Random Fodder

2008 has reared its ugly head, and left me with not even a handful of completed goals:

• 3 goals (7%) were completed successfully.
• 9 goals (21%) were abandoned.
• 31 goals (72%) will be carried over for 2008.

What goals have I chosen for 2008? 31 goals have been carried over, 12 new goals have been added, and 1 goal from 2006 has returned:

1. Accomplish more goals this year than last year
2. attend a local government meeting
3. Be a better blogger
4. be an audience member for a TV show taping*
5. Be part of a flash mob
6. build an igloo
7. clean up my house and keep it clean
8. Do the Discovery Health National Body Challenge
9. drink more water
10. eat healthier
11. eat with my hands
12. exercise regularly
13. fly a kite
14. Get better at chess*
15. Give blood
16. go camping
17. have a 3 month emergency fund
18. have family devotions
19. Help my child finish the Hooked on Math program*
20. Help my mother start her home business
21. Join a professional organization*
22. Learn how to remember peoples' names
23. Learn Spanish
24. learn to do crosswords*
25. learn to ice skate*
26. Learn to juggle*
27. lose weight
28. make a time capsule
29. Make family silhouettes*
30. open the yellow pages, pick the seventh restaurant, and eat the seventh entree and dessert on the menu
31. Read 23 books in one year†
32. Reduce debt.
33. Send a message in a bottle
34. Send a postcard to Postsecret
35. sleep in a hammock
36. spend ten minutes holding the door for people
37. stick to a budget
38. stop being late
39. take 43 photos of 43 places within 43 minutes of where I live‡
40. take a family vacation
41. Take the Mensa test.*
42. Volunteer
43. Write a will*

* A new goal for 2008.
† A "new" goal for 2008 added in October 2007 and due by October 2008.
‡ A renewed goal from before 2007.

You can also view my current list and past accomplished goals at 43 Things or on my own 43 Things page here.

My top two "cheered" goals by other 43 Things users each have 10 cheers, twice as many as the next highest cheered goal. They are:

• 10 cheers – build an igloo
• 10 cheers – attend a local government meeting

So, I should probably put a little extra effort into getting these completed this year.

Perhaps I'll get into the habit of posting movie reviews based on comments from my family . . .

Last night, we watched The Family Stone, another holiday family get-together movie. In general, I enjoy this genre of movie because they show the quirks, embarrassments, and fights that are inherent in most families, but they also show the love that inextricably binds them together.

This is my mother's one-line review of The Family Stone:

I didn't like the beginning when they were all being mean, but it got better when they started fighting.

So, there you have it. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has surely been waiting for my mom's review of this one.

Reconstructed from cave paintings

My mother turns 50 years old today. Fifty years!

I guess that means I'm starting to get old, too, but I won't hit my milestone for another 11 months.

Today, mom turns 50, but here are some other ways to look at her age:

• 600 months
• 0.5 century
• 2,608.94 weeks
• 18,262 days
• 438,301 hours
• 26,298,073 minutes
• 1,577,884,380 seconds
• 0.20 Plutonian year
• 0.30 Neptunian year
• 1.70 Saturnian years
• 4.20 Jovian yars
• 26.58 Marsian Years
• 81.17 Venusian years
• 207.53 Mercurian years
• 263 million blinks of an eye

Time marches on. Hopefully, my mother will, too.