Monday, November 11, 2013

Monopoly and music


It's been two months since I last posted something here, but I haven't forgotten about my goals in the mean time:

Monopoly
The first goal I've worked on is that of the Monopoly streets. Three of the streets are in my own city, one actually only 20 meters from my house, so I could go there at any moment and take a picture but that would be too easy. So instead, I'm waiting for special occasions to "visit" these streets and take a picture. And last month, one such occasion presented itself when my mother-in-law and I walked the "4 miles of Groningen" (I was tempted to let this count as my "4 Mijl" goal, but I have to admit that that really requires me to run it). Just 500 meters before the finish, we entered the Herestraat. After already walking 6 kilometers (which, I admit, is not that much of an achievement for a 27-year-old, but my mother-in-law is not that young anymore and the weather was really bad so all in all, we were really proud of ourselves) I thought this was the perfect moment to take my picture. One down, 21 to go! Here is the *glorious* result:
Covered in rain and very proud of ourselves. Oh, and barely legible somewhere, the sign "Herestraat". ;)



And just two weeks later, the next Monopoly street came along. We were in Amsterdam for a concert (more about that below!) and while we were there, we also visited the Rijksmuseum. On our way back from the museum to the train station, we took a small detour to visit the street of the Dutch Monopoly: the Kalverstraat. The most expensive street, a good start!

Very legible this time!
John Mayer
The concert we were in Amsterdam for, was John Mayer. The first time I saw him perform live was in America, and that was amazing. Probably the best concert I have ever been to. So when I heard that he was finally coming to the Netherlands again, for the first time in years, I had to go there. Despite the fact that he was touring two new albums at once, and I didn't even know his new songs that well, the concert was great! And, it counts as one of my five big music concerts. :)

To prepare for the concert, I also listened to John Mayer's new album Paradise Valley. The style is quite different from his earlier work, but like with earlier albums like Heavier Things and Continuum, after listening to the songs a couple of times I realized that they were much more complex than they seemed at first. Especially after hearing them live, they really grew on me. So, new albums: 1/50! 

Wednesday, September 18, 2013

Some more big goals...

Several of my goals have to do with saving money. Even though I have a fairly decent job, life is expensive and somehow, more often than not, I run out of money before the month is over. Another goal I have is to lose some weight. I’ve gained quite a lot of weight in the past two years, and I keep finding stuff in my closet that's too small. When that happens, it makes me want to buy new clothes, but that doesn’t really get me closer to either of these two goals. So I decided to just stop buying new clothes until I’ve lost some weight. This saves money, and also stops me from using the new stuff I just bought as an excuse to stay at my old weight a little longer.
Instead, I’m going to clean out my closet, take out everything that doesn’t fit and keep only the things I can actually wear. This way, I will no longer be frustrated after seeing all the nice clothes that don’t fit, and maybe I’ll even find some other nice things that I forgot I had. I’m not throwing anything away, just taking it out of view for now.
I haven’t decided how much weight I want to lose before I start buying new clothes again, but I’m thinking about 10 kilos. Because I gained the weight slowly, I already have a lot of clothes in different sizes, so I should have enough to wear for a while. And that will only give me more time to save money for the awesome shopping spree at the end! :D
So I’m adding a new goal to my list: clean out my closet, only add stuff that I already have, and only when it really fits again.

Monday, September 9, 2013

Ongoing goals

Some of the goals in this project are very small, others are very big. One of the biggest is getting my PhD (nr. 19). This is obviously an ongoing project, which will hopefully be completed around the end of 2015. The other work-related goal that is currently in the list, publishing an article (nr. 18), is also something that I'm already working on, which will hopefully be completed in the coming year. More work-related goals will be added after that, but for now I have my hands full with this one.

Another BIG goal is learning to say no (nr. 3). I'm not even sure if I will ever be able to say I've completed this goal, but I chose to put it in the list anyway, as a reminder to myself to think before I say "yes" to something.

There's also a smaller goal that I've already started: growing herbs for cooking. However, at the moment this is limited to one sprig of basil growing amid a jungle of mint. Although I'm very proud of my little basil plant, I was hoping for a bit more than a tea spoon of pesto, so I'm planning to sow some more seeds in the spring, along with some other herbs like rosemary and sage.

My brave little basil plant

Twenty-seven to Thirty

This is my Day Zero Project: 101 goals, to complete in 1001 days. There are some big goals in there, and also some really small things, but they are all things that I've wanted to do for a while but never gotten around to. Hopefully, this project will help me achieve some of them.

When I calculated what my end date would be, I found a funny coincidence: if I start now, I will be finished just 11 days before my 30th birthday. This is why my blog is called twenty-seven to thirty. :)