101 Things in 1001 Days

53. Finish snarfing FX county/city, Alexandria, and Falls Church

Yesterday I finished out the last of Vienna. I have 38 remaining in Fairfax County, of which 5 either don't exist or are otherwise inaccessible, 22 are inside the Mount Vernon estate, and 8 are also in the Belvoir/Lorton area. One more visit to old Georgie's place and I'll be very nearly there.

I probably should not have included Alexandria and Falls Church on my list. I still have the same ten in Falls Church I've had for ages now. Part of the problem there is a distinct lack of places to leave my car. Most of the Alexandria ones are more or less in Old Town, except that they're at the far north or south ends of it so they're not very walkable to each other. And free parking does not exist in that part of the world.

Oh well, I still feel somewhat hopeful.

Today, for no particular reason other than I have the time and inclination, I'm going to do a more general update - just go through the list and make some comments on assorted things.

9. Log 1001 miles on the stationary bike [478/1001] -- I did join another gym, but my cardio has been all treadmills and ellipticals and stair climbers. So I have no idea if this will happen, but if it doesn't, I won't be heartbroken.

25. Get TBR pile under 50 books (even just temporarily) -- My TBR pile has been hovering right around 135 for many months now. I'm not entirely sure it will ever actually decrease. Not if I keep attending BookCrossing meetups, anyway.

34. Complete "Wreck This Journal" -- I'm going to have to find my copy before I can accomplish this. Seriously. I have no idea where it is.

40. Learn amigurumi and create 1 critter -- My sister is so way ahead of me on this I'm a little intimidated. That, and I just haven't gotten around to sitting down and working with the yarn. Part of it is because I'd have to put everything away before doing anything else, since I imagine my cats would love to investigate, but most of it is that I'm just lazy. I have all the materials, after all - hooks and instructions and yarn and everything - courtesy of my awesome sister, but I just haven't done anything yet.

42. Fill Jem journal gluebook - This is actually looking less likely since starting my new blog, which is sort of ironic, but the issue is that while I've been doing more gluebooking, it's been entirely in other notebooks. Figures.

45. Make a calendar of my own art -- I'm thinking maybe I need to start with a theme, then make the drawings as one big project, rather than my original plan of eventually reaching some vague point in the future when I have twelve pictures I'd like to look at for a month at a time.

47. Reach 4000 snarfs on Markeroni [2028/4000] -- I reached the halfway point a week ago, but in actuality I'm several hundred logs behind, so I have no idea where I really am on the grand scheme of things.

49. Finish and post 5 short stories. [0/5] -- I can't remember the last time I wrote a short story. This saddens me beyond words.

51. Write and post 3 Squidoo articles [1/3] -- Squidoo has lost its lustre. I mean, it didn't help that they deleted my Twilight madness article, but in general I'm just pretty meh on their entire setup. But I'm still pondering articles on stuff like BCinDC and BS/OD. It just requires a lot of time and effort I haven't felt like putting in lately.

52. Respond to all prompts in A Writer's Book of Days [9/365] -- My husband has banned gluebooking from our artists' alley table at Anime USA next weekend, so I'm hoping to churn through some more of these during the slow times. Like, maybe, finish the month of January or something.

53. Finish snarfing FX county/city, Alexandria, and Falls Church -- This is a bit of a moving target, but just_the_things (who has a similar Thing in her 101/1001 list) and I are thinking of going on some joint mopping-up snarfaris around the area. But we'll probably wait for warmer weather. So there's hope! :)

56. Find 10 geocaches [6/10] -- Another thing that will have to wait for the weather to warm up again. My entire summer was spent more or less unable to walk, so I missed out on pretty much the whole 2011 geocaching season.

59. Write how-to guide for making snarf maps -- Google Maps has been misbehaving and I no longer have the kind of access to the internet that I used to, so this has been put on hold. I need to just set aside a day to finish and post it and be done.

61. Visit Grandma - I've purchased the plane tickets. We'll be there over Christmas for the first time since I finished grad school over eight years ago.

