What do I do?

I am sitting looking at my list and wanting to figure out what I can do next. As I look at my list I am seeing that with the warm months fading, there are going to be less options for goals to check off. I am also struggling with the goals that will not be done for awhile that I have been working on. There are many goals that are monthly or that will take about 1001 days to complete. Those goals are tough because I want to check them off, but they will be there for a long time. It is also tough looking at goals that can not be attempted until many months from now. I am writing because I don't know what to do and I am sick of checking into the blog to see the same thing. I am sure I am not the only one. Last Friday I checked off two goals. I was so excited to be able to check off multiple goals on the same day, I am wanting that feeling again. I know that overall, having three goals accomplished each month will get this list completed in the 34 months, but I want to get these goals done now and don't like waiting.

On a side note, I wanted to write about something great that happened today. (I call it great others might not) I was on the way home from work today and Melissa called me telling me that she needed some stuff from the grocery store. I changed my route and made my way over there to pick the stuff up. She told me that she needed some potatoes and some tofu (for the girls). Some people know that I am an avid watcher of the sales papers and that I keep a close eye on coupons matching sales. Today was a good day! I picked up: 5 bags of Hershey's chocolate chips, a loaf of Sarah Lee bread, a jar of Hidden Valley ranch dressing, a pound of tofu, a 8 pound bag of potatoes, a jar of seasoning sauce, and a bottle of Jet Dry. It was a lot of stuff. The total before the savers card and coupons was $34. After savers card and coupons: $11.20. Didn't I tell you it was a good day! It doesn't quite match the CVS trip that I had last weekend (diapers, tp, body wash, garbage bags, ibuprophen, sandwich bags, and two packs of sprees, all for about $6), but it was a good one for sure. Unfortunately, there isn't much measurable in using coupons and watching for sales to put it onto my list, but the good thing is, we are saving some cash!

56. Go to an Aurora Christian football game

Tonight I did what all good alumni should do. I went back to my high school for a football game on homecoming weekend. I am amazed as to how much the school has changed in the past 9 years since my own graduation. Aurora Christian is in their first season having their own stadium. I have got to say it looks great! I went with my dad and he took me on the tour. We were able to go down on the turf before the game and it was really neat. They have the fake turf that many of the professional teams are getting. It was pretty cool.
As far as the game went, it would have been great if they only played the first half. Their quarterback, Jordan Roberts, set the IHSA record for touch down passes in a career. His first one (95) tied the record and the next one (96) set the record. He was pretty impressive. He finished the first half with 4 TD passes. The first half finished with a 35 - 7 lead. The second half was rough. There were a bunch of difficult penalties which caused the team to not be able to move the ball at all. Chicago Christian brought the game back to 35 - 21 and had momentum. We left the game with 4:00 remaining and Chicago Christian was driving. They finished the game with a 42 - 21 win. It was a good night. The only thing that I think was missing was the fact that there were very few people that I recognized. I know I've been gone for awhile, but I thought that there would be a lot more familiar faces.

It's official, I can write

Goal number 28 has the innitiative to relearn how to write cursive fluently. Is this a measurable goal? I didn't know when I could think that I could count it off. I was told by my class that today could be the day. Over the last month as I have been teaching, I have used a blend of curisive and print up on the board. As I was writing today, they said, "Mr. Weis, that looks pretty good." As I was writing I actually was thinking about how far I have come in the past month.

I decided to take on this goal when I was making my list because I have noticed the fact that I barely write by hand at all anymore. A few years ago I was taking a test for certification and had to write something in cursive. It took me awhile to write it all for the reasons that: one, I don't write by hand much anymore, and two, I didn't remember some of the cursive letters. I put some things up on the board when I am teaching, but the art of actually putting the pen/pencil to paper is an art that is being lost every day. Michael Scott would disagree and say that paper is at the root of our civilization, but I have to disagree and say that the skill/art of typing is quickly killing the need to be able to write by hand.

