Bolded items are works in progress.
Crossed out items are completed.
Everything else is waiting to happen.

School/Work

1. Graduate/earn my two year degree and decide what to do after

2. Earn A's and B's in all of my classes

3. Get a job in my field

Personal

1. Keep a personal journal and write in it daily when possible

2. Complete at least ten big works of art (pencil drawings or paintings)

3. Go through all old clothes, electronics, etc. and sell/donate what I no longer use

4. Get a new mattress that I can sleep on without being in pain

5. Move into my own apartment (further down the road)

6. Improve my handwriting

7. Clean out my car once a month (0/33)

8. Clean out my closet every other month (0/33)

Vanity

1. Get my first tattoo

2. Get at least five new piercings (probably industrial, both traguses, and conches) (0/5)

3. Dye my hair a crazy color temporarily (or permanently if I like it enough!)

4. Whiten my teeth/get impurities fixed

Home/Family

1. Set up a recycling system for the family (we currently burn all trash, sans pop cans/bottles)

2. Visit my family in Philadelphia at least once

3. Write a "will" including what to do with online presences in case of emergency

4. Bring back family board game night; play at least once a month

Food/Health

1. Start riding my bike every day and eventually be able to ride 6 miles to the nearest town

2. Get a massage

3. See a chiropractor for the first time

4. Cook/try at least 25 new recipes myself (almost once per month) (0/25)

5. Learn how to make 5 ethnic foods (don't count towards 25 recipes) (0/5)

6. Learn how to make 5 different pizzas (doesn't count towards previous two) (0/5)

7. Give up drinking pop habitually (started Sept. 1st 2010)

8. Give up fast food for at least one month

9. Go vegetarian or pescetarian for at least one month

10. Go vegan for at least a week

11. Switch to drinking organic milk

12. Make a Super Epic Rainbow Cake

13. Try ethnic food that I haven’t had before at a restaurant

14. Try sushi (doesn't count for item above)

Internet/Computers

1. Blog about each item on this list as it is completed

2. Blog at least once a week (0/143)

3. Post to my Tumblr at least once a week (0/143)

4. Do at least ten paid website designs for other people/freelance clients (0/10)

5. Do at least ten free website designs for other people/freelance clients (0/10)

6. Learn how to write in object-oriented PHP vs. procedural

7. Get an iMac as a present to myself after I graduate from college

8. Finish the tribute websites for my grandfather and uncle

9. Do a collaborative website or other project with someone

10. Go one week without using the internet at all

11. Build my own personal desktop computer

12. Install & try Linux out

13. Go to a convention or blogger meetup (will probably be WordCamp)

14. Create and upload at least two items to an Envato marketplace (0/2)

15. Write a guest article for someone else's blog

16. Review 25 sites on Rev.iew.me (0/25)

Photography

1. Get back into photography and get a DSLR

2. Go through and organize all photos on my computer

3. Start a scrapbook with all of the photos I have taken

4. Start and complete a 365 project

5. Start and complete a 52 weeks project

6. Start and complete a 26 things project

7. Sell at least 10 prints of my photographs (0/10)

Entertainment

1. Go horseback riding

2. Go to at least five different museums

3. Go to at least ten new restaurants

4. Go swimming at least ten times

5. Go to a butterfly garden

6. Go to a concert

7. Stay at a bed and breakfast

8. Have a picnic at a park

Volunteer/Charity/Giving

1. Volunteer for an animal shelter

2. Donate $10 every month to a different charity (0/33)

3. Donate $5 to a charity for every item I do not complete on this list

4. Donate toys I would have loved as a child for Christmas

5. Give a 100% tip for excellent service

6. Donate $10 to 10 people who have created things useful to me (scripts, plugins) (0/10)

7. Donate 1,000,000 grains of rice on FreeRice.com (0/1m)

8. Leave 10 inspirational quotes in a public place (0/10)

Creativity/Talent

1. Get a pen pal/write to someone via snail mail regularly

2. Make 10 things from Instructables (0/10)

3. Start learning to play the electric guitar that is collecting dust in my closet

4. Do a logic puzzle every day

5. Complete a puzzle (a physical puzzle) at least once per month (0/33)

6. Get a Wreck This Journal and go through it completely

7. Send ten handmade cards (birthday, anniversary, get well soon, etc.) (0/10)

8. Make my own tote bag/purse

Go Without

1. Go at least one week without swearing

2. Go at least one week without complaining about anything

3. Go at least one week without buying anything

4. Go at least one week without lying about anything

5. Completely cut ableist and sexist words/phrases from my vocabulary

101 Things

1. Read 101 books (re-reads count, but only once) (0/101)

2. Watch 101 movies (re-watching counts if it's been 5+ years) (0/101)

3. List 101 things that make me happy (0/101)

4. List 101 things that I regret or make me unhappy and destroy it (0/101)

5. List 101 things that I've achieved in my life (0/101)

6. List 101 things I am grateful for (0/101)

7. Add 101 new words to my vocabulary (0/101)

8. Leave 101 comments on different blogs (0/101)

Miscellaneous

1. Vote in every election

2. Attend a protest

3. Write a letter to the editor or a politician

4. Visit both small town and A-town libraries once a month

5. Answer the "50 Questions That Will Free Your Mind"

6. Write a letter to myself to open in ten years

7. Put $5 in savings for every item completed on this list (including this and the next)

8. Make a new 101 in 1001 list when I am done with this one

Am I crazy or what?

