Thanksgiving went well – it was nice to visit with my family, even if it was only for the one day.  And when I came back, sweet little Miles was looking so much better!  He got a cold about a month ago, and due to all the irritation in his eye (cats don’t get runny noses, they get runny eyes) he developed an ulcer that would not go away.  However, I was thankful to see some improvement!

Now – on to cleaning my house a bit so that I can pull out the Christmas tree!!!

• 12/1/2007 -- My Christmas Present from Mama and Daddy!
• 12/1/2007 -- Storage Solutions
• 9/15/2008 -- 101 in 1001 #2 – 47.52% Complete

When I moved to Atlanta this summer, my boyfriend came with me. I had 2 cats and he had 3, so we’ve been working for the past several months on getting the cats adjusted to each other. It did not take long for Jazz to decide that he did not like this arrangement, and he started acting out as a result of the merge.

We’ve done everything that the vet has suggested to make the adjustment easier, but the vet is now recommending that we try and find him a home where he can be the only cat. It breaks my heart to have to find him a new home, but it’s even worse when I think about having to give him to an animal shelter. For the past 3 months we have been desperately trying to find a new home for him where he doesn’t have to share the litter box. We’ve had no luck.

Until this week. I sent a begging email to the entire staff of the theatre where I work, and because God is so awesome, a girl I have never met who works in our education department responded. Her sweet kitty died this past Friday, and she and her husband have decided to give Jazz a new home.

I am really upset that I have to give him away – he’s my baby, and I love him so much! However, I know that while it’s hard, this is for the best, and I am SO THANKFUL that God laid it on Rachel and her husband’s hearts to give Jazz a new home.

(This is a repost from Reading Red Letters.)

• 9/16/2008 -- A-Z Challenge
• 9/15/2008 -- 101 in 1001 #2 – 47.52% Complete
• 7/27/2008 -- Longest Meme Ever (Day of Blogs ’08 #32)

This post is for the Blogathon 2009! I am blogging for The Actor’s Fund. For more information about what I am doing, please click here, or you can sponsor me!

• 7/25/2009 -- Theatre in 1958 (Blogathon ’09 #4)
• 7/26/2009 -- Theatre in 2001 (Blogathon ’09 #41)
• 7/25/2009 -- Theatre in 1965 (Blogathon ’09 #10)

With a book by the great Leonard Bernstein and lyrics by the budding Stephen Sondheim (a musical giant of our time), how can you go wrong? To top it all off, they used the plot of one of the top romances of all time – Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare.

But why did we love this musical so much?  Why was it such a big deal?  Aside from having amazingly catchy music, West Side Story brought to the Broadway stage something that had been brewing about for some time and was about to erupt across the nation – racial tension.  No longer was this story about warring Montagues and Capulets who just didn’t get along in fair Verona.  It was about Puerto Ricans vs. Anglos . . . and an interracial romance.  The stakes were raised in addition to Jerome Robbins’s famous choreography.

West Side Story is currently on Broadway for its second revival in honor of it’s 50th anniversary last year.  Learn more about it here: http://www.broadwaywestsidestory.com/

This post is for the Blogathon 2009! I am blogging for The Actor’s Fund. For more information about what I am doing, please click here, or you can sponsor me!

• 7/26/2009 -- Theatre in 2004 (Blogathon ’09 #44)
• 7/25/2009 -- Theatre in 1965 (Blogathon ’09 #10)
• 7/25/2009 -- Theatre in 1960 (Blogathon ’09 #5)

Note to self:

• Move the webcam to eye level.
• Stop the blinking and strange head tilting already!

David informed me that since I use a wireless connection at home, any time the connection jumps off, the video will pause. Hence the random pausing throughout the interview on my end. So, gotta somehow figure that one out because I really enjoyed the interview, and would love to play around with the wetoku software some more in the future.

Thanks so much for the interview David – it was a lot of fun!

• 12/18/2005 -- 101 in 1001 – 67.33% Complete
• 7/26/2009 -- Theatre in 2004 (Blogathon ’09 #44)
• 9/15/2008 -- 101 in 1001 #2 – 47.52% Complete

This is totally what we look like with 5 cats.  We are so close to being moved in – must update later!