69. Go camping -- Another warm weather activity, but one I haven't been actively planning. If we had friends who camped, this would be more doable, but I'm terrible about organizing these sorts of things.

71. Visit my sister -- Ooh ooh! We have plans for this in the spring!

72. Go on a solo road trip -- Logistically, this is looking quite unlikely. My requirement for this is for it to be a multi-day excursion, by myself, to somewhere that is neither (a) local nor (b) my parents' house. The real issue would be picking a place that my husband wouldn't want to visit as well. :)

83. Go to the top of the Washington Monument -- Now that I am once again physically capable of walking from the Metro to the Washington Monument, this is once again on the table. Unfortunately, anything in DC requires setting aside an entire day.

93. Watch all of Dr. Who (9th Doctor and onward) -- The likelihood of this happening has dwindled to near zero, mostly because my husband's already all caught up and I can't be arsed to spend that much time in front of the television unless I'm doing something else, in which case I'm probably not paying much attention. But we'll see. My love for David Tennant may yet win out.

97. Donate 100,000 grains of rice at FreeRice [24,000/100,000] -- This has gotten stalled because of FreeRice's tendency to suddenly reset my grain total to zero without warning, so I have no idea how much I've actually earned. It's frustrating.

53. Finish snarfing FX county/city, Alexandria, and Falls Church

I was looking through my lovely guidebook to Virginia's Historical Markers (basically a listing of all the state markers). My progress in all of Northern Virginia has been pretty good. Check it:

• Alexandria City: Missing 1 (Freedman's Cemetery/E-109)
  
• Arlington County: done.
  
• Fairfax City: done.
  
• Fairfax County: Missing 1 (Langley Fork/T-33) but I'm not sure I can count it because I've returned to that spot numerous times and the marker simply is not there. I don't care that just_the_things snarfed it ages ago. It's gone now, dangit.
  
• Falls Church City: done.
  
• Loudoun County: Missing 1 (Ball's Bluff Masked Battery/T-51)
  
• Manassas City: done.
  
• Prince William County: Missing 5.

Not bad, over all. Of course, I'm still over 100 snarfs away from my goal, but considering there are about 700 snarfs in all those areas combined I'm not going to complain (much).

47. Reach 4000 snarfs on Markeroni
53. Finish snarfing FX county/city, Alexandria, and Falls Church

After catching up on a small portion of my outstanding snarf logs, I am now up to 1828 total snarfs, and I have 68 Fairfax County snarfs left.

Let's call this..."progress."

53. Finish snarfing FX county/city, Alexandria, and Falls Church

It really is a good thing that I don't obsess over my goal progress, isn't it? I mean, doing something like making a spreadsheet would be a little crazy, especially considering that I'd only have the Markeroni catalog to go by, and I already know of plenty of snarfs that haven't been entered into the system yet.

Yes, it really is fortunate that I'm so laid back about this.



P.S. - Yes, I know that the total went down since I last posted here, but that's due to duplicate snarfs being combined and the correction of markers erroneously listed as being in Fairfax that are actually in Prince William.

53. Finish snarfing FX county/city, Alexandria, and Falls Church

Current progress: 489/645



Now, this is a bit misleading, because there are snarfs in these lists that are unsnarfable (that is, there's nothing there anymore, not even a sign or building or ruins or anything). I also know about markers in the area that aren't in the Markeroni catalog yet. But this is a fair estimate. It seems reasonable to say I'm about three quarters of the way finished. Most of my outstanding snarfs are in the southern part of Fairfax County, particularly along Route 1. I should be able to sweep through much of that in a single snarfari if I plan things right.

Of course, this is still a moving target. The last few times I've gone on snarfari I've come across brand new county and state markers. It's like we keep getting more history or something.

53. Finish snarfing FX county/city, Alexandria, and Falls Church

Speaking of snarfing, according to searches on Markeroni, I have exactly 150 snarfs to go. This is kind of a moving target, considering how often new markers are erected and how many existing markers are likely not yet in the system, but I still feel pretty good about my chances of success. After all, if I can't even polish off my home county, I'm not much of a Markeroon. :)