells: The French Laundry, per se, Bouchon, Bouchon Bakery, ad hoc, Michelin Three Stars, and on and on and on. I had the foodgasmic pleasure of dining at ad hoc (whose tag line is “for temporary relief of hunger”. Indeed.) in the Spring of 2008 during my first trip to Napa Valley. My very best friend in the whole wide world for the last 18 years was getting married and we had dinner at ad hoc to celebrate. Ad hoc is all about comfort food and *I* am all about comfort food, which means we were a match made in heaven from the word “go”. I mean, any restaurant that has “Buttermilk fried chicken with brussels sprout hash, autumn squash, cippolini onions, chive biscuits and peppered anson mills grits” is, without a doubt, my kinda place. In fact, prior to eating at ad hoc, I wasn’t a huge duck fan, but being the adventurous eater I like to be, tried it there. Essentially, I could have put my face in the dish from the sheer goodness were I not afraid that my mug would end up splashed across TMZ.com for the world to see¹. Let me just say that the smells were so good in that place that I could have possibly married them.

The Cookbook Shop had apparently been “stalking” Chef Keller for ten years. Ten years spent trying to get him to Canada, to no avail. Until tonight. His new cookbook, ad hoc at home, was recently published and he is touring in support of the book on, you guessed it, comfort food. I was ticket #65 and thought it would be a small, intimate group listeners, but there were more than 450 others who had the same idea I did — it was packed! The price of  the ticket included a signed copy of the book and when I walked in, he was surrounded by about ten people, with boxes everywhere, signing the books. I found my spot and he casually walked to the front to begin the chat. He said more than once how nervous he was and that his comfortable place was next to the stove, which I totally get being the expert chef I am². He spoke at length about how kitchens are all about teamwork, and rituals³, and how he enjoys eating seasonal foods because he hates eating the same thing all year. I tend to agree — it’s no different than loving the changing of the actual seasons — food seasons are just as much fun to anticipate! He told a little anecdote about going into Pusateri’s today and seeing a lady buying peaches. He walked up to her and said “Don’t buy those peaches. They’re all dehydrated and don’t even have a smell”, to which she apparently stared at him and bought it anyway. He said she was also buying cherries. Cherriesand peaches in November? His point was that we should think about the seasons when we eat just like we think of the trees changing or the snow beginning.

Chef Keller was sweetly nervous and was much more reserved than I expected he’d be. There was a Q&A session and, of course, someone asked him what he thought about Canada and the Canadian food scene⁴, where he answered that he didn’t know much about it, but that he wanted to eat at The Black Hoof — and so do I, because who wouldn’t want to eat a horse tongue sandwich?! I ate beef tongue in Montréal, so why not horse tongue in Toronto? But I digress. The announced that Chef Keller would stay and personalize the books afterwards and so I sprinted to the back, after having sat myself in the front. The line-forming was mayhem and I had flashbacks to the five hours — FIVE — I stood in line to meet David Sedaris. David Sedaris is one thing — I would stand in a -30C blizzard with snow up to my eyeballs for the chance to speak to David Sedaris for even ten seconds (well, I would pretty much do *anything* to see David Sedaris), but, while Chef Keller is widely regarded as the best chef in America, I wasn’t about to spend the next four hours waiting for him to sign my book “To Carmen”. So home I went, happy as a lark, to eat my comfort food of a fried egg sandwich.

Speaking of food, this week’s New Yorker is their annual “Food Issue”, which means lots of foodie goodness. I was perusing the mag on the way to Chicago and nearly fell off my very comfortable Air Canada flight with economy class in-seat TV when I saw that Calvin Trillin contributed an article on the national food of Québec, poutine!! Firstly, it’s the New Yorker. Enough said. Secondly, Calvin Trillin. Calvin Trillin ranks up there as one of my all-time favourite writers extraordinaire and humourist who wrote one of my all-time favourite books called Travels with Alice. Thirdly, an article on the infamous snack food known as poutine in my beloved adopted country written by Calvin Trillin in the New Yorker. Z.O.M.G. It couldn’t possibly be any better unless David Sedaris was his writing partner, at which point I’d probably roll up into the fetal position on my floor and simply cry out of sheer happiness. For your reading, and listening, pleasure, I’m linking to an exerpt⁵ of the article in the mag and a clip of the podcast of Mr. Trillin speaking about the article. As good as it gets, fo realz.