This post is being re-posted on 7/7/09 – I had a backup malfunction and lost 3 months of posts, and so I am re-posting them through my findings with Google Cache. I did NOT delete the comments, I just have no way of restoring them. I am sorry if you commented and it is lost!

• 7/27/2008 -- Longest Meme Ever (Day of Blogs ’08 #32)
• 7/22/2008 -- Are you ready to stay awake?
• 8/28/2006 -- Busy weekend!

• 7/26/2008 -- Introducing My FurBabies (Day of Blogs ’08 #14)
• 3/27/2008 -- Too Many Cats!!!
• 1/23/2008 -- Holidays, Hospitals, and Higher Learning

1 – One Hundred Years of Solitude, Gabriel Garcia Marquez
2 – The 2-Second Commute: Join the Exploding Ranks of Freelance Virtual Assistants, Christine Durst
3 – Three Plays: Desire Under The Elms, Strange Interlude, Mourning Becomes Electra, Eugene O’Neill
4 – The Four Loves, C.S. Lewis
5 – The Five People You Meet in Heaven, Mitch Albom
6 – Six Prayers God Always Answers, Mark Herringshaw and Jennifer Schuchmann
7 – The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen R. Covey
8 – The 8 Colors of Fitness: Discover Your Color-Coded Fitness Personality and Create an Exercise Program You’ll Never Quit!, Suzanne Brue
9 – Nine Stories, J.D. Salinger
A – Angels & Demons, Dan Brown
B – The Brothers Karamazov, Fyodor Dostoevsky
C – Captivating: Unveiling the Mystery of a Woman’s Soul, John and Stasi Eldredge
D – Drowning Ruth, Christina Schwarz
E – East of Eden, John Steinbeck
F – The Fountainhead, Ayn Rand
G – The Great Divorce, C.S. Lewis
H – The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams
I – Ishmael, Daniel Quinn
J – Just So Stories, Rudyard Kipling
K – The King Must Die: A Novel, Mary Renault
L – Little Women, Louisa May Alcott
M – Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis
N – Not Tonight Honey, Wait ‘Til I’m a Size Six, Susan Reinhardt
O – One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Ken Kesey
P – The Purpose Driven Life, Rick Warren
Q – The Question of God: C.S. Lewis and Sigmund Freud Debate God, Love, Sex, and the Meaning of Life, Armand M. Nicholi Jr.
R – Redeeming Love, Francine Rivers
S – The Screwtape Letters, C.S. Lewis
T – The Tenth Gift, Jane Johnson
U – Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Harriet Beecher Stowe
V – The Virgin Suicides, Jeffrey Eugenides
W – Wizard and Glass, Stephen King
X – X-teams: How to Build Teams That Lead, Innovate and Succeed, Deborah Ancona and Henrik Bresman
Y – Y2k, Arthur Kopit
Z – Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values, Robert M. Pirsig

I’ll cross off books as I finish them, and when I get all done I’ll be able to mark this off my 101 in 1001 list! Anyone else up for the challenge?

• 7/27/2008 -- Longest Meme Ever (Day of Blogs ’08 #32)
• 12/18/2005 -- 101 in 1001 – 67.33% Complete
• 9/15/2008 -- 101 in 1001 #2 – 47.52% Complete

The Criteria: Tasks must be specific (i.e. no ambiguity in the wording) with a result that is either measurable or clearly defined. Tasks must also be realistic and stretching (i.e. represent some amount of work on my part).

This project was taken from Triplux.

I completed my first 101 in 1001 on September 15, 2008!

The things that I say I want to MAINTAIN will be counted as completed if they are maintained for at least two months. I figure that if I maintain something for at least that long, then it’ll be habit.

Tasks I have completed will be struck through and a completion date will be listed that is linked to a post about the completion of that task. Tasks that I have begun will be italicized and a beginning date will be listed.

