Organized. That’s the word that many people use to describe me, but I currently sit on the outermost corner of my bed, leaning back against a pile of clothes, bedding, stuffed animals, and even a lunchbox that really need to be put away. Some people have a hard time making lists, but I don’t. I can sit down on a Tuesday evening and type up a list of 101 things that I would like to do in the next three or so years without any qualms, but hanging my laundry onto hangers is a huge challenge to me.

By all rights, my clothing should be hung in the closet, sorted by type, and then by height and color, for aesthetics, just like my books that sit on my bookcase right now, but they’re not. My shelves should be labeled with my Dymo Label Maker, and the contents of my desk drawer should have tabs for easy reference, with colored dots on each one marking how often I should refer back to each item. Should I look over them daily, weekly, or occasionally? If I looked over them more often, perhaps I would be able to find the stapler when I need it. But for some reason, no matter how hard I try, that never happens. I purge, clean, sort, organize and purge some more to my heart’s content, yet I still don’t know where the stapler is, and I even once lost my social security card for an entire year until I finally found it tucked somewhere safe and completely illogical.

I know precisely when I will need the stapler, because it’s written right here in my little blue planner on my next actions list. I will need to staple together my math homework on Monday. My math homework is entry #12 on the list, and the due date is 7/6/09. I can see that it’s not done yet, because the box next to it does not contain a perfect little checkmark. I know I need to send a thank you card to Mr. and Mrs. So and So, who were invited to my wedding as a party of four, because they have two kids named Johnny and Mary. I also know that they did RSVP and they are from out of town, and they gave us the lovely gift of a gift card for this exact amount, and I can see that I haven’t yet sent them a thank you card because the little box is not filled in with a checkmark yet in my thirteen column wedding excel spreadsheet. I could tell you exactly what park we will be visiting in Disney World on which day and where we plan to eat at precisely what time and even what I intend to order, because that is all in my Disney World spreadsheet. Yet I still have a pile of laundry on my bed that has resided in hampers for quite some time, and I have no idea where my stapler is.

Aren’t humans strange contradictions?

#8 and #9: Matthew and I are taking a trip to Disney World in September, so while we are there, I plan on doing #9. #8 is easily accomplished at home.

#14: I’ve been dying to make tamales for weeks, so we are planning to have a tamale night when summer term classes are over. Right now, with Matthew’s work schedule and my night class, we never get to have dinner together.

#27: I have NO clue how to actually submit something to PostSecret! They have no information on the website!

#45: This is going to have to wait until next year. Matthew works on 4th of July, so we don’t have any big plans.

#56: I’m registered to take ASL at school this fall.

#58: Since I’m an English major and prefer to read books in one sitting, this shouldn’t be too difficult for me. I’m currently reading Elijah’s Cup for my Autism in Literature class.

#59: We have no balance on our credit card. Hooray! Once I close it, I will get out the scissors.

#60 and #63: The savings is in the budget. Now we’re just waiting for the paychecks.

#62: I may change this to buy a camcorder. Matthew already has a good camera.

#64 and #66: We should be able to order these soon. I can’t wait to get all my dishes!

#76: On today’s to do list.

#81: So far I have a B in the current one. Let’s hope I can keep it up.

#82: As long as I pass my math class this term, my GPA should hit that mark.

#85: I’m halfway there!

#100: This blog post makes 2 out of 50!

Here’s how it works: You pick a start date, write down 101 defined and measurable goals, and complete them all in 1001 days—about 2.75 years. That’s all, really. It’s that simple (and difficult).

Shawna’s 101 Things:

Items in bold are in progress. Crossed out items have been completed.

