{Check out my ebook about this quest: Timid No More.}

I have 1001 days to tackle these 101 things that I have been too timid, too squeamish, or — let’s face it — too lazy to complete. These challenges will help me get out there and get things done!

(April 2, 2011 – December 28, 2013)

23 more to go: 101 Things in 1001 Days!

Green = completed / Red = in progress / Blue = link (read more)

1. Milk a cow. (Anyone have a cow I can borrow?)
2. Do 50 consecutive push-ups: 50, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Push-up. (Completed August 3, 2011.)
3. Say yes to everything for a whole day: Just Say Yes. (Completed January 21, 2013.)
4. Shoot a gun: Die, Zombie Becky! (Completed May 22, 2011.)
5. Attend a UU church meeting: A church where an atheist can feel at home. (Completed Jan. 6, 2013.)
6. Go to a roller derby: Roller Derby Jam. (Completed February 23, 2013.)
7. Sing karaoke in a bar: I’ve got one more silver dollar. (Completed April 9, 2011.)
8. Take a trapeze class.
9. Make homemade pasta: Making homemade whole wheat pasta. (Completed April 29, 2012).
10. Document one month of my life in photographs.
11. Learn to juggle three balls.
12. Climb to the top of a tree and take a picture of the view.
13. Listen to 10 classic albums all the way through: In the Days of My Youth … Listening to Led Zeppelin. (Completed December, 2011.)
14. Watch all of IMDb’s Top 250 Movies: The credits finally roll on the IMDb Top 250. (Completed October 20, 2012).
    
15. Make vegan cake pops: Macadamia cherry chocolate vegan cake pops. (Completed April 21, 2011.)
16. Attend a New Year’s celebration; kiss at midnight: MCB on NYE. (Completed December 31, 2011.)
17. Try Zumba: Your Momma Don’t Dance: Zumba Fail. (Completed April 2, 2011.)
18. Go snowboarding: Slide, fall, struggle, repeat. (Completed February 21, 2012.)
19. Ride a mechanical bull: Ride that bull. (Completed May 28, 2011.)
20. Donate blood again.
21. Make eggplant lasagna. (Completed April 10, 2011.)
22. Complete a spontaneous challenge: Three Meetups. (Completed February 18, 2012.)
23. Eat pizza at Pepe’s: New Haven Apizza: Pepe’s vs. Sally’s. (Completed July 7, 2011.)
24. Comment on 50 random blogs. (Completed Jan. 4, 2012.)
25. Influence a person to make a Day Zero list. (Completed April 9, 2011. Thanks Shannon of My Place in the Race.)
26. Make a soufflé: Sometimes redemption is cheesy. (Completed December 26, 2012).
27. Memorize a favorite poem: Begrudgingly Intrigued Teenagers and J. Alfred Prufrock. (Completed June 18, 2012.)
28. Visit a new UNESCO World Heritage Site: When the lights flicker on at the Parthenon. (Completed Aug. 6, 2011.)
29. Bake bread from scratch again: Homemade bread. (Completed July 31, 2011.)
30. Travel alone at least overnight: Pura Vida: Traveling Alone to Costa Rica. (Completed July 28, 2012.)
31. Record a song with me playing a bodhran with my family.
32. Walk 10,000 steps a day for an average of six days a week: Still Stepping. (Completed the average by doing it seven days a week; I have a streak going since 10/2/10.)
33. Paint the garage doors: Graffiti to the Rescue: I Tagged My Garage. (Completed November 4, 2012.)
34. Take an art class: Nude Poses, the Beats, and William Shatner Reading Rocket Man. (Completed June 12, 2012).
35. Volunteer at a soup kitchen or homeless shelter: Downtown Evening Soup Kitchen, New Haven. (Completed January 20, 2013.)
36. Watch the sunrise and sunset in the same day.
37. Try to grow tomatoes again: Now That’s a Fresh Tomato. (Completed April 29, 2012.)
38. Don’t complain about anything for a week: It took me only 13 days to stop complaining for a week. (Completed April 15, 2011.)
39. Go to Greece: Vacation in Greece. (Completed August 4, 2011.)
40. Send a secret to PostSecret. (Completed.)
41. Read Anna Karenina: Driving in the Car with Anna Karenina. (Completed March 22, 2013.)
    
