101 in 1001, Goals

101 in 1001 List #2 {Final Report}

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At the beginning of 2018, I decided to vastly change how I approached goal-setting, and instead of setting my usual New Year’s resolutions, I decided to hop on the bandwagon of doing 101 goals in 1001 days (which is just under 3 years).

After completing over 60% of my first list (you can see the final results HERE) and loving the challenge, I decided to continue on with a second 101 in 1001 list. Now, once again, it’s been 1,001 days (actually more than that) since I started the second list and it’s time for a final report of how I did on all my goals.

First, Some Thoughts

Honestly, two lists in, I’m debating whether or not I’m up for a third.

While I will always be up for goal-setting (obvi), I think it is time to take on a different sort of challenge — one with a shorter deadline, I’m thinking. The thing I’ve realized now, after two 101 in 1001 lists, is that my interests and priorities shift drastically sometimes from year to year, often in unexpected ways. While I’ve let myself change several goals on both lists as I’ve gone through them, I found that I was sometimes chasing line items just to get the satisfaction of crossing them out, not because I really cared about them anymore.

Now that my time is so very limited between having four kids and running a flower farming business, I would much rather just pick some very specific goals and put all my energy into those until they’re completed, then start again on something else. I think that kind of goal model fits my current life situation much better, and it’s also a better way of utilizing my time.

So that’s my direction going forward. My first big goal? To finish minimizing all the stuff in my house, one room at a time.

For now, we still need to do a little final reporting on this 101 in 1001 list, so let’s get into it.

Note: There may be affiliate links to products and books mentioned below.

My (Second) 101 in 1001 List

  • Start Date: October 20th, 2020
  • End Date: July 18th, 2023

Financial (7/8)

Almost all of the completed goals in this section happened in the first year of the challenge. Since then, we’ve definitely had to put the brakes on financial goals as we were forced to make 2023 the “year of frugality” due to inflation and a whole bunch of unexpected events, like the premature arrival of our last baby and my husband’s job loss.

All that aside, I’m super proud of all the progress we made here. So many of these were total stretch goals, and I was shocked that we were able to complete almost all of them! Each of the completed goals is linked to the post that explains more about it if you want more details.

Homestead Life (3/5)

When I first created this list, our plan was to turn the larger property we’d just bought (we live on just over 0.6 acre) into a sort of “mini homestead.” Since then, we’ve actually started a flower farming business, which has ended up being more successful than we’d at first thought it could be. (The flower farming section of this 101 in 1001 list was actually created about a year into this list, when I realized that several of my original goals were no longer important to me.)

While the idea of providing some of our own produce every year still appeals to me, I have to be realistic about this season of my life, especially with flower farming — the fact is, I just don’t have the time in August and September to be bringing in huge food harvests because I’m already dealing with huge flower harvests. When our kids are older and can help out more, that might very well change, but for now, I can see why not much progress was made on the first line item, and why other things (like re-planting another apricot tree and actually USING our new food dehydrator) have not actually happened at all.

  • Preserve three types of food (aka, tomato sauce, applesauce) all by myself (1/3)
  • Plant an apricot tree (completed February 2021)
    • Funny story on this one: so the apricot tree I planted back in 2021 died, and I was always planning on trying again…until about a month ago. You see, it’s been a banner year for fruit yield, and I discovered that tons of my neighbors have apricot trees and freely offer their produce to anyone and everyone. I quickly realized how silly it would be to plant another apricot tree when I had so many on neighboring properties where fruit was going to waste (not to mention that I had second thoughts period when I saw how bad the mess got under those trees with thousands of them dropping!).
  • Plant strawberries + blackberries (completed March 2021)
    • The strawberries I planted have ended up being lackluster though, so we’re actually going to compost them and try a different kind.
  • Purchase part of a cow
    • I built this into our financial goals for this year, but we’re not sure if we’ll be able to make it happen or not due to our current job situation. I have at least reached out to my neighbor to get a quote and let her know I’m interested, though.
  • Buy a better food dehydrator (completed Dec 2020)

Emergency Preparedness (2/4)

  • Create a will
    • Still embarrassing that we haven’t done this, four kids in. I’m thinking that I’m just going to have to start putting this on my monthly goals list until I finally make myself do it.
  • Have at least a 6-month long-term food supply on hand for our family (completed October 2021)
  • Buy an emergency water drum + spigot and make sure we have an adequate emergency water supply
    • This one got half done. We got the big water storage barrel, but then we still haven’t figured out a way to fill it up in the basement, so there it sits. Now we just need to actually put water in it so I can cross this one off for good!
  • Make 72-hour kits for each member of the family
    • Even though I technically didn’t 100% finish this off like the perfectionist in me wanted to, I *did* put together backpacks for every member of our family that had most of what we would need. Now I just need to make one up for the baby.

