25 Steps

To be honest, when I made my list of 25 things to do before I turn 25, I wasn’t sure this one would actually happen.

You see… I am a perpetual planner. For example, I keep a calendar on my fridge solely for planning out our dinners in advance. In college, I made a scale model of our dorm room and its furniture in order to plan out where things should go before we moved any of it.

The same preference for planning extends to our travels. When Aaron and I take trips, it frequently looks like this: We leave the house at the scheduled time, armed with a binder full of hotel reservations and Google maps, all separated by colored tab dividers.

Part of my passion for planning stems from my thrift. It’s just not very economical to take off in a car without a clue where you’re going. You can end up wasting a lot of time and spending a lot of money that you might not have, had you chosen a destination and booked a hotel in advance.

For this trip, though, I was ready for a change. Not that I wanted to spend a bunch of money or have an unproductive trip, but I figured there had to be some benefits to NOT planning everything out in advance…

We departed from Ladysmith, Wisconsin on Sunday afternoon, armed with some maps and travel brochures for Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan, but not much of an idea of which direction to head. Here’s what it looked like as we discussed which way to go:

After some deliberation, we decided to head north toward the town of Bayfield, Wisconsin and eventually head east along the southern coast of Lake Superior. A few hours later, we arrived in the area. It took us a bit to find a hotel that was in our price range, but we finally booked a room in the nearby town of Ashland. We then headed up to Bayfield, prepared to spend a wonderful afternoon and evening there. That was kindof a bust. We soon found out that pretty much everything we wanted to do either cost too much money or was closed on Sunday evenings. I suddenly found myself wishing we’d planned our schedule better. Bummed, we turned back to Ashland. We did enjoy a nice view of the lake there, but when we tried to find some good local ice cream, we failed and ended up at Dairy Queen. Too bad, I thought. If only we’d done some research on local ice cream parlors before we went out…

We were determined to make Day Two better than the first. We got up bright and early, loaded up our cooler with groceries and took off in the direction of Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore. After five hours of driving, we knew it must be just a little bit farther. Aaron had me check the map to verify how far away we were. As I was looking over our route trying to find the roads we were crossing, he mentioned something about Rapid River. “Rapid River?” I said. “Rapid River?! Oh. my. gosh. You are not going to believe this…” We had taken a wrong turn about an hour earlier and were now completely on the south end of the peninsula when we’d meant to be on the north.

Needless to say, we were very upset. So far, much of our trip had felt like waste, and now here we were, totally in the wrong place with no idea what to do next. We finally decided to give up on Pictured Rocks for the day and headed to nearby Indian Lake to camp for the night. Man, am I glad we did. It was here that we found the Kitch-iti-kipi spring, which was an absolute surprise to me in its beauty. (Read more about it here)  That night we pitched our tent right next to the lake and enjoyed a beautiful sunset over the water. Maybe this trip was going to be alright after all!

Over the next four days, we made a loop around the entire Upper Peninsula of Michigan, seeing a number of wonderful sights such as the quaint town of Mackinaw City, the powerful Tahquamenon Falls, and… yes, finally… the absolutely beautiful Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore. We drove 1,100 miles, spent over 24 hours in the car, and over the span of two days put our feet in three of the Great Lakes. (You can read all about our trip from Aaron’s perspective at our family blog.)

All in all, it was a great trip. I really appreciated the flexibility to make decisions about what to do next based on what we were feeling at the time rather than what was on our agenda. Lunch by the beach? Sure, why not! Take a walk out to that lighthouse? Ok!

Did we waste time on this trip? Definitely. Did we spend more money than we could’ve? Probably.  Was it worth it??  Totally!

Last month, Aaron, my sister Kaitlyn, and I headed down to Valleyfair, our local amusement park, for a day of… well… amusement!  We spent part of the day at the waterpark, some time riding various thrill rides, and a half hour watching an IMAX show, but a good bit of the day was spent riding roller coasters. And you know what? I LIKED it!

Now, Aaron and Kaitlyn might stand up and protest here, “But you refused to ride THIS and you said you’d rather not ride THAT.”  True… but you’ll notice that my goal was to like roller coasters, but not necessarily ALL roller coasters.

I’ve never been a huge fan of amusement parks. They cost a lot of money, and I’ve frequently spent half the day on a bench waiting for my friends to ride roller coasters. It’s hard to explain why I’ve never been that interested in coasters. Part of it is disliking anything that turns me upside down, but it’s mostly not feeling very in control of my own body, so being strapped into a car and thrown around isn’t really my idea of a great day. Nevertheless, I’ve been determined to enjoy them more, in large part so I’m not “that girl” on the bench every time.