And that, my friends, officially brings me to the end of this daily blogging madness for which I signed up called NaBloPoMo. My writing muscles have officially been flexed and it was awesome! Through sleep-deprivation, traveling, and a creative writing class that required me to write entire 1,000 word articles weekly (!) in addition to my daily blog posts, I still managed to accomplish blogging every single day for 30 days (check the badge on the right, yo)!! Let me just say that it takes brass balls to achieve this, and although I know all of you at least one of you⁶ out there will miss my daily posts,  fret not! I’ll be back soon enough, but this time without the mad dash to the finish line whereby I’m wheezing and puffing like a 97 year-old woman. Because you deserve better.  

Now that NaBloPoMo is kaput, there are about eleventy-thousand things I’m going to do. I’m going to a) decorate my Christmas tree, b) eat before 10pm, c) sleep, d) reconnect with friends who thought I’d fallen off the face of the planet, e) not lose my job, f) tidy up my house that is in complete disarray, g) take a leisurely bath so as to finally use my favourite Lush bathbombs⁷ and h) go on the date I’ve been putting off for 30 days, which may or may not include ”g”. ;-)

To those of you who stuck this out with me, thank you for reading my occasionally narcissistic drivel (but also some good posts, too!). I’ll miss seeing y’all here every day, but the next time I bring this kind of cockamamie idea up, please call the po-po – I will seriously need to be arrested. For now, I need a big blogging break. Don’t wait up!

 

¹ Think headlines such as “maid of honour starves herself for so long just to fit in her bridesmaid dress that she chows down like a pig in a trough”. Or something like that.
² Not!
³ And of which I am also a HUGE fan — maybe I missed my calling, after all.
⁴ A question I’m asked *all* the time and one I just don’t get. Why is it so important for Canadians to know what Americans think of Canada? You’re a lovely, beautiful place, so stop looking for constant approval from your next-door neighbour, already!
⁵ Because I’m not a subscriber (yet…Santa!), I can’t download the article in its entirety. Sorry.  
⁶ You know who you are.
⁷ Which, for the record, are the Avobomb and Comforter Bubble Bar combined. H-E-A-V-E-N.

This Post Is Like a Britney Spears Song: Incoherent And Rambling (Day 29)

Time to pack away the turkey roasters and pumpkins and, if you’re like my family, pull out the 578 bins of Christmas decorations: December is upon us. Ah, December: that month-long foray into complete mayhem consisting of parties, parties and more parties; family gatherings with crazy Aunt Bess who won’t stop asking when you’re *finally* going to settle down; more shopping than you can possibly accomplish in a mere 30 days; and more eating and drinking than any human being should ever attempt. I’m already booked for the next two weeks solid at which time I’ll pack my suitcase once again and head to my most favourite city in the entire  universe, New York City, to celebrate my birthday. I’ll be a mad woman traversing the burrough, squeezing in shopping, eating excellent edible material, traipsing the Met, and dancing around to a musical or three (Hair and Next to Normal, here I come!).

Post NYC, I’ll unpack and repack once again to head to Houston for the holidays about which I am quite excited, because nothing says “holidays” like cranking up the A/C on Christmas morning.  Jokes.

Before I take off on my jaunts, though, I’m doing some cool things in T.O. this week that I’ll try to recap when I have a free moment, by which I mean during the six hours a night I should be sleeping. All I can say is thanksbeto Steve Jobs for the WordPress iPhone app. 

