101 Things in 1001 Days

11a. Deal with postcard collection

I used to collect postcards. I had a wall where I pasted them all up, one by one, covering every available square inch. When I moved to a house I decided not to hang the again, and they ended up in a bag. Even after thinning them there were still way too many. Check it out:



So today I went through them all, one by one. There were so many - ones I'd kept from my PostCrossing days, ones from friends and family, ones I'd purchased as souvenirs from places I'd visited. There were also a surprising number of blank ones other people had given me, though I don't know whether they intended for me to send them to other people. Would that be rude? I'm not sure what else to do with blank postcards from places I've never been. For now they sit in a pile on a shelf.

I pitched a bunch of them, saving some of the more interesting stamps for a collection I likewise am not sure what to do with. A few other bits and pieces were put in my ephemera stash. I saved some, almost exclusively from friends and family, and put them back into the bag. I did not fully decide what to do with this mess, but I did pare it down considerably:



So what next? I don't know. For now I'm marking this as "in progress".

56a. Scan/log pre-Markeroni snarfs

Date Completed: 30 November 2013

I scanned in 32 photos dating from 1990 to 2004. Some of them were double snarfs, meaning I logged some 46 markers. Not bad, not bad at all. I even got to add a few new places to my "snarfed in" list: Missouri, Indiana, and England!

1a. Donate blood 5 times

Current progress: 2/5

I arrived at my lung doc appointment 45 minutes early so I decided to donate blood since it was in the same building. I managed to fill the bag in under 5 minutes. I think I startled the phlebotomist. I got this sticker:

I shared this with my Australian friend Pete. His response: "Fair dinkum, you're a bonzer sheila and yer blood's worth bottlin'. Good on yer."

62a. Send 10 RABCKS

Date Completed: 21 November 2013

Sending off the last three today, to Oklahoma, North Carolina, and Illinois. That last one is technically part of Holiday Gift Giving, but there are three books inside so I'm counting it as a RABCK. It feels so good not only to make others happy but to get those books out of my house! :)

62a. Send 10 RABCKS

Current Progress: 7/10

Another four went out yesterday, to New Hampshire, Florida, Georgia, and Oklahoma. It feels really good to keep books moving like that.

According to just_the_things, we hit 333 days on the 5th of this month. Let's see how I'm doing, shall we?

Completed: 26
In Progress: 16

Legend: Category [finished/in progress/total]

Personal [0/1/8]
Car and Home [4/1/12]
Art [1/2/7]
Gluebooking [0/3/4]
Reading [0/1/6]
Watching [3/0/5]
Projects [3/1/11]
Markeroni [2/1/8]
BookCrossing [0/2/4]
Local [7/2/17]
Travel [1/0/5]
Misc. [5/2/14]

I'm behind where I ought to be, but I'm not fussed.

Old 25a. Complete Sketch a Day journal

New 25a. Fill TAD sketchbook

I refer to this as my TAD sketchbook because I first started it during Thing-a-day a few years ago. If I cared about accuracy, I'd call it my face journal, since that's pretty much all I draw in it: faces of people, mostly from magazines, all drawn in simple #2 pencil.

Make no mistake - I am about equally as likely to complete this Thing as I was the previous one. The only reason I changed it is because I made a bunch of progress last Friday only to discover that while it was on my previous 101 list, it wasn't one this one. So I decided to remedy that.

22a. Participate in a SketchCrawl

Date completed: 19 October 2013

I attended my very first official sketchcrawl this past Saturday. We started at the Maine Avenue Fish Market, then moved a little way down the shoreline to the Capital Yacht Club.

Drawing objects from a distance is very hard for me; I'm used to drawing still life mere feet away, or even photographs right in front of me. Plein air sketching is a new challenge. So because I have a tendency to over-explain/defend my drawings, I'm just going to present them without comment.



In conclusion: I had a good time and enjoyed the company of the artists very much, even if I felt more than a little bit intimidated when we all shared sketchbooks at lunch. Oh well - everybody has to begin somewhere!

67a. Eat at 10 new-to-me restaurants

Current Progress: 6/10

Blue Water Grille - Some coworkers took me here last week and I totally forgot to mention it here. It was tasty but nothing spectacular. Our waitress was great, though.

76a. Visit the Holocaust Museum

Date Completed: 21 September 2013

This is a difficult museum to take, but a very important one nonetheless. I'm glad I had two very close friends with me when I went. I did a gluebook spread of the museum, mostly because you can't take pictures inside so this would serve as a reminder of the collection's impact on me. I think what I liked most about this museum was that it was clearly trying to inform more than shock. I don't think I need to go back any time soon, but it's good that I did. Everyone should.