Health + Beauty (2/4)

  • Whiten teeth (completed Nov 2020)
  • Get back to pre-pregnancy weight (completed September 2022)
    • Fun fact: I’ve actually gotten back to my pre-pregnancy weight again, after the delivery of our last baby. I didn’t gain much weight in the pregnancy with her (only about 18 pounds is all), and she also came early, so it basically all just came off within about six weeks of me giving birth simply by my body no longer having a small human growing in it.
  • Run in a race again (any length)
    • I used to be in a really great habit of exercising, but then two things happened: 1) I got a bad back injury in November 2018 that basically meant I couldn’t exercise at all for years until I got it fixed, and 2) we moved to a rural county, which meant that my usual preferred method of exercise (taking group fitness classes at the local rec center) wasn’t really as much of an option anymore. When I do get into regular exercise again (other than flower farming, that is), I’ll probably just do mostly walking or light running with a bit of strength training thrown in on the side.
  • Complete BBG (on my own terms)
    • I actually am ready to get started on doing this again, except my back went all out of whack again from this last pregnancy, and I’m still in the process of getting it back to normal. Once I feel a little more confident that I can exercise again without injuring it, I’ll probably start on this goal.

Spiritual (2/3)

  • Visit 3 new temples (completed September 2022)
    • Matt and I went above and beyond the original goal and visited five over the course of the challenge. (If you want to know more about what temples are and why they are important in my faith, you can click here.)
  • Read President Nelson’s biography (completed July 2022)
  • Index 1,000 names (159/1000)
    • I got out of the habit of doing indexing or researching genealogy every Sunday, so I didn’t even get close on this, but since I swapped some of that time for family time spent going on walks/hikes or playing board games together, I feel okay about it. For more info on this free genealogical service that anyone can do, you can click here.

Flower Farming (10/12)

  • Expand farm to lilac bushes + expand front garden bed(completed October 2021)
  • Try selling at the local farmer’s market (completed August 2021)
  • Try a low tunnel or hoophouse (completed March 2022)
  • Try landscape fabric(completed June 2022)
  • Install drip irrigation in the raised beds (completed Summer 2023)
    • This should have been something we prioritized much sooner than we did, but now that it’s in, it has saved us SO. MUCH. TIME. With any future farm expansions, installing the drip irrigation will be the #1 priority after actually clearing the space and amending the soil.
  • Expand to both a spring and summer CSA (completed February 2022)
  • Do a bouquet bar 
    • Nope, and I actually don’t have a desire to do this particular marketing strategy anymore. It doesn’t make sense with what we’re seeing success with right now.
  • Donate flowers to the local nursing home
    • We didn’t do this exactly (although I still think it would be fun), but we do have an awesome pay-it-forward program in our community that has actually had a pretty decent reach, so I did do a “service” component with the farm, even if it wasn’t originally what I’d envisioned.
  • Host an event at the farm (like a u-pick day) (completed August 2021)
  • Try a seedling sale (completed May 2021)
  • Turn a profit(completed October 2022)
  • Try selling to florists to see how I like it (completed August 2022)

Personal Development + Skills (4/8)

  • Take a floral arranging/design class(completed January 2023)
  • Mend at least one piece of clothing (completed July 2021)
  • Alter at least one piece of clothing
    • Sewing is one of those skills I feel I SHOULD learn, but which I have no desire to ACTUALLY learn. In fact, I finally gave my unused sewing machine away to my niece just this week since I hadn’t used it once myself in over 9 years. In the future, if I change my mind, I’ll just look for a used one on Marketplace or something.
  • Learn to French braid
    • Still no. Maybe I’ll finally learn this skill when my oldest daughter gets a little older and starts caring more about how her hair is styled?
  • Find a go-to gluten-free pie recipe(completed November 2022)
  • Find a go-to gluten-free cake recipe (completed July 2022)
  • Try 12 different gluten-free cookie recipes (5/12)
    • Trying out new recipes and baking in general fell far down the priority list once I started flower farming. I still enjoy baking treats about once a week, but I usually just go with a tried-and-true favorite now.
  • Make 5 new recipes out of each of my cookbooks + donate the ones I don’t get to
    • Ditto on this one. If I followed through to the letter on the donation bit on this one, I would have had to donate almost all of them except maybe one or two, but instead what I’ve done is donate pretty much all the cookbooks that I didn’t make ANYTHING out of over the past three years.