Adventures

1.    Take a weekend trip
2.    Go on a dinner cruise
3.    Go camping
4.    Go for a drive with no destination in mind
5.    Go to Greek Festival
6.    Go to Garlic Festival
7.    Ride on a train
8.    See the sun rise and set on the west coast
9.    See the sun rise and set on the east coast
10.    Get a passport
11.    Visit another country
12.    See the Aurora Borealis
13.    Move to Seattle

Food

14.    Host 10 dinner parties (0/10)
15.    Host Christmas
16.    Make Sushi
17.    Make Filet Mignon
18.    Make Baked Alaska
19.    Make Ratatouille
20.    Make ice cream from scratch
21.    Make a custom recipe book
22.    Take a cake decorating class
23.    Bake something cute and fabulous from Bakerella 5 times (0/5)

Fun

24.    See 5 plays (0/5)
25.    Have a bonfire for no reason
26.    Play Mafia
27.    Send a secret to PostSecret
28.    Take a picture of something every day for 365 consecutive days (0/365)
29.    Make a snowman
30.    Go hot tubbing 5 times (0/5)
31.    Watch the extended editions of all three Lord of the Rings movies in one day
32.    Make a new list

Health

33.    Get to goal weight (0/100%)
34.    Run a 5k
35.    Go on 15 hikes (0/15)
36.    Weigh in on the Wii Fit for 30 consecutive days (0/30)
37.    Track food eaten for 30 consecutive days (0/30)
38.    Pack lunch every day for 30 consecutive days (0/30)
39.    Avoid soda for 30 consecutive days (2/30)
40.    Floss every day for 30 consecutive days (0/30)
41.    Get Health Insurance
42.    Wear a bikini proudly

Holidays

43.    Have a New Year’s Party
44.    Deliver homemade brownies to people on Valentine’s Day
45.    Do our own fireworks at the beach for the 4th of July
46.    Write a Christmas letter
47.    Leave a $50 tip at Christmas
48.    Go caroling

Matthew

49.    Surprise Matthew 5 times (1/5)
50.    Have 100 date nights with Matthew (0/100)
51.    Write love letters and box them up with some wine to be aged and opened on our 20th
52.    Read Love and Respect with Matthew
53.    See Blue Man Group, Cirque du Soliel, or Medieval Times together

Mind Stretching

54.    Take a first aid course
55.    Take a piano or violin class
56.    Learn ASL
57.    Take an art class
58.    Read 100 books (1/100)

Money

59.    Cut up credit cards
60.    Save $5000
61.    Pay for something for someone anonymously 5 times (0/5)
62.    Buy a camera
63.    Buy a car
64.    Buy a terabyte backup drive
65.    Buy a safe
66.    Complete Wedding Registry

Personal

67.    Get Driver’s License
68.    Chop off hair
69.    Buy a fabulous jacket
70.   Get a pedicure
71.    Get a facial
72.    Learn to dance
73.    Sing in a choir again
74.    Start using reusable grocery bags
75.    Get wedding photos developed
76.    Write wedding thank you cards
77.    Declutter the bedroom
78.    Finish Family website
79.    Learn how to shoot a gun
80.    Get stationary and custom address labels

School

81.    Pass remaining 3 math classes (0/3)
82.    Bring GPA up to 3.5
83.    Join Honor Society
84.    Win a scholarship
85.    Earn my Associate’s Degree
86.    Get accepted to Seattle Pacific University

Spiritual & Giving

87.    Read every book of the Bible (0/66)
88.    Participate in National Day of Prayer
89.    Pray in the shower for thirty consecutive days (0/30)
90.    Start tithing
91.    Sponsor a child
92.    Participate in Operation Christmas Child
93.    Volunteer
94.    Babysit for free 5 times (0/5)
95.    Send a care package to a soldier

Writing

96.    Win NaNoWriMo 3 times (0/3)
97.    Write 30 poems (1/30)
98.    Write 10 short stories (0/10)
99.    Write 5 children’s books (0/5)
100.    Write 50 blog posts (4/50)
101.    Submit a piece of writing for publication

For every item I finish, I will save $1 to spend on something frivolous and $1 to donate to charity. Anything I don’t accomplish will automatically be placed on the next list!

Start Date: June 30th, 2009
End Date: March 27, 2012
Completed so far: 1/101

#1: Free Dining

If you stay at a Disney resort during September, you can get the Disney Dining Plan for free. The dining plan is a way to prepay for meals. It usually costs around $40 per person per day, and it gives you one counter service meal, one sit down meal, and one snack per day. We were planning to use the Dining Plan anyway during our stay, so this has saved us over $600, and we don’t even have to worry about factoring food into our budget.