- seeing Thomas Keller speak and having his new Ad Hoc at Home cookbook signed
- Third Tuesday Toronto to see Julien Smith speak (!)
- Junior League Christmas party
- Yelp’s Elite Christmas party that’s Mad Men-themed!
- Going to a Christmas tree farm and cutting down a tree for the very first time! And getting my nog on afterwards.
- An always fabulous iYellow Wine Club event called “Happy Birthday South Africa” at Reds Wine Bar
- Company Christmas party, but, more importantly, the after party.

Clearly, I need a lifestyle manager.

T-3 Days And Counting (Day 28)

You probably already know that I’m traveling this weekend. You probably also know that I’m hanging with friends and, of course, shopping. Let me just say that I went to a two-story — TWO-STORY — Target today and nearly cried. My heart began to race, I started to sweat palpably and actually had to pause for a moment to catch my breath.

Purchased were sock monkey Santa flannel PJ’s, affordable batteries (ahem), and a new release DVD for $3.99. Someone please remind me again why I live in Canada?!

This post doesn’t really count and is totally phoned in; however, considering I’ve been out all day and am about to go out to paint Chicago red, I consider it a valiant effort.

The best part of this post, though, is that there are only TWO posts left before I get to wrap up this daily blogging madness and reclaim some semblance of a life!

So, until tomorrow, lovely blog readers.

Can’t Blog. Shopping. (Day 27)

Ten bucks if you can spot me (hint, hint). If, however, you have vision troubles and are unable to find me , you’ll at least get an idea of where I am. Where I am is likely in front of Tarzhay¹ somewhere in the city of Chicago, freezing my bum off and likely having just been trampled trying to acquire that $49 50″ flat panel TV of which they likely had only two. Wish me luck.

¹ By which I mean the most *amazing* store on the planet, Target.

Happy Thanksgiving! (Day 26)

I had every intention of penning a verbose message this Thanksgiving, but the immobilization caused by the tryptophanic residue in my bloodstream has currently hurled me inexorably couchward.

I wanted to say a lot today. I am sure that some of you are more than tired of me and my vapid, but cheerful(!), blog posts, and while I’m sorry you’re bored, you must surely have a cold, shriveled little heart that cannot tolerate my gratitude! I feel like I have a lot to be grateful for, like my amazingly loving and supportive parents who, even though I packed up an moved 1,600 miles away, still love me just like I was sitting in their house being the demanding princess I can occasionally be. I am grateful for being able to live in Canada and, while I know I won’t be here forever, I have fallen in love with this beautiful country and its fantastic peeps — I wouldn’t trade a single, solitary moment of my time here and will always say only excellent things about the country, even when they continue making fun of my accent. But what I really wanted to do today was to show some love to YOU, my blog readers. You, the people who take the time to stop by here and read my drivel, to leave comments, to send emails, and reply to tweets. Those of you who stop by, lurk, and say nothing at all.

When I started blogging a few years ago, I loved it, but did it really just for myself. I never took it seriously. Then people actually started finding me and reading me, and I had no idea that my site would grow into a community of people I love and treasure—not just online, but offline, too.

My blog friends have sent me some of the nicest emails I’ve ever received. They have encouraged me in the midst of relationship issues, the ending of friendships and worries about my future. They have made me laugh and cry all at the same time. Some of them have crossed the line from “e-friends” to just plain friends. Friends I speak with regularly, friends I can’t wait to see again. Friends who fill my email box, my Facebook wall, and my snail mail box with love and care and friendship.

Blogging has reconnected me to old friends and to people I had no idea were reading or paying attention. It has opened my eyes to people and alternate points of view points and goals and books and careers and ideas and plans. And for that, I can never write an adequate post.

So, if you’re here, on this page, I just want to say Thank You. I am thankful for you. I am grateful for all of the little things, with seemingly insignificant moments that make my life so much sweeter.

I wanted to say all that, but all I can really manage at this moment is a giant Happy Thanksgiving to everyone! I love, and am so thankful for, you all!

xo.