Family/Service (5/10)

  • Sign Mathias up for preschool (completed March 2021)
    • And now Mathias is in kindergarten, and it’s Hyrum’s turn to be in preschool!
  • Sign both Raven and Mathias up for swimming lessons (completed June 2022)
    • Hyrum also started this year, too 🙂
  • Start teaching piano to Raven (completed December 2021)
  • Get family pics taken three times(completed September 2022)
  • Donate at least $100 to the local library
  • Donate at least $100 to a local charity (completed December 2021)
  • Donate to five different Go Fund Me accounts (3/5)
    • We donated to one more since I last did an update, but we didn’t quite hit five.
  • Make birthday boxes to donate to the local food pantry
    • I still think this would be super fun, but we didn’t get around to it. Maybe we’ll do this around Christmas to help our kids keep the focus on giving.
  • Move Raven to her own room and move the boys in together
    • Eventually the plan is for the boys to be together and for Raven to share her room with her baby sister. However, the dynamics of their sibling relationships right now are making it look more and more likely that no one will be changing rooms until 2024, when Naomi is old enough to be moved out of our room.
  • Create family photo albums through 2020
    • I made two more albums for Christmas gifts, which brought us up to 2016. Not exactly close to getting to 2020, but better than nothing.

Local Love (11/11)

Finally, a category with a perfect record!

  • Take the kids to 5 different parks/playgrounds(completed September 2022)
  • Go on 3 local hikes(completed September 2022)
  • Find a pediatrician (completed January 2021)
  • Find a dentist (completed January 2021)
  • Find an OB/GYN (completed June 2021)
  • Find a general family doctor (completed January 2021)
  • Try out 5 local restaurants (completed June 2022)
  • Go to a community event (completed October 2021)
  • Go to storytime at the library + get a library card (completed August 2021)
  • Find or start a book club (completed August 2021)
  • Make purchases from 5 local (non-chain) businesses (completed August 2021)

Fun/Travel (3/6)

I definitely need to get more specific with this next time. I didn’t think we’d hardly do any family vacations because I didn’t know what to expect during this season with super young kids, but we actually took several in the past 2.75 years (I think at least 3 or 4, if I’m not mistaken). Still haven’t gone camping, though…some things never change 🙂

  • Visit the Children’s Museum in Salt Lake
  • Go on a family vacation (completed April 2021)
  • Go on an overnight trip with just Matt and me (completed July 2021)
  • Do something memorable for our 10-year anniversary (completed July 2021)
  • Attend a musical
  • Go camping

Yard (3/3)

Flower farming sure made most of these easy! I can’t imagine our yard without any of these things now.

  • Grow dahlias (both from seed and from tubers) (completed August 2022)
  • Build more garden beds (completed March 2021)
  • Build sandbox (completed August 2021)

Home (16/23)

  • Update flooring in kitchen (completed August 2021)
  • Paint kitchen cabinets (completed January 2021)
  • Paint main floor walls (completed Nov 2020)
  • Update curtains in front room
  • Update at least one light fixture (completed Nov 2020)
  • Add recessed lighting in the kitchen (completed Nov 2020)
  • Update flooring in playroom (completed January 2021)
  • Paint upstairs kids’ bedroom (completed Nov 2020)
  • Put up backsplash in kitchen
  • Make a gallery wall in our house of my photography
  • Clear out junk room in basement (completed spring 2023)
    • While this hasn’t been “perfectly” cleared out, it’s still basically cleared out, other than a few bins from my childhood that I’ll go through and declutter before the end of the year.
  • Figure out an organizational system for master closet + paint upper half of walls (completed December 2021)
  • Buy rug for master bedroom (completed February 2021)
  • Get plumbing quotes for adding bathroom downstairs and adding sink to workshop in outbuilding
  • Buy/make decor for each season and major holiday (completed summer 2023)
    • I bought decor for most seasons at the beginning of the challenge, but lacked anything for summer. Now with the addition of a couple patriotic and other such touches, we’re good for summer, too.
  • Replace and update the kitchen sink and faucet
  • Fix leak in master bathroom (completed February 2022)
  • Update master bedroom (completed Dec 2020)
  • Start making updates to main bathroom
  • Replace cracked window in front room (completed May 2022)
  • Come up with organizational scheme for playroom(completed February 2023)
  • Buy outdoor furniture for the deck
  • Declutter 1,001 items (completed July 2021)

Reading (2/4)

  • Read 50 books I own (completed February 2023)
    • I almost exclusively only read my own books now since our local library is super small and doesn’t have a great selection, so thanks to my Book of the Month subscription and some great deals on Kindle, I actually read 61 of my own books.
  • Participate in (and complete!) a reading challenge
  • Start my Assigned Reading again
  • Do ten read-alouds with Raven + eventually include Mathias
    • Doing family read-alouds most nights has become a favorite tradition, so we went way above and beyond on this one. I plan to do a post soon that’s a round-up of some of our favorites.

Final Total of Completed Goals: 70/101

Final Percentage of List Completed: 70%

What do you think–worth doing another 101 in 1001 list? Or are you over the format?

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