42. Have a Philly cheesesteak in Philly: The City of Cheesesteaks and Brotherly Love. (Completed June 30, 2011.)
43. Try at least five new recipes while eating vegetarian for a week: Five Great Vegetarian Recipes. (Completed June 5, 2011.)
44. Relearn how to play “Greensleeves” on the guitar.
45. Have dinner by candlelight: Hurricane Irene: Caffeine withdrawal, Cowboy Chili, and Dinner by Candelight. (Completed August 28, 2011.)
46. De-clutter my house.
47. Jump off a cliff: Just let go: Jump off a cliff. (Completed August 24, 2012).
48. Attend a wine tasting: Mother’s Day Wine and Hike. (Completed May 13, 2012.)
49. Try at least five savory oatmeal recipes: Savoring Savory Oatmeal. (Completed July 23, 2011.)
    
50. Take a yoga class again.
51. Tour a Connecticut brewery: Beer Brewing. (Completed May 20, 2012.)
52. Go strawberry picking again: Radishes, scapes, and greens, oh my. (Completed June 10, 2012.)
53. Eat meatless at least one day a week on average. (Working on this, Meatless Monday updates here.)
54. Brew my own beer: Beer Brewing. (Completed May 20, 2012.)
55. Play, give away, or throw out each of the 32 board games in my basement. (Working on this.)
56. Make cheese fondue: Christmas Eve Fondue. (Completed December 24, 2011.)
57. Hike Mount Katahdin: Hiking Mount Katahdin, the Final Summit of New England’s Highest Peaks. (Completed August 14, 2012).
58. Go zorbing.
59. Make a wooden frame for the old homemade door panels my dad had made: Framing a Memory. (Completed February 21, 2013.)
60. Get a pedicure: Something fishy about this pedicure. (Completed August 13, 2011.)
61. Have my kids pick five ingredients from the grocery store; feature them in a meal: Grocery store serendipity. (Completed October 9, 2011).
62. Drive a go kart again.
63. Go snowshoeing: Definitely Enough Snow: Snowshoeing After Nemo. (Completed February 9, 2013.)
64. Try a new cuisine: Pork, Squid, and Milkfish: A Filipino Meal. (Completed January 19, 2013).
65. Get a makeover: Zombie Makeover: A Behind the Scenes Look. (Completed October 27, 2012.)
66. Write a haiku each day for a week that sums up or reflects upon the day: Haiku a Day. (Completed October 23, 2011.)
67. Go to at least five offbeat or small museums. (Working on this, 2/5). Bling at the PEZ Factory | Seagulls and Temple of Trash.
68. Get a graphic that represents “(Don’t Be) Too Timid and Squeamish.” (I made the header. Completed May, 2011.)
69. Visit at least three “Road Food” places I have never been to: The Connecticut Hot Dog Tour. (Completed May 14, 2011.)
70. Eat haggis: Haggis: Can You Stomach It? (Completed February 22, 2013.)
71. Try to grow sunflowers again. (Completed May 12, 2013.)
72. Go through the basement bins and donate, sell, or throw out what I can: Just let go: Jump off a cliff. (Completed July 15, 2012.)
73. Knit something.
74. Make butter: Homemade butter. (Completed July 30, 2011.)
75. Read at least 15 classics I’ve never read: I am not Rebecca–a sort of book review | List updated here (Working on this, 11/15.)
76. Eat a cheeseburger at Louis’ Lunch: Hold the pickles, hold the lettuce: Eating at Louis’ Lunch. (Completed April 16, 2011.)
77. Make my own hummus: Homemade hummus. (Completed April 18, 2011.)
78. Finalize my will.
79. Dance my way through Dance Central with Kinect. (Working on this.)
80. Complete at least one other athletic challenge: Planks challenge. (Completed June, 2011.)
81. Cook something with tofu or tempeh. (Completed May 2, 2011.)
82. Visit at least five Roadside America attractions: Kitschy Connecticut. (Completed April 16, 2011.)
83. Have a cookout again. (Completed June 17, 2011.)
84. Make my own nut butter: Maple Macadamia Nut Butter and Back to School Oatmeal. (Completed Jan. 8, 2012.)
85. Hit a bucket of golf balls again: A bucket of golf balls. (Completed May 4, 2013.)
86. Go tubing down the Farmington River with my kids.
87. Make a fire in the fireplace: October Surprise: A cold “staycation” without power. (Completed October 29, 2011.)
88. Give away or throw out the collection of stained glass pieces and scraps in the basement. (Completed July 29, 2011.)
89. Adopt a word at savethewords.org: adimpleate. (Completed Nov. 7, 2011.)
90. Help clean up the Quinnipiac or something else outdoors.
91. Go to a farmer’s market: The Farmers Market and the Real Food Pledge. (Completed June 11, 2011.)
92. Make Spambalaya Jambalaya: Spam, Spam, Shrimp, and Spam. (Completed Jan. 12, 2013).
93. Go to the beach again. (Completed August 11, 2011.)
94. Eat French fries topped with sweet mango chutney mayo (or something similarly exotic): Go to New York for French Fries. (Completed April 22, 2011.)
95. Fast for one day of Ramadan.
96. See at least five live shows: Big Grooves and Little Feat: Concert Review; MCB on NYE; Levon Helm’s Midnight Ramble; Garth Hudson; Amy Helm. (Completed March 29, 2013.)
    
