Two Year Anniversary

The traditional gift for the two-year anniversary is cotton and the modern gift is china. What's the post-modern gift? Goal-attainment.

Well, my two year wedding anniversary is in two days. I suppose I need to account for how my list went.

Overall, I had some good adventures these past couple of years. The list gave me things to look forward to and pushed me to try to do things I wouldn't normally do at times. I'd say there was more excitement for the list at first and that has waned as time went on, however. It was also easier to focus on the list for the first few months when I didn't have a full-time job. I don't know if two years was a good time frame or not. It did take me a while to achieve some of the things on the list, so I suppose it needed to be longer than a year or a few months.

I estimate that I have completed 72-80% of the the things on my list, depending on how credit is given. I'm not sure if that's good or bad. Maybe it's average?

Here are some of the things that weren't completed:
4. Write a song
I did start a few times. I recorded a guitar riff I had made up onto my computer. I wrote myself a few little ideas for lyrics. It never came together.

5. Go canoeing.
I went tubing a couple of times instead. I would still like to get out in a canoe at some point, however. I wonder if it's more common to canoe in Wisconsin than out here on the East Coast.

6. Visit either Mexico or the Caribbean
I think I put this on the list thinking Jake and I might do one of these for our honeymoon. However, I did go on the Costa Rica trip. That was cool.

14. Learn to tell five more good jokes
I'm not entirely sure why this didn't happen. I only count learning one more joke in two years. That's pretty pathetic. Maybe my sense of humor isn't broad enough to find a lot of things funny. I read through jokes trying to think if I even considered them funny and mostly I didn't. Someone tell me a funny joke so I can memorize it!

17. Gain the upper body strength to do a pull-up
I'm pretty sure I thought this was not going to happen even as I wrote it into my list.

18. Stop being overweight.
As of last summer, I had lost 10 lbs. since the start of the list which was pointed out to me at a doctor's appointment. However, since last summer, I gained it all back. Eh, oh well.

24. See at least 5 new states I haven’t visited before
I wound up short one state. I thought I was going to get to go to Arizona on a helicopter ride, but because of flight delays out to Vegas I had to miss that. I also briefly thought that I'd get to go to Georgia for work, but that didn't happen either.

33. Write either my Congressman or Senator at least 3 times about issues I care about (using my own words, not form emails)
Yup, just didn't do this.

34. Write a letter to the editor of a newspaper or magazine
I think I may have started once or twice. Huh, I wonder why I haven't been able to get fired up enough about anything to do this.

35. Go to another continent besides North America
Again, just didn't happen. I really need more vacation time. And, you know, more money.

These are some things that are questionable as to whether I completed:
25. Throw a dinner party
We did have a party at our house where we invited over a bunch of people, I made a couple of salads, and we grilled. I'm not sure if this counts as a "dinner party". I suppose it might.

40. Trace Jake’s and my ancestry at least back to Europe on each side to have a family tree for our children
After our wedding, I did pull together most of this. We have it in a booklet in our house. It's good enough for now, I suppose.

39. Make Jake go to see a musical with me
Jake and I are seeing a musical on July 17th, which is three days after our actual anniversary. However, it is also in celebration of our anniversary, so maybe it can count?

47. Go to a book signing and get a signed copy of a book
I've been to a couple of book talks/signings since I made the list. I even stood there while Jake got a signed copy of a book by Amy Goodman for his mom. But, I didn't do anything to get my own signed copy of a book.

Some of the things on my list I wound up doing more than once. I saw a couple of shows at the Birchmere and I hiked in Great Falls on two separate occasions. I suppose I don't get double credit for those things.

So, what's next? I'm in the process of making another list. I have a few ideas I'm working on and hopefully I'll publish that soon. It'll probably be for another two-year time frame. I'm open to suggestions. What's something awesome I should do before 2011?