During this month, I have had to step back while writing to look at my alphabet strip to make sure that I remembered how to correctly do a cursive capital "G" or the difference between the lower case "q's" and "g's". My class has helped and they really have been excited to be able to see my progression. I don't know if I should be embarassed or proud of how they have taken to cheering me on in my drive to be able to write?

I am not looking for an award at the end of the year for most improved penmanship, but I am really proud of the fact that I can do this again with the same relative ease that I could do it back when I was 7 or 8 years old. Let's just hope that I can do a better job over the next 20 years to not lose this skill again.

The doctor made me do it!

I missed out on my fruits and veggies on Monday and Tuesday. I was sick. I was really sick. I was put on a diet of clear liquids by the doctor on Monday and I kept pretty close to it again on Tuesday. I missed a couple of days, but honestly, if I did eat them, I would not have kept them down. That goes the same for my vitamins. I was given medicine from the doctor and have been taking them as diagnosed.
I am feeling a lot better now that it is Friday, but overall, I feel as though I will never really be fully healed. I am hoping that over the weekend here that I will be able to start to feel better.

What a perfect picture

As I was looking for sites that would have toys that I could make for the girls, I stumbled upon this gem from a Popular Mechanics issue in 1950. What do you think? Should I put one of these together? It is amazing how American culture has changed over the past 50 years.

38. Read 5 classic novels

Well, I didn't finish all five, but I've got one down. 380 pages of size 10 font and single spacing. This task is going to be a tough one. I read the book The Jungle by Upton Sinclair this past two weeks. I took advantage of my being sick to just lay down and read the past couple of days. It was amazing how fast you can read through a book when you have many hours of uninterrupted time.

I don't know why I picked the book. Actually, it was about two weeks ago that I went to the library to check out Chariots of Fire and just decided to look for a book to read. I wandered the aisles of the library and decided that was the book that I wanted. I wasn't looking for it specifically, but have heard about it before and had some interest in reading it.

The book is definitely not one that is a fun read. It follows the life of a Lithuanian family in their quest to find a better life in America. They found the opposite and everything went wrong. It was kindof like "Meet the Parents" meets (insert any sad movie that has people dying in it). Anything that could go wrong did.

The one thing that made the end difficult was the fact that the whole book turns into socialist propoganda for the last three chapters. It is a tough way to finish such a story, but it was Sinclair's intent to write the book for the betterment of the Socialist party. If this book were written in today's world of literature, I am sure that it would have left planty of the Socialist stuff out.

After finishing the book, Melissa and I were preparing for Bible study and came across the question of, "If you could spend some time in conversation with any person that traveled the earth in the last 1000 years, who would it be?" I thought about it for a little bit and decided it would be my great-great-great-grandfather (I think that is how many it is) that came over from Luxembourg after the Chicago Fire. I thought about the book I had just read and wondered how life was for him and his family coming to America. I can only imagine that times were tough. I have read plenty of stories that have told of very meager beginnings for immigrants to America, and I wonder what it was like for the Weis family when they got here.

Overall, I am happy I read the book. It opened my eyes to some of the things that went on in our country and I think I learned a lot from it. This is an American classic novel that I am happy that I read.

26. Eat no fast food for a month

I made it. I didn't eat fast food for a month. I have got to say it was harder than I thought it would be. I know I don't have a job where I drive past countless fast food chains, but there have been plenty of times where dinner could have been much easier if we would have just driven out for a couple of minutes to get food. I think Melissa was as inconvenienced at this one as I was. There were two big positives from this goal being achieved. 1) We found good alternatives for food instead of going out and getting food that isn't the healthiest. 2) We saved money eating food that was already in our house instead of going out and buying something else.
I know this is pathetic, but after completing a month, all I wanted was a double cheeseburger from McDonalds. I know, what a splurge, but I love them. Melissa said we could go anywhere, and I picked there, because that is all I wanted.
I'm glad this one is over. I think Melissa is relieved as well.