Hi all! I’m scheduling this post to go live on our first day in Seattle; I hope you’re having a great Thursday!

Here’s an update on my 101 in 1001, as of today:

GOALS ACHIEVED OR IN PROGRESS: SIX MORE GOALS!

Write and mail at least ten handwritten letters. (7/10: 1 to Jessica in March 2010, 3 to Aunts in April 2010, 2 to Jessica and Kristen in June 2011, 1 to Jessica’s parents in July 2011)

Visit 3 states I’ve never been to before. (Check! August 2011: Washington State!)

Learn how to use at least one Adobe design program, and make a project. (Check – July 2011 – Photoshop! Project: Mood Board for a Nursery!)

Get a recycling bin and start recycling! (Check! Purchased a recycling bin at IKEA in July 2011, and have already emptied it twice!)

See the Backstreet Boys in concert…again. (Check – July 15, 2011! It was such a great show; NKOTB is also awesome!)

Find 5 new musicians/bands that I like & add them to my ipod. (4/5: Wakey!Wakey! in September 2010; City and Colour in February 2011; Adele in July 2011; New Kids on the Block in July 2011)

How are you doing with your list of goals?

One year ago today, I married my most favorite person in the world. I married the world’s best cuddler, the world’s best doggy-daddy. I married way out of my league, because I married the best man I’ve ever known.

I’m a lucky gal.

To my husband of one year, Jordan: here’s to many more years together. I’m so excited for the adventures ahead of us!

And also, a reminder of the reading that was read one year ago today…I still feel these words to my core, my love.

The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams

“Real isn’t how you are made,” said the Skin Horse. “It’s a thing that happens to you. When a person loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real.” “Does it hurt?” asked the Rabbit. “Sometimes,” said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. “When you are Real you don’t mind being hurt.” “Does it happen all at once, like being wound up,” he asked, “or bit by bit?” “It doesn’t happen all at once,” said the Skin Horse. “You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in your joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.”

Love always, your wife, Sara.

So, back in February 2010, I got this grand idea, thanks to a few bloggers who I found on Twitter (and, who, alas, I don’t remember – comment and let me know if you know who I’m talking about!), to make a giant list of goals. A list of goals that spanned the gamut of my brain and the depths of my (meager) wallet, no less.

Readers, meet my 101 in 1001 Goals List.

[Backstory: So the basic premise of the 101 in 1001 Goals Project is that a person makes a list of 101 goals that he/she would like to complete within 1001 days, which, to break it down for you, gives said person approximately 32 months to complete/achieve all goals. For example, I began my 101 in 1001 Goals Project on February 1, 2010, and my project will end on October 27, 2012.]

So, before I show you my (LONG) list, I don’t want to forget to mention: to learn more about making your own 101 in 1001 Goals List, visit this site right here.

Here’s my list!

Goals that I have already achieved: 32 GOALS!

- Get married! (Check – July 2010)

- Participate in pre-marital counseling. (April 2010 – June 2010)

- Teach someone how to do something. (Check: Became a Teaching Assistant in August of 2010!)

- Send my friend Jessica at least one care package at seminary. (Sent an Easter package to Jessica in March 2010.)

- Send flowers randomly to someone I care about. (Kristen – April 2010.)

- Start a new tradition with Jordan. (Check – New Year’s Reflection Worksheets, 2010.)

- Talk with Jordan about me changing my name. (Check: March 2010. NOTE: I decided to take his name, but hyphenate professionally, for those of you who are curious about that stuff.)

- Personal. (Check: March 2010. NOTE: Some goals are too personal to share with the blogosphere…)

- Talk with Jordan about his feelings regarding adoption. (Check: March 2010. NOTE: I’m open to it, and Jordan is as well, but we want to try to have our own children naturally first!)

- Take a trip overseas. (Check – July 2010. We went to Jamaica for our honeymoon!)

- Take a trip with my best gal pals. (Check – April 2010, October 2010 & May 2011.)

- Pay off my Chase credit card by the end of this experiment. (Check! September 2010.)

- Designate & use a loose-change jar. (Check – March 2010.)

- Get into graduate school. (Check – March 2010.)

- Become a tutor or mentor. (2010: Teaching Assistant!)

- Write down and store end-of-life wishes. (Check – March 2010. NOTE: How morbid – but totally important to me!)

- Purchase a new computer. (Check – June 2010)

- Get an eye exam & glasses. (Check – March 2010.)

- Get a passport. (Check – March 2010.)

- Investigate international adoption. (Check – March 2010. NOTE: What a process…)

- Cut bangs into my hair…again. (Check – July 2010.)

- Go on a hike. (Check – April 2010 with Wyatt the dog!)

- Keep a food journal every day for one month. (Check – March 2010.)

- Do not wear make-up for an entire month. (Check – May 2011. It’s been glorious.)

- Purchase a new camera. (Check – February 2011!)