#2: Low Crowds

Most families choose to vacation during Christmas, Spring, or Summer break. Since school often starts in late August or early September, fewer big families with children travel during this month. There are certain days in September where the parks can get crowded, but in general, the crowds are much lower than in the summer months.

#3: Value Season

I never thought we could afford to stay at a Disney hotel. I always thought they were all ridiculously expensive. But, as it turns out, there are hotels in all price ranges and traveling during the value season makes things even more affordable. Hotel rates fluctuate throughout the year, and the value season offers some of the cheapest hotel rates available at Disney. You can stay at a value resort during value season for less than $100 a night, and all of September is considered value season.

#4: Lower Travel Costs

Summer travel drives up the cost of both gas and airfare. People often panic when they see the price of gas start crawling back upwards at the beginning of summer, but it almost always falls back down by September. Likewise, airlines raise their prices during peak travel seasons. Flying during September—especially if you can fly on a Tuesday or Wednesday, or take a red eye flight—will save you money.

#5: Weather

This can be deter you or encourage you to travel during this time. Despite the fact that the intense September heat in Florida can be unpleasant, sometimes the heat can be very appealing! It just depends on what type of person you are. If you live in an area where the fall weather is terrible, you may just want to escape to somewhere warm and sunny even if it is a bit wet. Or a lot wet. The rains that usually hit Disney World can sometimes clear the parks. As long as you come prepared with a good poncho and shoes that will dry quickly, it won’t ruin your vacation. And should a hurricane hit—September is hurricane season, after all—Disney is extremely well equipped to handle storms.

#6: Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party

This is a special event (for which you need a separate ticket) that takes place several times a week during September and October. You can stay late in the Magic Kingdom for a special Halloween parade and fireworks show, as well as trick or treating and dance parties. Select rides remain open, and rare characters, including most Disney villains, come out to join the party. You can even come in costume. I’m really looking forward to experiencing this for the first time on our trip!

#7: Night of Joy

Disney’s Hollywood Studios park is home to a contemporary Christian music festival on September 11th and 12th. This is also a special event with separate tickets. You can get into the park after hours for concerts by top artists such as Newsboys, P.O.D., Mandisa, Chris Tomlin, Leeland, and too many more to list. They also open select attractions for Night of Joy guests. I’m disappointed that we have to miss this, but taking our trip this early in September wasn’t an option for us.

#8: Food and Wine Festival

This is another special event that starts at Epcot on September 25th and goes all the way through October. During the Food and Wine Festival, you can sample foods from all over the world, participate in cooking seminars and wine tastings, and enjoy special concerts every night.

#9: Athletes for a Cure Triathlon

I don’t think there is a better place in the world to participate in a marathon or triathlon than Disney World, and there is no better reason than for charity. Part of the registration fee from each participant goes to fund research for a cure for prostate cancer.

#10: It’s Disney!

The best reason to go to Disney World in September is simply that taking a trip to Disney World is incredibly fun. It’s the perfect vacation destination for almost anyone, including families, singles, and, of course, honeymooners! With four main parks, two water parks, a whole host of resorts, a sports complex, a shopping center, and much more, there is never a dull moment, and there is something for everyone to enjoy. That is why we chose to go to Disney in September this year, despite my intense dislike of heat and humidity. I’m buying some shorts and a mister fan and sucking it up, because it is Disney World, after all, and we will still have a great time, even if we’re sweaty and sunburned.

At first, I thought that we would plan everything the traditional, “acceptable” way, despite the necessary changes in the time frame. Surely we would need to hire a ton of people—a wedding planner, a caterer, a florist, a stationer, a photographer, musicians—and probably go into debt. The average wedding budget in the United States is $20,000, and we were two college students who had not planned on this!

I was absolutely overwhelmed by the thought of paying for this affair until a simple phrase changed everything: “Hey, what if we made our own invitations?” After that, I was hit with Do-It-Yourself fever, and my perspective was flipped upside down.

