My Plans for 2015!

Lot of people like to make New Year resolutions and I am no exception. Instead of making only one or a few, however, I like making several goals for myself. It's great to make a list of goals or plans because writing it down and seeing it, whether it's attached to a bulletin board or fridge or it's in a notebook, can really help you stay motivated! So, here are my personal goals for 2015 as well as my plans for my blog in 2015!

Personal Goals

A lot of the personal goals that I have for myself for 2015 (and 1.7 years after that) are in my 101 Things in 1001 Days list which I already talked about in a post and which you can follow updates on through the 101 in 1001 tag.

My main big goals for 2015 are the following:

• Put my Crohn's Disease into remission (or at least heal the inflammation in the end of my large intestine)
• Go geocaching more
• Read more books for fun!
• Start doing more meditation, yoga, and exercise
• Spend more time outside

Blog Plans

I also have new and exciting plans for my blog, one of which is to blog more! Also, I want to have a proper blog schedule (which I still need to work out... this is in progress).

I will also have new content (or I'll be talking about some things that I've talked about before except I will talk about them a lot more): 

• Geocaching (news, stories, and tips): I'll talk about my own geocaching adventures and share my thoughts on news as well as share my own tips! For example: what to pack in a geocaching bag, tips for creating creative geocaches, etc.
• Nature/outdoors: I like geocaching, hiking, and spending time in nature so I want to spend more time outside and write about it too! I'll write about outdoor adventures that I have and also my feelings about nature (because it's such a beautiful thing!)
• Book/poem reviews: I will review and share my thoughts on books and poems that I read. Some of the books that I will talk about include The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner, The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold, Inferno by Dan Brown, as well as Shakespeare plays! Yes, I'll be talking about both classic and contemporary literature!
• Journal prompts: I'll share journal prompts that my readers are welcome to use. I'll use them too and share some of the things that I write.
• Eleanor: During the summer, I bought a wooden mannequin. It's an artist's mannequin used for figure drawing. I named her Eleanor and she gets up to all sorts of crazy shenanigans and I'll share stories about her!
• Gratitude lists: I want to write many more gratitude lists! Gratitude lists are amazing!
• 101 Things in 1001 Days updates: Every month, I'll be sharing updates on the progress that I'm making with my 101 Things in 1001 Days list.
• Sharing my journey of living with mild Crohn's Disease: I have mild Crohn's Disease so it's a part of my life. I have been trying different things lately to try and heal the inflammation in my intestines. At the same time, I try not to let it get me down and I continue to work at living a life full of positive energy.

Of course, I'll also be writing more about living a life full of positive energy and I'll also still be sharing photos of my dog, Finnlegh!

What are your plans for 2015?

-Kaylie

My 101 Things in 1001 Days List

One great motivational technique is a list of goals! Writing your goals down a great step to start with before you actually begin your goals. I think of it as a way of convincing myself that I actually really want to a certain goal. I have so many goals that I want to complete that I decided to make a 101 Things in 1001 Days list. 101 Things in 1001 Days is an idea by the Day Zero Project. Basically, you make a list of 101 goals that you want to complete within 1001 days (that's approximately 2.7 years). 

For my list, I divided my goals up into categories. The categories are: Health & Wellness, Fitness, Nature/Environment, Reading, Writing, Blogging/Online Work, Music, Art, Family, and Miscellaneous. The Miscellaneous category is for goals that just didn't really fit into any of the other categories. Lots of people divide their goals up into categories when they post about their lists on their blogs and you'll see that they may have chosen different categories. I chose the categories that were important to me so if you want to put your goals into categories too, choose ones that are important to you! When I made the list in my Day Zero account, I couldn't divide my goals up into the categories so I just put my goals for each category together. In this post, you'll see that my goals are divided up into the categories and if you check my actual list on the website, you'll see that my goals appear in the same order as you see them here.

Check out my list and follow me on the Day Zero website to track my progress! I'll also be doing monthly updates of my progress here on my blog! You will be able to find all of my progress updates through the 101 in 1001 tag!

Health & Wellness

• Meditate everyday for a month and continue
• Write in a gratitude diary once a week for a month and continue
• Don't say anything negative for one day
• Overcome my phobias
• Try Tai Chi
• Grow my nails again
• Improve my posture
• Drink more water everyday
• Floss everyday for a month and continue
• Put my Crohn's Disease into remission
• Figure out a healthy eating plan that helps my Crohn's Disease
• Learn how to make 10 healthy recipes
• Eat healthier snacks
• Limit salt and sugar intake
• Limit processed foods
• Have a vegetarian day once a week for a month and continue

Fitness

• Create a morning stretch/workout routine
• Do yoga everyday for a month and continue
• Walk my dog everyday for a month and continue
• Jog everyday for a month and continue
• Do the 200 squats challenge
• Do the 100 push-ups challenge
• Do the 200 lunges challenge
• Do the 200 crunches challenge
• Start lifting weights
• Be able to do the splits
• Be able to do a headstand for one minute
• Learn more Charleston moves

Nature/Environment

• Watch the sunrise and sunset on the same day
• Watch the sunrise on the Winter and Summer solstices and the Fall and Spring equinoxes
• Do a nature walk once a week for 2 months
• Plant a huge garden and use the vegetables in all sorts of ways
• Go foraging for plants, berries, etc. that I can use
• Learn more outdoor survival skills
• Learn how to use a compass
• Climb Ishpatina Ridge in Ontario, Canada
• Go for a long snowshoeing hike
• Go on a hike with my city's hike club
• Go geocaching for an entire day once a month
• Get up to 1000 geocache finds
• Build an inukshuk on the side of the road
• See the Northern Lights
• Go for a picnic in a park
• Take a nap in a hammock
• Climb a tree
• Learn to identify 10 constellations
• Use less water
• Use less electricity
• Recycle everything that can possibly be recycled
• Start composting
• Go for a day without technology