I did enjoy my day at Valleyfair. There’s really only one coaster that I refuse to ride now, and I’ve mostly figured out how to enjoy riding the rest of them. Heck, there was even one coaster that I had to convince Aaron and Kaitlyn to ride. THEY were the ones that weren’t too sure about it. Score!

Renegade, the park's newest coaster (Yes, I rode it... and yes, I liked it)

As it’s worded, this goal isn’t too difficult. By definition, having a garden simply means having “a plot of ground used for cultivating plants.” For me, though, this goal was more about having a successful garden than just a piece of dirt.

Having a “real” garden where we live is a bit of a challenge since we’re not allowed to dig in the ground. Enter… the container garden.

After a failed attempt at growing flowers from seeds (most never sprouted; those that did got stolen by some small creature), I picked up some baby plants from a local flower mart. That was about a month and a half ago. In my garden today, I have a large pot of thriving petunias, three boxes of beautiful marigolds, and one very tall cherry tomato plant. Hooray!

Having a garden is teaching me responsibility and consistency. With as dry of a summer as we’ve had, my plants really need to be watered every day. (And unlike the cat, they don’t meow to remind me!) The marigolds have probably grown the best without a lot of help. They’re such pretty flowers and not very hard to maintain, so I’ll be buying them again. The petunias, on the other hand, are very delicate, and I freak out every time we have a big rainstorm.

My pride, though, has been “Tom” the tomato plant. I find that if I name my plants, I’m more motivated to take good care of them… and more sad if they die. (R.I.P. Tess)  Tom started out ten inches tall and now stands at about four feet. His limbs are full of yellow flowers and little green tomatoes. Every day I go outside hoping to find a tomato turning red. No luck yet.

Oh yeah, that’d be the other thing my garden is teaching me… patience!

(The photos totally don’t do them justice.)

I pushed my friend Laura to post an update on her 9 Goals for 2009, so I figure it’s only fair for me to share my progress on MY “big to-do list” as well!

To begin with, in the last week or so, I accomplished TWO of the goals on my list. Hooray! They deserve posts of their own, though, so they’ll have to remain a mystery until then…

Days left to complete list: 321

#2  Study Latin – I currently have two books and a CD checked out from the library to help me learn some Latin. So far, I’ve covered the basics of pronunciation and “some Latin words you didn’t know you already knew.” Keep truckin’ ahead!

#16  Get totally caught up on my scrapbooks - I recently completed my college scrapbook (two books, actually). I’m so excited to have finished up that big project, and I’m now on my way to having all our “married life” photos in albums, too.

#23  See the top 10 movies on the AFI list - I went to find out what AFI’s top 10 movies were and found that they first created a list in 1998 and then made a new one in 2007. Now, the 1998 list was the only one in existence when I created my 25 goals, but the 2007 list is the revised one and should therefore be better, right? With some encouragement from my husband, I’ve decided to see all the top 10 movies on BOTH lists. I plan to rent one of the movies this week.

That’s all for now… Make sure to check back for my two COMPLETED goals, coming soon!

I am so totally stoked to have crossed goal number nine off my list. As of last week, Aaron and I have no more debt outside our mortgage!

Thanks to a tax credit we received for purchasing a home last year, we finally had enough money in the bank to pay off the full amount of our last student loan. We were already on our way to paying it off by the end of the summer, but the tax credit helped us to do it sooner.

We’re especially excited because we’ve been working really hard to get to this point. It’s not like we just make lots of money and are able to knock out our debts left and right. We’ve been scrimping and saving a LOT since we got married.

We owe thanks to a number of people who’ve helped us out in this process:

1. First and foremost, God, who has always taken care of us financially as we’ve been faithful to Him. Especially when we’ve made decisions that have cut into our finances to do what He’s called us to do, He has provided for all of our needs, just like He said He would do in Matthew 6.
2. Our wonderful parents, for always encouraging us, giving us tips and helping us out here and there with a free meal or whatever
3. Dave Ramsey and his book The Total Money Makeover for giving us a plan
4. Friends who are in the same boat as us and have the same goals, for their encouragement and helping us feel like we’re not crazy to be so stingy

Days left to complete list: 405

#9  Be debt-free - With the help of our imminent tax refund, we’ll pay off our last student loan by the end of the summer.