- Buy a pair of wellies. (Check – January 2011!)

- Buy high-thread-count sheets for our bed. (Check – May 2011.)

- Have a marathon movie-watching session of all of the “Lord of the Rings” series with Jordan. (Check – April 2010. One of the best weekends EVER – Viggo Mortenson is HOTT.)

- Learn how to drive a stick shift/manual vehicle. (Check – May 2010)

- Go bowling…and actually try to bowl well. (May 2010; May 2011. NOTE: Both of these days = my Dad’s birthdays!)

- Go to a winery. (Check – October 2010 in Minneapolis.)

- Finish fantasy baseball with a better record in 2010 than in 2009. (Check!)

And now, on to the list of goals that I have yet to achieve, or the goals that are currently in process: 69 GOALS!

- Take dance lessons with Jordan.

- Write and mail at least ten handwritten letters. (6/10: 1 to Jessica in March 2010, 3 to Aunts in April 2010; 2 to Kristen and Jessica in June 2011)

- Spend time with or talk on the phone with my Grandma at least one time per month. (Check!)

- Mail out holiday cards/letters to friends and family members each year. (Check: 2010!)

- Send my brother Brian at least one care package at college. (I’m a bad sister…)

- Befriend someone from another country.

- Write gift ideas for family and friends down as ideas arise, and keep this list in a safe place. (Check!)

- Complete at least one finger-painting project with Jordan.

- Go on a mission trip.

- Go on a camping trip with Jordan and Wyatt the dog.

- Visit 3 states I’ve never been to before. (NOTE: In August 2011, we’re headed to Washington state!)

- Visit a Spanish-speaking country.

- Visit Washington, D.C.

- Hide out in the winter in a cabin for one weekend with Jordan.

- Visit a zoo I’ve never been to before.

- Take a mother-daughter trip.

- Save $100.00 per month for an entire year. (We’ve saved money for an entire year, just not always monthly; sometimes it’s every other month, sometimes it’s every month…it varies, so I’m not sure that I’ve accomplished this goal yet!)

- Learn how to make at least one type of fish, and make at least one fish-related meal for Jordan.

- Make or bake at least one Rachael Ray recipe.

- Be a member of (or start) a book club.

- Continue to post regularly on my wedding blog post-nuptials. (Check, yet the definition of “regularly” sure has changed…)

- Learn how to use at least one Adobe design program, and make a project.

- Write at least one poem per year. (0/1 – no poems written in 2010!) :(

- Read for at least 15 minutes every day for one month.

- Re-design Eco-Vintage Weddings web site. (Redesigned What About Sara in 2011…)

- Get a recycling bin and recycle at least cans and paper.

- Spend an entire day at the spa.

- Volunteer at least once on behalf of disadvantaged kids.

- Volunteer at least once on behalf of animals.

- Participate at least once in the “Drive-Thru Difference,” or, in other words, pay for someone’s order behind me in the drive-thru.

- Continue to read Meg from A Practical Wedding & Holly from Nothing but Bonfires. (Check!)

- Find and recite a prayer to say with Jordan before dinner each evening.

- Keep and update a personal journal at least three times per week for six months.

- Purchase flowers for myself at least one time per year. (0/1 – I didn’t do this in 2010!)

- Personal.

- Personal.

- Take Wyatt the dog on a walk every day for one entire month.

- Work out at least 3 times per week for 6 months.

- Try beets…again.

- Buy a pair of moccasins.

- Purchase products from the Aquagene Spa at the Pink Shell Resort in Fort Myers, Florida. (Seriously, if you have the chance to go here, DO IT.)

- Build my vintage-inspired wardrobe by purchasing at least one item from ModCloth per month for an entire year.

- Go garage-saling at least one time per year. (Check – 2010)

- Make at least one piece of jewelry.

- Read Pride & Prejudice.

- Watch “Animal House.”

- Conduct and record an interview with my Dad about his life.

- See the Backstreet Boys in concert…again. (Guess where I’m headed in July 2011 – to see NKOTBSB in Minneapolis!)

- Try at least one new wine per month for one year. (5/12)

- Learn how to draw a star shape…freehand.

- Build a gingerbread house from scratch.

- Ride a scary roller coaster.

- Go kayaking.

- Learn how to make a quilt.

- Donate blood one time.

- Take one shot of tequila.

- Go to the circus & confront my fear of clowns.

- Complete at least six creative projects per year. (Check: 2010. NOTE: This was an easy one to check off when we were planning our wedding, but now that it’s 2011, I’ll have to try harder!)

- Attend at least one cultural or artistic event per month for an entire year.

- Keep an indoor plant alive for at least one entire year. (I’m like 0/3.)

- Personal.

- Be more diligent about writing in my wine journal. (Check!)

- Build a snowman.

- Go ice-skating.