In Networking, I learned about binary. I always have known that binary is ones and zeros in sequences of 8, but I never knew what they meant. It's really cool to be able to finally understand binary. Anyway, we learned about binary because we were learning about IP addresses and what they mean. Now, I finally know what subnet masks and gateways are.

Oh, and we each got our own removable hard drive to use for both computer classes, and we installed Windows 7 Pro on them. Our professor also said within a few weeks he'll be handing out Windows 7 Pro to anyone who wants it. I recently wiped all of the extra operating systems from my computer with the intention of going back and installing XP only, but now I'm rethinking this and I'll probably go with the triple boot again.

So, I learned a lot on my first day. Learning is awesome. I love learning. I love school. I love getting new books (and the smell of those new books!), taking notes, taking tests, and, of course, learning. I feel like I've started a new chapter in my life and I like where things are going right now.

I hope all of this positivity and happiness helps jump start my creativity, because this blog needs a new layout.

I've made a lot of changes to the site. The articles and tutorials are gone (the articles have been for a while now, but still) and are now sitting as drafts waiting to be posted. They will be eventually posted just like regular blog posts.

There is nothing new download-wise, but a lot of the pages have been rewritten. I have big plans for my current themes (previously referred to as templates) and plan on adding more soon.

I have been working on my scripts behind the scenes. The first to get an update will be Quotish; it will have an improved tagging interface with flexible tag cloud functions available and ability to specify a quote source (meaning what book, movie, etc. the quote came from). Second to be updated will be Domainish and will have only a few small tweaks. Iconish desperately needs an update but I haven't worked on it lately due to the major updates to Quotish. Also, Collectivish has been officially put on hold. I may never finish the script as it will take a lot of work, and since I am going back to school again, I won't have the time.

Speaking of school, I start back in a little over two weeks. If you haven't been following, I have transferred to a new school closer to home. I'm traveling to a campus almost an hour away on Tuesdays and Thursdays for my computer related classes. I'm taking any general education classes either independently, online, or at my home campus on Mondays and Wednesdays 15 minutes away. I get Fridays off, so far! Yay!

As for the classes I'm taking, I'm taking a basic computer hardware class, a basic networking class, a Windows OS class, a finite math class, and an introductory psychology class. I'm looking forward to all of my classes and I love my schedule.

For those of you who have been following me on Twitter for a while, you will know that my experience at my previous school wasn't great. I am confident, however, that my attitude is completely turned around and that I know that this will be good for me. Going to school at home is also much cheaper, and when I got my bill for this semester I almost didn't believe it was so cheap. Sure, I have loans I will have to pay when I'm done, but they're not huge and it won't be that bad.

So, all in all, things are good!

I have finally put my personal blog up on my professional portfolio. I have put off doing that for so long, even though with some of my designs I wanted to show it off so bad. Why not? Because everyone would read it.

I removed every instance of my last name from my blog ages ago when I realized it was too easy to find when you Google my full name. I didn't want every one of my relatives, classmates and coworkers reading my weird ramblings. I have enough problems with worrying about what people think of me without having to worry about what they think about my blog as well.

Now? I don't have my last name on here, but my portfolio is the first result for my full name on Google and this blog is only two more clicks away after that. I don't know how I feel about that. I'm not going to take it back and remove it from my portfolio. I'm not going to stop blogging.

So screw it. If someone finds my blog, oh well. I guess they can think I'm a weirdo who talks about myself too much, or that I'm completely boring. This is not easy for me to do, or say, but I will make no progress if I hide my blog from the public or don't speak up. Hello world!

Anyway, this weekend has been a busy one. Saturday morning the boyfriend and I headed to a town an hour away to do some shopping. I got a pair of jeans, a DVD… and a new desk and bookcase set. We came home and set it up together, which was actually fun. I love putting things together. Then, I gave him a tour of the farm and we had supper. This was the first time he'd actually met my parents *le gasp*. They liked him, of course.

Later that night, after the boyfriend went home, we rushed into the church to put my photo display for Vacation Bible school together. This is the third year I've done this. Just like two years ago, a storm came in while we were there. This time, it was after 10pm and it was really creepy. We also discovered a bunch of windows were leaking, so we had to quick lay towels in the window sills everywhere. That was about all we could do since we were unprepared for something like that to happen. We got home a little before 11:30pm and I crashed because I had to go to the service the next day.