#11   Have a garden – Pulled out some seed packets today to see when to plant them. Verdict: May or June

#12  Be consistently on time - I’m doing fairly well at this, surprisingly enough. Will keep working…

#14  Make up a recipe – Had a super yummy dish at Macaroni Grill recently. Planning to try to make it myself, with a few alterations. Does that count as “making up a recipe?”

#15  Weigh what’s on my driver’s license - Lost two pounds.   Haha!

#16  Get totally caught up on my scrapbooks – Went on a scrapbooking retreat last week and knocked out a quarter of my college album. I plan to finish that book by the end of May. <crosses fingers>

#17  Read a book about the major world wars - Requested a book from the library. It came in, but I didn’t pick it up on time so they sent it back to the library it belonged to… Fail.

#25  Take a road trip with no advance planning - I’ve been thinking that I’ll try to convince Aaron to take off “up north” with just a map and a suitcase sometime this summer.

Goal #5 on my list is “Learn to edit on Final Cut and Vegas.”

If you’re saying Huh? because you don’t know what that means, let me explain briefly. Seven years ago, when I started editing video, I started using a program called Adobe Premiere. When I went to college, I had to learn the system the school uses, Avid Xpress Pro. I’m now very well versed in both, and I use Avid for pretty much all my editing. (Um… along the way, I’ve also picked up Windows Movie Maker and iMovie, but… they’re hardly worth noting… sorry if I sound arrogant.)

Anyway, the “big four” editing programs out there are Premiere, Avid, Final Cut Pro, and Sony Vegas. So in an attempt to further my skills (and to avoid being a little ashamed everytime I tell someone I’m a professional videographer who’s never touched these two programs), I’m planning to pick up these last two editors before next May.

I was able to get my feet wet a bit this week when I needed to import and edit footage from a DVD. Avid doesn’t do this, so I needed to use Vegas to get the job done. Albeit small, the project gave me some good exposure to the mechanics of the program. Now I feel a lot more comfortable getting in there and really using it, so I’m looking forward to doing it soon. It’s a bit different than the other programs I’ve used, but it’s also fairly intuitive. I’ll update again when I’ve gotten more than just my feet (or maybe I should say my hands?) wet.

It’s a teeny tiny step, but a step nonetheless.

I finally finished the scrapbook of my senior year of high school. I’ve officially been working on this album for six years… ha ha! In college, though, I didn’t have much time to scrapbook, so I’ve just now finished it up.

Today I received about a third of the photos for my college scrapbook in the mail. (Thanks, Snapfish!) I’m so excited to start this album. After that, I have the ginormous task of archiving everything since when Aaron and I got married. But THEN… I’ll be done.

In my last post I mentioned I’d made a “small dent” in my list of things to accomplish. As of today, I have completed 4 of the 25 goals I set for myself a few years ago.

#1 – Graduate from college
On December 22, 2006 I graduated with my Bachelor of Science degree in Broadcasting and Electronic Media. Graduating wasn’t any big surprise, of course, but it did mark an important step in the journey of my life. To have successfully completed 17 years of school, on time and without going crazy, is certainly an accomplishment for anyone! I feel proud of the things I learned and did while in college and of the person I grew into during those four years. Here we are on graduation day!

#6 – Buy a house
On April 30, 2008 we signed the paperwork and took possession of a beautiful townhome. Buying your first home is a huge step in a person’s life, and we were blessed to have been able to when we did. A lot of planning and scrimping and saving went into being able to afford it (as well as to move closer to goal #9), so we were thrilled to finally be at a point of deserving to take that next step.

#7 – Make some money working independently
I know this goal as written didn’t seem like much of a challenge. After all, I technically started making “some money” with my video production back in high school. When I set this goal, though, I meant something more substantial than $25 for a wedding. (That was kindof a ripoff, now that I look back!)

Since I started seriously filming weddings, though, I’ve been able to produce a few that have paid a professional rate. I’m nowhere near being able to live off of the salary, but it feels good to be recognized as a professional. (If you know someone in need of a wedding videographer, by the way, I hope you’ll send them to spokenforproductions.com!)

#20 – Get a pet
On June 21, 2008 we adopted our adorable little kitty, Sawyer, from some friends of ours. The last six months have certainly been interesting… Home life is different when you constantly have to be aware of what the animal might chew up or hurt herself on. Ha ha! We totally love having her, though. She brings us a lot of joy, and we love getting to share her with people who come to visit.