97. Make another Shutterfly book. (Completed August, 2011.)
98. Sell some more Elks pins on eBay. (Completed April 15, 2012.)
99. Give up caffeine for a day: Hurricane Irene: Caffeine withdrawal, Cowboy Chili, and Dinner by Candlelight. (Completed August 28, 2011.)
100. Have another oyster pan roast at Grand Central Oyster Bar. (Completed April 22, 2011.)
101. Complete a video game challenge set by my kids: A noob gets pwned: Giving World of Warcraft a try at my children’s insistence. (Completed August 27, 2011.)

Beyond 101 Things

“Beyond 101 Things” is an addendum to my “101 Things” list for new adventures that are list-worthy.

• Go whitewater river rafting: Whitewater River Rafting on the Rio Balsa. 
• Try rappelling: Rappelling Down a Waterfall. 
• Go zip lining: Zip Lining Like Superman Up in the Clouds.
• Run a Rugged Maniac 5K Obstacle Race: Fifty Shades of Mud: My Rugged Maniac Race Report.
• Make a cooking video: Butternut Squash Pasta Sauce. 
• Set a Guinness World Record: Oh, bring us a figgy pudding: We set a new caroling world record.
• Publish an ebook: Timid No More.
• Hike the Inca Trail.

• 1st quarterly report (April – June, 2011): As I look back on my first three months, sensations spring to mind: shooting a zombie in the face, hugging a full-grown hot dog man, crunching bean sprouts in my oatmeal, hearing the nostalgic hiss of a vinyl record, ruing my confused ineptitude during a Zumba class, getting flung off an enormous fake bull.… It’s been a thrill so far! {19 challenges completed}
• 2nd quarterly report (July – September, 2011): With a trip to Greece and a hurricane, the last three months have been a whirlwind. Now that I’m back to teaching and heading into fall, I’m sure things will slow down. Proudest moment: Completing 50 consecutive push-ups. Most n00bie moment: Floundering through World of Warcraft. {15 challenges completed}
• 3rd quarterly report (October – December, 2011): I definitely slowed down during the last few months. Still, with 41 tasks done and 60 more to go, progress is progress. With pickles dipped in cheese, Led Zeppelin, and a curling class haiku, I had more than my share of fun! {7 challenges completed}
• 4th quarterly report (January – March, 2012): The winter was tough, but I’ve completed 45 tasks during my first year. I’m ready for spring! {4 challenges completed}
• 5th quarterly report (April – June, 2012): It’s been a busy spring, and I have some adventures lined up for the summer. {10 challenges completed}
• 6th quarterly report (July – September, 2012): By far, my biggest thrill this quarter was traveling alone to Costa Rica. Jumping off a cliff was pretty thrilling too. {5 challenges completed}
• 7th quarterly report (October – December, 2012): While I only completed four tasks this quarter, I have to say, they were pretty epic tasks: I finished all the movies with a monumental effort, I sprayed my blog name on my garage doors, and I became a zombie. Plus, I got cheese souffle. {4 challenges completed}
• 8th quarterly report (January – March, 2013): I rocked the final winter of my challenge, reveling in trash, haggis, Pez, roller derby, snowshoeing, Spam, and more. {11 challenges completed}