Started: September 15, 2008
Due Date: June 13, 2011
Tasks Completed: 48
Tasks Remaining: 53

1. Make this list of 101 things to do in 1001 days. If anything was left incomplete from my previous 101 in 1001, then figure out why I didn’t do it, and see if I can rework the goal. If so, it has to be on this list (these items have a ** in front of them). Completed 9/15/08

Religious
2. Join a small group/women’s Bible study.
3. Start writing again at Reading Red Letters and MAINTAIN it. Completed 12/26/09
4. Find a church home wherever I move to after school. Completed 12/26/09
5. Read at least 10 books by C. S. Lewis.
6. MAINTAIN regular daily prayer time. Begun 12/15/09
7. **Plan a religious fast and complete said fast (probably 3 days, but that’s flexible).
8. **Read the Bible from beginning to end.

Family/Friends

9. Send Christmas cards in a timely fashion in 2008. Completed 12/30/08
10. Send Christmas cards in a timely fashion in 2009. Completed 12/26/09
11. Send Christmas cards in a timely fashion in 2010. Completed 12/15/10
12. **Go to a concert with Daddy. Completed 8/15/09

Health
13. Get serious about meal planning and menus
14. Start and MAINTAIN drinking 8 glasses of water a day.
15. Get professionally fitted for a bra at a store that sells bras in my size. Completed 8/28/09
16. Learn to eat at least 3 new fruits and vegetables (doing this one again).
17. **Start and MAINTAIN regular exercise.
18. **Reach my weightloss goal and MAINTAIN it.
19. **Start and MAINTAIN regular flossing. Completed 10/28/09
20. **Get my stomach into fit enough condition so that a pierced bellybutton won’t look ridiculous (and if I keep my courage, actually pierce the bellybutton – but even if I don’t go through with it, the option is nice to have).
21. **MAINTAIN taking vitamins regularly.
22. **MAINTAIN monthly breast self exams.

School
23. Find an internship. Completed 3/23/09
24. Complete my graduate thesis. Completed 5/5/10
25. Graduate from UNCSA. Completed 5/29/10

Career

26. Find a job upon graduating. Completed 7/19/10
27. File paperwork for LLC for virtual assistant business and become OFFICIAL. Completed 8/28/09
28. Have at least 6 clients for Tizzy Consulting.
29. Find a new format for my resume and rework it. Completed 11/8/08

Financial

30. Become financially independent from my parents.
31. Save $5 a day and deposit into my savings account (doing this one again).
32. Contribute every month to saving for a house down payment.
33. Fully fund Roth IRA in 2008. Completed 12/31/08
34. Fully fund Roth IRA in 2010.
35. Create a budget which allows me to give 10% to church and charity.
36. MAINTAIN using coupons as I grocery shop when able (many organic products do not get coupons).

Travel

37. Get a new car – and I’m the one paying for it. Completed 4/11/09
38. Visit Alaska.
39. Take another cruise.
40. See New York City when it’s decorated for Christmas. Completed 12/8/08
41. Travel to a different country.
42. Go to The Wizarding World of Harry Potter once it opens.
43. **Take a vacation to Atlanta with Mama – go shopping and see an exhibit at the High Museum. Completed 1/26/09
44. **Travel to Washington, D.C. At least see major monuments, the White House, and the Smithsonian. Completed 7/10/10
45. **Mount all my hat pins somehow (this replaces the previous “buy nice map and put a push-pin in every place I’ve been”)

Personal Betterment
46. Perform 10 random acts of kindness to complete strangers (0/10).
47. Have more involved communication with my sponsored child.
48. Get up the minute that the alarm goes off every day for a month.
49. Give blood if eligible (attempting to do this one again). Completed 9/10/09
50. Write a personal mission statement.
51. Wear makeup every day for a month. Completed 5/1/09
52. Write “to be read” letters to selected people (letters to be read upon my death by the people who mean the most to me). Completed 10/15/10
53. Pay for the person behind me at a fast food drive thru (doing this one again). Completed 12/1/10
54. Write a book.
55. **Stop biting fingernails.
56. **Update my journal and MAINTAIN it.