Reading

• Read 100 books
• Read 100 poems
• Memorize 10 poems
• Read 10 French novels
• Read 5 non-fiction books
• Read all of Shakespeare's plays
• Read all of the Sherlock Holmes books
• Read in a park

Writing

• Write a novel
• Write a children's book
• Write a book of poetry
• Write a book of short stories
• Get my writing published
• Get a story published in a Chicken Soup for the Soul book
• Win NaNoWriMo
• Win Camp NaNoWriMo
• Write in my diary at least once a week
• Use a writing prompt that I have found or created each week
• Write a letter to myself to be opened when the 1001 days are over
• Answer the "50 Questions That Will Free Your Mind"
• Update my resume
• Learn how to write with my left hand

Blogging/Online Work

• Make a plan and schedule for regular blogging
• Update my blog's About and FAQ pages
• Put a donation button on my blog when I start blogging more and get more visitors
• Start a CafePress shop

Music

• Practice piano for 20 minutes everyday Monday to Friday for a month and continue
• Practice flute once a week for a month and continue
• Get my grade 8 RCM piano certificate and grade 2 RCM theory certificate
• Learn to play the accordion
• Learn to play the violin
• Write a song (lyrics and music)

Art

• Start sketching regularly
• Learn how to paint flowers well with watercolours
• Complete a colouring book

Family

• Have a board game night with my family
• Have a movie marathon night with my family
• Have a craft/art night with my family
• Bake Finn bun with my family
• Cook an entire meal for my family

Miscellaneous

• Start and complete driver's ed
• Get my G2 driver's license
• Use the French language more in my life
• Learn Spanish
• Expand my vocabulary by 100 words
• Learn how to crochet
• Learn how to use a sewing machine
• Learn how to use a memory palace
• Say "yes" to something I would not normally do
• Start wearing a watch everyday

You should definitely start a 101 Things in 1001 Days list too! What would you put on your list?

-Kaylie

Geocaching: The 7 Souvenirs of August

It's kind of hard to believe that it's September! It seems like the whole summer just flew by in no time at all! During August, my family and I participated in the 7 Souvenirs of August, a geocaching challenge to earn 7 souvenirs during the month of August. Each of 6 souvenirs required us to find certain types of geocaches and, once we acquired all six souvenirs, we got to acquire the 7th souvenir for our achievement. As you can see above, the 7th souvenir is appropriately named the Achiever souvenir.

The first souvenir that we acquired was the Socializer souvenir on August 16th. This souvenir required us to attend a geocaching event. We attended a small meet and greet event hosted by an awesome local cacher. She has hidden some neat caches and she is so nice! It was at a Tim Horton's at 8AM and there were only 3 other geocaching users (of course my family is a small group under one username so there were more than just 3 people) in attendance besides herself. It was nice though just to have a small group to chat with over breakfast.

The second souvenir that we acquired was the Explorer souvenir after the meet and greet event on August 16th. This souvenir required us to find a traditional cache. The geocacher who hosted the event gave us lots of help for a tricky geocache that we had been having trouble finding and that she had already found. We found it right where she said it would be and right where it said it would be on the cache page; right in front of our eyes. It was a nano cache that blended in very well with its surroundings. 

The third souvenir that we acquired was the Collector souvenir on August 22nd. This souvenir required us to find either a virtual cache, wherigo, letterbox hybrid, or webcam cache. We ended up completing a virtual cache on a trip to another city where my brother visited a fried for the day. We had to go to a historical location and find some information which we then had to email to the owner of the geocache. We had tried to complete this virtual cache once before but were not able to find the information the first time. This time, we were successful.

The fourth souvenir that we acquired was the Puzzler souvenir on August 25th. This souvenir required us to find a mystery cache. We solved and found a mystery cache hidden by the same geocacher who hosted the meet and greet event that we attended. We had to visit a grocery store and use clues to figure out the coordinates which led us to the micro geocache not too far away. Although, our handheld GPS goes weird when we manually put in coordinates so we had to use both our handheld GPS and our car GPS to find the geocache. They led us around like crazy and we ended up getting to the geocache by means of a more difficult way than was intended. We were happy to have at least found the geocache and acquire our souvenir.

The fifth souvenir that we acquired was the Nature Lover souvenir on August 26th. This souvenir required us to either complete an earthcache or attend a CITO event. We ended up completing the only earthcache in our city. It was all about different types of rocks so we had to take a photo of a rock and identify it using examples and plaques in the area. It was fun and the area was beautiful!

The sixth souvenir that we acquired was the Sightseer souvenir on August 27th. This souvenir required us to find a multi-cache. We found a very basic multi-cache for this souvenir because there are not a whole lot of multi-caches in our city and most of them take a while when all we wanted was to finish the challenge and get our Achiever souvenir as soon as possible. The multi-cache that we found gave us coordinates at which we found the coordinates to the next spot where we, once again, found coordinates which finally led us to the final cache. In acquiring this final souvenir, we were able to acquire the Achiever souvenir and complete the 7 Souvenirs of August challenge!

We locked in as the 47,265th geocaching username to earn the Achiever souvenir which is pretty good because there are actually millions of geocachers! It was so much fun!

-Kaylie