Yesterday (Sunday) was the program/service and it was cool. I brought in our iMac which I had put a number of photos on for a slideshow. This was the first year of doing that, and it was awesome. It wasn't my idea, but I still got lots of praise for it. I'm going to burn DVDs of it for a bunch of parents once I figure out how. It shouldn't be too difficult.

Aren't you all proud of me for blogging again?

Stop Being Spoiled

I have never for my cell phone bill or my car insurance. My parents have never really bugged me to pay for these things, but I would like to feel more like an independent adult, and since I can't afford to move out on my own right now, this will help. My cell phone bill is only $15/month since it's just an extra line on a family plan. My car insurance isn't crazy expensive, and I'll only have to pay it every six months.

Budget and Save

…Or just stop buying crap. No more iPads, iPods, apps, video games, domain names, etc. Seriously. I have the iPad now, and bought the essential apps. I have Pokémon SoulSilver, and refuse to buy anything else until I pretty much beat the game. I have let tons of domains expire. It's down to 25 now, which is a huge improvement. Also, I'm putting a minimum of $100 into my savings account per month, and more if for some reason I get paid more (freelance jobs, etc.).

Eat Healthier

I have been really bad about junk food lately, especially potato chips, pop, and cookies. I can buy all three of those at my workplace and munch on on break, or when I have no customers, and I totally do it all the time. This is really bad. I have decided that I need to start packing lunches on days when I get a lunch break, and snacks for all other days. I bought some reusable lunch containers and a BPA-free metal canister for drinks and plan to use them for exactly that.

Buy Green, Natural and Organic More

I've always been an eco-friendly freak but not enough of one. I used reusable shopping bags when I was away at school and have completely stopped using them. I'm going to start using them again and refuse plastic bags. I have been buying all natural/organic beauty products lately. I have this delicious-smelling pomegranate shampoo and rosemary/mint body wash. I smell amazing, and I feel better about using more natural products.

I've been working a lot, and everything is kind of insane because it's greenhouse season. Tons and tons of people have bought plants, which is a good thing for the company, of course, but at the end of the day my brain turns to jello.

Speaking of the greenhouse, I bought a ton of plants from my work seeing as I get a discount, and that I really wanted to get into gardening. So, Sunday night, Mom, Dad and I planted almost everything. We still have a bunch of seeds and I think I'll attempt to do something with those today if it's not already too late to plant them. I'll be posting pictures really soon. ;D My garden has a purple and white theme going on (you know, besides all the green) and it's pretty awesome right now.

I also got Pokémon SoulSilver last week and this morning I beat the gym at Goldenrod City. In my party have a level 21 Togetic (evolved from Togepi this morning at level 16), level 22 Bayleef (evolved from my starter, Chikorita), level 11 Mareep, level 16 Pidgey, level 17 Onix, and a level 9 Bellsprout.

Oh yeah, and I flew out to see my family in Philadelphia for ten days, and even visited New York! It's nice to get away from cornfields once in a while.

I was looking around my old layouts in my local WordPress install and came across the left-aligned purple layout. I decided to revive it with new colors. I started out with all the same colors as now except the sidebar was dark blue. It seemed off to me. So, I was playing around in Brent's color palletes, and tried out a brown color for it. It's perfect! It reminds me of grass and dirt and springtime, for which I am desperately wishing.

I'm so sick of winter it's not even funny. The bad weather keeps me holed up in my apartment and I hate that. This past Wednesday we had an ice storm which wasn't the worst, but it was pretty bad. Lots of communities in the state of Iowa are still without power. Yesterday there was still a thick coat of ice on the trees, which meant branches were falling on power lines, people and cars. I was sitting in my car last night, warming it up, and a small branch fell on my windshield. It was icy enough that it made a loud noise and scared me!

Now, looking at the forecast, we're due for more snow Monday and Thursday. Before it was supposed to snow tomorrow and Wednesday as well, but they changed it. I'm really hoping it stays that way because I may have a chance to go home next weekend.

Right now it's raining pretty hard and it may cause flooding. When it rains, it pours, I guess.

I was going to use this layout on a free hosting site but have since decided not to open it because I'm now in a supervisor position on Bubble.nu I help with answering support tickets and administration on the forum, and soon will be helping to manage trouble checks.

Alright, I promised I'd post my resolutions for this year so here they are!:

• Get at least one new piercing.
• Get my very first tattoo.
• Either go back to natural hair color or finish transition to brunette.
• Buy myself a Wii (my family has one at home and I miss it so when I'm at my apartment!). Moving back home, so I don't need my own Wii anymore (not that I NEEDED one before).
• Trade in my DSi for a DS Lite so I can play older (non DS) games.
• Keep making the dean's list at school.
• Cut down to 30 or fewer domains. Completed on February 22nd, 2010!
• Cut down to 50 or fewer fanlistings.
• Keep fanlisting collective in one place.
• Create and upload at least one item to an Envato marketplace (most likely ThemeForest or CodeCanyon).