Organize/Purge

57. Organize, file, and store all my notes/keepsakes from my graduate classes. Completed 10/1/10
58. Move a large portion of my items stored at my parents’ house to my place. Completed 8/15/09
59. Sell, donate, give, or throw away 101 items (doing this one again). Completed 3/27/09
60. Create a filing system for all paperwork and MAINTAIN it. Completed 1/1/11
61. Sort through all clothing three times. Completed 10/7/10
62. Sort through all of my books and BookCross or give away a LARGE amount (at least 50). Completed 3/27/09
63. Rearrange books so that they truly are according to the Library of Congress system. Completed 6/30/09
64. **Finish entering all my books into a database. Completed 5/25/09
65. FLY. Begun 3/22/09

Technology
66. Write 500 blog posts (more attainable than 1001). (163/500) Begun 9/15/08
67. Participate in Blogathon 2009 Completed 7/26/09
68. Participate in Blogathon 2010 Completed 7/16/10
69. Participate in Blog Action Day 2008 Completed 10/15/08
70. Participate in Blog Action Day 2009 Completed 10/15/09
71. Participate in Blog Action Day 2010 Completed 10/15/10
72. Participate in NaNoWriMo Completed 12/1/10
73. Build up a decent audio/visual system. Completed 6/17/10
74. Start a system for regularly backing up my computer(s) and MAINTAIN it. Completed 5/1/10
75. Complete an email purge of all unnecessary old emails. Completed 5/12/10

Entertainment

76. Read through my A-Z Challenge.
77. Join local library. Completed 8/28/09
78. Decrease my LibraryThing TBR tags by at least 71 books (to less than 262 books, which was 50% of my books when I moved to Atlanta).
79. Re-read all the Harry Potter books.
80. Re-read all the Star Wars books.
81. Read at least 150 books (40/150).
82. Reach a Gamerscore of at least 3,000 on XBox360 (currently at 2,160).
83. Go see a famous jazz musician/group in concert. Completed 2/22/11
84. See a Cirque du Soleil show I haven’t seen (doing this one again). Completed 11/21/10
85. Go see a movie at the movie theater alone. Completed 8/30/09
86. See an opera. Completed 4/16/10
87. **Complete The Sims 2 Legacy Challenge. Completed 9/15/09
88. **Finish clearing my previous Netflix queue. (344/494) Begun 12/19/05
89. **Read 75% of the list of books that my friends have sent me. (24/85) Begun 12/19/05
90. **Watch 90% of the Greatest Films in 101 Things to Do Before You Die. (102/119) Begun 12/19/05
91. **See 100% of AFI top 100 movies. (81/100) Begun 12/19/05
92. **See 75% of Entertainment Weekly’s top 100 movies. (58/75) Begun 12/19/05

In the Kitchen
93. Rework my chocolate chip cookies recipe so that it is healthier.
94. **Learn to use cast iron skillets without messing up the seasoning.
95. **Find and make a good cheese fondue recipe (may require several tries).

Just for Fun
96. Find some attractive skirts that I can wear daily (not just on special occasions) and wear them! Completed 10/28/09
97. Complete a New York Times crossword (any day of the week)
98. Be super silly – take Oprah’s product recommendation. Completed 5/2/09
99. **Learn to drive a stick shift.
100. **Win something (anything) from a lottery ticket.

101. On June 13, 2011, publish a new 101 in 1001.

• 12/18/2005 -- 101 in 1001 – 67.33% Complete
• 7/19/2006 -- About
• 7/27/2008 -- Longest Meme Ever (Day of Blogs ’08 #32)

Khouria Jen @ The Literate Khouria
Myself

It’s been a small crowd this year, but I know that everyone will be out in full force for the official Blogathon in 2009! I really appreciate all the dedication of the people who put together this alternate for us, and I know I still had a lot of fun and met some cool people!  Thanks for a great day, and I’ll see you next year (if not sooner)!

This post is for the Day of Blogs 2008! I am blogging for Children’s Literacy Initiative. For more information about what I am doing, please click here, or you can sponsor me!

• 7/27/2008 -- Longest Meme Ever (Day of Blogs ’08 #32)
• 7/26/2008 -- More Meme (Day of Blogs ’08 #18)
• 7/26/2008 -- Another Book Meme (Day of Blogs ’08 #12)