500 Days

In 500 days, I'm going to be reaching a semi-milestone birthday (not a huge one, but it is divisible by five). For some reason, I've been thinking about it a lot lately, even though it is more than a year away. Several months ago, I made a short list of things that I wanted to accomplish by the end of 2010 (it's posted in the column to the right) and that list has been a good motivator for me. Well... not so much motivation, as a reminder of what I wanted to do this year.

In that same spirit, I have made a list of what I want to accomplish by the time I hit that birthday in 500 days. (There is a fair amount of overlap between this list and the other list. Partially because of the overlap in time periods, but also partially because I'm starting to doubt my ability to get a few of these done by the end of the year. See #3 about moving into a new house....) Things that I want to finish, things that I want to achieve, things that I want to begin, things that I want to form habits for. We'll see how it goes. Some of these are already in progress, others should be accomplished relatively soon, and some others might just be pipe dreams. But, here we go:

1. Have two happy kids. (I'm working on this one!)

2. Finish my PhD. (This one had better be done well before my 500 day deadline!)

3. Own a new (bigger) house. (I'd love for this one to be accomplished sooner rather than later, but it kind of depends on the job situation.)

4. Work in a job that I enjoy. (Looking for a job in a bad economy while pregnant sucks.)

5. Bring both kids to visit my parents at least once. (Preferably twice.)

6. Bring both kids to visit my in-laws at least once. (Preferably twice.)

7. Pay off all debt except the mortgage. (Just one annoying undergrad student loan hanging around at this point. It will come out of deferment as soon as I graduate, and I'd like to knock it off as soon as I'm earning a real salary.)

8. Lose all pregnancy and fertility treatment weight from both pregnancies.(That would be a goal of 22 pounds below pre-pregnancy weight with Kermit, which includes 12 lbs fertility gain with LL, and 10 lbs fertility gain with Kermit. Plus whatever pregnancy weight tries to hang around after Kermit is born.)

9. Breast feed Kermit for one year. (I had this goal with LL, too, but I didn't make it. LL went on strike at 6 months and never came back. I'm hoping that LL was just a quirky baby and Kermit will go longer.)

10. Cook dinner at home 5 days each week. (I'm using a loose definition of "cook" here. I consider heating up leftovers or a frozen lasagna to be "cooking." I'm just trying to get us out of the habit of ordering take-out Chinese and pizza delivery. Also, when I say "cook," I'm including cooking done by S; I'm not a total martyr.)

11. Read 10 fiction books. (I used to read for pleasure a lot. My pleasure-reading took a hit when I started grad school, and all but died completely when LL was born. One book every other month or so isn't really asking a lot.)

12. Learn javascript. (Just seems like it would be really useful for prototyping, and easy to pick up, but I've never even looked at it.)

13. Learn perl. (I don't actually know a single scripting language. Right now, non-CS people are asking, "So?", and CS people are wondering why anyone ever let me graduate with a degree in CS. Whenever I need to script something, I do it in Lisp. Which used to have a fair amount of street cred, as these things go, but now it just feels a little embarrassing, and increasingly unpractical.)

14. Have permanent assigned "homes" for most objects in the house. (This is part of a larger "declutter" goal. Right now, we don't have enough storage space to make this a reality, but once we're in a new house, I'm getting serious about this one. If we don't have storage space, stuff is getting thrown out, because living in clutter makes me constantly tense.)

15. Update work wardrobe. (Including maybe shoes again, if my feet keep changing size. I'd like to not wear blue jeans every day. It's one thing during grad school, but I've been having the nagging feeling that I'm really not dressing my age these days.)

16. Shower every day. (I know that a lot of people are probably saying "Ew!!! You don't do that already?" And the answer is: Sadly, no, not since LL was born. I simply cannot figure out a way to make it work. My mornings are too hectic, and I hate showering at night. But this will change. I'm going to make it a priority.)

17. Wear makeup every work day. (Does this one sound familiar? Because I did a whole makeup thing many months ago. And I found a regimen that I like. And then I got pregnant and got wrapped up in my dissertation and I totally stopped doing it.)

I know, a list of 17 items is kind of random, but these are the things that came to mind. If more things come up over the next 500 days, I reserve the right to add more. My current plan is to check back on these things every hundred days, which would be:
1/29/11 (400 days left)
5/9/11 (300 days left)
8/17/11 (200 days left)
11/25/11 (100 days left)

Any medium-length goals you're working on? Anything I should add?