Who cares if we don’t hire a caterer? Will our wedding guests be upset if they don’t get to eat a three course dinner? If they are, should we even care about their opinion anyway?

Who cares if we don’t hire a florist? How hard is it to gather a bunch of flowers into a bouquet? They’re just flowers! After all, fiance’s sister-in-law used to work at a florist!

Who cares if we don’t hire a stationer? I’m a web designer—can’t I design my own invitations? How hard is it to cut the paper to size and tie bows? (Not hard at all, though it is time consuming.) And won’t we actually have the invitations we want? Won’t they be completely original?

Who cares if we don’t hire a calligrapher? Will our wedding guests be offended if we don’t hand write their names and addresses on each envelope? Will they even look at the envelope?

Who cares if we don’t hire a wedding planner? Are we not capable of planning our wedding on our own? Don’t we have enough resources available on the internet? Why should we pay someone else to plan the best day of our lives for us?

Who cares if we don’t hire a photographer? We have friends and acquaintances who take beautiful pictures. Won’t we love their work?

Who cares if we don’t hire a baker? Aren’t we capable of baking cake? Couldn’t we handle making cupcakes? Don’t we have friends who could even make us a tiered cake? (Yes, they could, and yes, they will!)

Who cares if we don’t hire a make up artist? Don’t I know how to apply make up the way I like it? Can’t I just go to Sephora and ask the make up artist there for some tips and product recommendations? Do I even need to do that?

At the end of the day, we’ll still be married. We will have had exactly the type of wedding we wanted, without breaking the bank—and without hiring any professionals.

(Forgot to mention that on Valentine’s Day… oops!)

During December I tend to wish everyone a merry Christmas. However, after I had done my wishing, she wished me a Merry Christmas, too, and informed me that she was now allowed to say that because I had said it first. Strange rules. I’m no fan of political correctness. The incident reminded me of a letter I wrote one Christmas to vent out some frustration about all the fuss and fretting that goes on about Christmas and ‘holidays’. This letter deals with a choir having a ‘Holiday’ program instead of a Christmas program. Sometimes people worry so much about offending non-religious people that they, in turn, offend the religious. Enjoy.

Dear Choir Director,

I am offended that you have chosen to include Holiday songs in your winter program. I am appalled by this school’s utter disregard for other faiths. While I believe that the Naturalists should be allowed the same religious freedom of expression as other sects, I do not approve of their ideology being forced upon others.

As we all know, Holiday is a time when Naturalists celebrate their doctrinal miracles: abiogenesis and the evolution of man; their revered saints, prophets, and messiahs: Stanley Miller, Harold Urey, Richard Dawkins, and Charles Darwin, among others; their freedom from the absurd idea of absolute truth and the tedium of a life plagued by a concrete definition of right or wrong; their freedom to assert natural selection as a cause where it is convenient for them and to assert that natural selection is only a theory if the case be opposite; their right to freedom from other religions; and their right to freely indoctrinate publicly schooled students in their theology regardless of the fact that their doctrinal miracles are theories thus far unproven and hotly debated in the scientific community.

I do not celebrate Holiday, and I do not think it is appropriate for the school to endorse one faith so blatantly. I hope that next year the winter program will be amended to include Christmas, Hanukkah, and Kwanzaa songs as well as Holiday songs, or that the Holiday songs in the winter program will be removed entirely.

Yours, &c.

Remember the reason for the season. Merry Christmas!

College is not about becoming a smart, educated person. In this day and age, college graduates are not always the brightest crayons in the box. College is a ten-week** marathon which you must run three or four times a year for two to four years (at least). College is not about completing the reading, getting a thorough understanding of the subject you are studying, or being able to discuss the subject with wisdom and understanding. College is about identifying objectives which you must complete (the essay, the group project, the midterm, the term paper, and the final exam) and completing them on time in the manner specified by your teacher. College is about learning to cope with the annoying characters in your class (History-Channel-Girl, Irrelevant-Comment-Boy, Obnoxious-Interruption Girl, Chitter-In-The-Back-Of-The-Class-Girl & friends, I-Still-Act-Like-A-High-School-Student-Boy and I-Never-Do-The-Assignment-Boy), learning to deal with unpleasant teachers, and learning to stay awake during the dullest class of your day. College is about making lists of deadlines and calibrating your day planner accordingly. College is about calculating how many points you need on assignment A + paper B to earn the final grade C. College is about multiplying all of these objectives by X amount of classes and learning to balance the workload. The workload? Oh. College is about work.

