Quarterly report #4: 101 things in 1001 days

4th quarterly report: January – March, 2012

I’ve completed 45 things during my first year of 101 things in 1001 days. Bring on the spring!

Tasks completed:

#18. Go snowboarding: Slide, fall, struggle, repeat: My first snowboarding lesson.

#22. Complete a spontaneous challenge: Three Meetups.

#24. Comment on 50 random blogs.

#84. Make my own nut butter: Maple Macadamia Nut Butter and Back to School Oatmeal.

Tasks I am making progress on:

#14. Watch all of IMDb’s Top 250 Movies. Only 15 more to go!

Movies watched:

• The Celebration (I didn’t know what this Danish movie was about going in, and it blew me away. It builds a surprising amount of tension as family secrets are revealed at a dinner party. I put it on my list of “10 more movies you’ve never seen, but should.”)
• Witness for the Prosecution (I finally finished it. It was pretty good.)
• The Grapes of Wrath (Liked the movie; loved the book)
• The Wages of Fear (Where to begin a little blurb about this strange movie? Subtitled into English and set in South America, the actors spoke whatever language they liked. I heard Spanish, French, Italian, German, and sometimes they would pop into English. It was a tedious, long movie with some pleasurable moments of extreme excitement as men raced across a country with a dangerous load of nitroglycerin, and the ending made me yearn for my movie-watching project to be over.)
• Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter … and Spring (Enjoyed it)
• Judgment at Nuremberg (Enjoyed it)
• Downfall (A grim movie about Hitler’s last days)
• Paths of Glory (I felt like I didn’t get the point of this boring movie at all. Ugh. And it’s Kubrick.)
• Grave of the Fireflies (Enjoyed it)
• I want to get a bonus point for struggling to stay awake through Aguirre: The Wrath of God. I had somehow become convinced it was on the list when it wasn’t. I’ve liked other films by Werner Herzog, such as Fitzcarraldo, but this one was so slow and boring, with a few great moments.

#32. Walk 10,000 steps a day for an average of six days a week: Still Stepping. I have thought about electing to stop the streak as I have become a bit nutty about it. One night, my husband and I met friends for a drink and planned to have a quick dinner and go home, so I planned to finish my walking then. The quick drink turned into dinner with them and going back to their place to play cards. We were having a great time, but I still needed to get more walking in. The solution? I walked two miles from the bar to their house over the Portland bridge at night in a very windy 32 degrees F. Pretty nutty, right? But I got my steps in. The streak lives! Over a year and counting.

#53. Eat meatless at least one day a week on average. (Working on this, Meatless Monday updates here.)

  Homemade corn tortillas (and tamales too): Masa harina two ways

#75. Read at least 15 classics I’ve never read. (5/15 completed) Full disclosure: I had read the first two before, but so long ago that I am counting them.

• The Grapes of Wrath
• My Ántonia (My Ántonia Didn’t Change, But I Sure Did)
• Uncle Tom’s Cabin

(Previously read during this challenge: Rebecca, A Room with a View)

#96. See at least five live shows. (3/5 completed)

• Levon Helm’s Midnight Ramble

(Previously saw during this challenge: Little Feat, Michael Cleary Band)

Spring is coming! Spring is coming!

• Quarterly report #1
• Quarterly report #2
• Quarterly report #3
• Quarterly report #5