- Find 5 new musicians/bands that I like & add them to my ipod. (2/5: Wakey!Wakey! in September 2010; City and Colour in February 2011)

- Go to an amusement park.

- Play piano for five minutes per day for one month.

- Try skiing…again.

So, there you have it! My list of goals. I’ll post another update later this year to let you know how I’m doing!

Are you working on a list of goals? What’s on your “Bucket List”? Share in the comments!

“Follow effective action with quiet reflection. From the quiet reflection will come even more effective action.”
~Peter F. Drucker

Welcome to What About Sara, a space I plan to use to reflect on life’s blessings and other happenings. It is my hope that this space can be a platform for me to muse about a variety of things, including marriage, crafts and creations, motherhood (of the puppy variety – for now), education (my own, and my efforts to educate the youth of America), recommendations of must-read literature, our home, my adventures into the world of photography, blogging, creating a sustainable life, searching for my authentic self, my dreams and goals, and other ventures and undertakings.

I’d love for you to join me on my adventure into marriage. I’ve been blessed to call my best friend my husband for seven months now. Jordan and I met about five years ago while we were both working for a nationally known bank in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. We were married just seven months ago in Sioux Falls, a day that both Jordan and I were committed to handcrafting, so that our wedding day was reflective of us as individuals and as a couple. Click here to read about our wedding day over at my other blog, Eco-Vintage Weddings. I hope to add motherhood (of the human variety; I’m already a mother to our loving Yorkie pup named Wyatt) to the mix eventually in the future, and I can’t wait to utilize this space to chronicle my successes and foibles into the world of mothering a child someday.

Join me as I begin to navigate the world of teaching. As a teaching assistant and graduate student in English literature at a local university in South Dakota, I’m definitely learning how to teach while teaching. I graduated in 2009 from a local private college in South Dakota with a double major in English and journalism, but I’ve never had any formal education training. My forays into teaching college freshmen (I’m teaching English composition and introduction to literature) have meaningfully fostered within me a love for education, and I plan to pursue my teaching certification immediately following the completion of my master’s degree, and, later, possibly, I’d like to pursue doctoral studies in either rhetoric and composition or in education (possibly a policy-related degree track). I’d also love to use this space to recommend compelling, life-changing literature for others to read. I believe that writing plays such a pervasive role in our society, regardless of the advent of technology, which is precisely why I elected to pursue a master’s degree in literature.

I invite you to join me in my forays into the second quarter-century of my life. I’ll be 25 in November this year, and I can’t wait to see what the next 25 years (if I’m so blessed to endure that long) has in store for me. The first 25 (well, 24 plus a few months) have certainly been an adventure, full of family reunions, weddings, birthday parties, Barbies, moving from SD to Missouri as a child, and then back again, imagining, to-do lists, the excruciating loss of three grandparents, learning to drive, and then learning to drive again (this past summer: a manual vehicle), sleepy summer mornings spent watching reruns of “Dawson’s Creek,” music (particularly of the Backstreet Boys variety), pets, love that’s failed, and love that’s endured.

Join me as I try to navigate the worlds of making our house a home. We’re in the process of trying to make our small, kitchen pantry-less, one-bedroom apartment feel like home, so you may encounter some home decor posts along the way. Our aesthetic style shifts quite often, but my dream is to own a home (someday) built before the 1950s with the original woodwork still in tact. I’m a lover of all things old and vintage (see: our wedding), but for now, we’re (slowly) trying to navigate the intermediate (and hopefully rather temporary) world of apartment living with the things we currently have.

Join me as I attempt to learn how to snap beautiful photographs, and how to blog in a way that is fulfilling and meaningful to me (and, hopefully, in a way that’s interesting to you). I think that these two goals of mine operate in tandem with one another, meaning that through photos, I hope to find fulfillment and meaning in the everyday adventures of my life. Whether it’s snapping photos of our puppy Wyatt dressed in his yellow raincoat or taking pictures at a family birthday party, a reunion, or in an open field, I hope to learn to capture the joy and the beauty of everyday life, and to use these photos as fodder for this space. {NOTE: My camera is a Canon T1i.}

Finally, I hope that you’ll join me as I search to uncover the ways in which to lead a sustainable, authentic life. I’m a believer in (someday) using cloth diapers and making homemade baby food, in upcycling, and in reusing. I’m a lover of handmade and upcycled items (hello, my name is Sara, and I am an Etsy addict). I’m obsessed with the idea of growing and preserving food for my family; I’d love to try to do that someday – for now, our apartment is rather limiting to us in terms of the fact that our home is lacking entirely in garden space. I love the idea of intentional communities, and I am eager to learn more about educational opportunities that surpass the options of public and private school (including charter schools, Montessori schools, etc.).

I am eager to develop this space into a platform for reflection, conversation and fulfillment. I’d love it if you’d join me in my adventure to navigate life’s daily blessings and other happenings.

{Photo by Creative Kindling, our outstandingly talented wedding photographers}