It seems to me that what I am really learning in college is this: How do I take these objectives given to me and complete them in the amount of time given to me and in a manner which will satisfy my boss?  Now, I know that this view is extremely cynical. I have learned a lot in my first term of college, and I have no doubt that my teachers are excellent teachers who truly do want to impart knowledge and a love of learning to their students. However, college is not the only place where you can become educated. Going to school is not the only method of becoming educated—and few would take that college-only position. But what has happened? Why do we have to go to college to be deemed educated? To be deemed qualified?

I take issue with the institutionalization of education. I will concede that it is important for everyone to be educated, and I will also concede that there is basic knowledge which everyone should learn. Yes, I know: this comes from the home school girl, and what else would you expect me to say? I concede that home schooling is not possible for every family, nor is it ideal for every student, and nor is it an easily feasible concept for higher education. I am not advocating anything. I am simply being critical of “the system”. I loathe the idea of taking something as broad as education and saying: this is what it looks like. Complete A, B, and C, and you will earn D, where D equals diploma, or a degree. Answer these twenty-five questions correctly on your midterm, and you have successfully learned the first half of this course. This does not seem the way things should be.

What can you learn outside of the system, and how much? What can you learn without a certified teacher? What can you learn with no teacher but yourself? What can you learn with a good book, a blank journal filled with paper that is a pleasure to write upon and a pen that is a delight to write with? What can you learn by keeping a blog? What can you learn by picking up a copy of Plato’s works and reading them entirely on your own? Or by watching a Shakespeare play—which, indeed, was meant to be watched, and not read? What can you learn through trial and error, or by mere people watching? What can you learn? What subjects can you study? Not everything, but many things. Not every subject, but many subjects. Reading, writing, and arithmetic, I concede, are skills that require some manner of teacher, at least initially. But of the plethora of other subjects listed in the college catalog, how many of those could you learn on your own? A great many, I say. Unfortunately, you would get no credit whatsoever. And that is my problem with institutionalized education. That is my problem with college.

That, and term papers.

See you when I’m done completing 35% of my grade.

* Preschool + Kindergarten + Twelve grades = Fourteen years of school
** If the school uses a quarter system, which mine does

“But the most obvious fact about praise—whether of God or any thing—strangely escaped me. I thought of it in terms of compliment, approval, or the giving of honor. I had never noticed that all enjoyment spontaneously overflows into praise unless (sometimes even if) shyness or the fear of boring others is deliberately brought in to check it. The world rings with praise—lovers praising their mistresses, readers their favorite poet, walkers praising the countryside, players praising their favorite game—praise of weather, wines, dishes, actors, motors, horses, colleges, countries, historical personages, children, flowers, mountains, rare stamps, rare beetles, even sometimes politicians or scholars. I had not noticed how the humblest, and at the same time most balanced and capacious, minds praised most, while the cranks, misfits and malcontents praised least…

I had not noticed either that just as men spontaneously praise whatever they value, so they spontaneously urge us to join them in praising it: “Isn’t she lovely? Wasn’t it glorious? Don’t you think that magnificent?” The Psalmist in telling everyone to praise God are doing what all men do when they speak of what they care about. My whole, more general, difficulty about the praise of God depended on my absurdly denying to us, as regards the supremely Valuable, what we delight to do, what indeed we can’t help doing, about everything else we value.

I think we delight to praise what we enjoy because the praise not merely expresses but completes the enjoyment; it is its appointed consummation. It is not out of compliment that lovers keep on telling one another how beautiful they are; the delight is incomplete till it is expressed.” ~ C.S. Lewis