#18 Bake and Decorate an Eccentric Cake

The list has been finished and now it’s time to post every time I complete a goal.

Speaking of which I have started checking stuff off and the first goal completed is a cake! Specifically, I intended for this goal to be a cake that I just did for fun and call it good. But the cake that actually fulfilled this goal ended up being a wedding cake. Who knew I’d ever end up making a wedding cake?! Cause holy frick I never thought I would.

 

40594050_2137854383101177_6845306919175847936_n

My brother got married Friday August 31, 2018 and I was tasked with making the cake. Which I have no clue why they thought they should give that responsibility to me, but they did and wonderfully it fits in with my goals. So win! But seeing as this was a time sensitive cake I called in one of my best friends to come in and save the day and help me decorate this cake. She’s helpful and wonderful and she totally had my back when I effed (and by effed I mean palmed the whole top-tier when it got stuck and just committed) up this whole cake. Luckily it turned out great and looked gorgeous and tasted amazing (we are currently dealing with being hit up by multiple guest to make cakes for them and that is way too much responsibility). My brother and my sister-in-law had total faith and trusted us and we pulled through.

Also, on the off-chance that we didn’t have enough cake or that one failed we had prepped two sheet cakes of German chocolate cake. So, we made a lot of cake and had more than plenty for all of the guests at the wedding.

First goal checked off and I’m super happy I had my friend there and I’m super ecstatic to be starting all these challenges.

✓

Master List

The Plan: Have 100 goals completed before I turn 30.

The Goals:

  1. Know over 25 go to healthy recipes
  2. Clear skin
  3. Find a fitness activity to be passionate about
  4. Get to and maintain a 59 kilograms weight
  5. Keep consistent pace on a run
  6. Dance every day for a month
  7. Do another OCR
  8. 20 Mile Hike
  9. 20 Consecutive Push Ups
  10. Learn some yoga
  11. Master a classical piano piece
  12. Make a table top game
  13. Build a game table
  14. Finish a full art journal
  15. Paint a picture
  16. Scrapbook
  17. Learn calligraphy
  18. Bake and Decorate an Eccentric Cake
  19. Learn ballroom dancing
  20. Write a Book
  21. Zorbing
  22. Sky dive
  23. Parasailing/Paragliding
  24. Canyoneering
  25. Learn to Sail
  26. Zip line
  27. Surfing
  28. Scuba Diving
  29. Bungee jump
  30. Backpacking trip
  31. Read 1000 books
  32. Fluent Spanish
  33. Decent Korean
  34. Obscure history
  35. Connoisseur of Tea
  36. Study Business
  37. Art History
  38. Astronomy
  39. Study a Theory
  40. Learn something I have no prior interest in
  41. Puerto Rico
  42. Spain
  43. Italy
  44. Peru
  45. South Korea
  46. Southeast Asia
  47. Greece
  48. Iceland
  49. New Zealand
  50. Road Trip the U.S.
  51. Budget
  52. Savings
  53. Start Investing
  54. 800+ Credit Score
  55. Passive Income
  56. Financial Freedom
  57. Pay off all Debts
  58. Proper Accounting
  59. Start my own business
  60. Own a Home
  61. Gardening
  62. Fly Tying
  63. Cardistry
  64. Survival
  65. Knife Throwing
  66. Leather Craft
  67. Bartending
  68. Fighting
  69. Videography
  70. Beauty
  71. Go Dancing at least twice a month for a year
  72. Monthly Board Game Night
  73. Go out every night for 1 week
  74. Throwback outings
  75. Live music
  76. Make New Friends
  77. Say Yes
  78. Go to Vegas with a Group
  79. Dating
  80. Join a Club
  81. 9 Ball Break and Run
  82. Complete a Dozen Escape Rooms
  83. See a Play on Broadway
  84. Stay in a Haunted Hotel
  85. Fly First Class
  86. Have the best Theme Party
  87. Go to a World Festival
  88. Cook Everything in a Cookbook
  89. Drive an Expensive Sports Car
  90. Teach dog utterly useless trick
  91. Have a Car Chase
  92. Befriend strangers at hotel
  93. Go to a Psychic
  94. Start a dramatic scene from a movie to someone in coffee shop
  95. Return something lost to someone
  96. Have someone tell me their life story
  97. See someone in a bookstore looking at a book and buy it for them
  98. See a shop that is doing some type of class and go sign up for one
  99. Make up a different persona for a day
  100. Attend a fancy affair

Circumstance

Expect the unexpected. This list relies on circumstances that will hopefully lead me to interesting adventures.

  1. Get in a taxi and yell “follow that car”
    • Taxi must follow that car, can’t just yell it and then nothing happen.
  2. Befriend strangers at hotel
    • Make some travel friends!
  3. Go to a Psychic
    • Something has to happen right?
  4. Start a dramatic scene from a movie to someone in coffee shop
    • Probably will scare the heck out of some people, but the hope is to get the target to join in.
  5. Return something lost to someone
    • Preferably including some dramatic running.
  6. Have someone tell me their life story in 2 hours
    • Perhaps someone in a park or someone who isn’t in a rush.
  7. See someone in a bookstore looking at a book and buy it for them
    • Hopefully leads to friendship or at least a long discussion of books.
  8. See a shop that is doing some type of class and go sign up for one
    • Spontaneous moment.
  9. Make up a different persona for a day
    • Commit fully on style, attitude, and everything.
  10. Attend a fancy affair
    • A reason to get dolled up and be classy and live the high society life just for a night.

 

Personal

This is the list that is the been there done that; it was awesome. It’s the stuff I want to accomplish just for the heck of it and be able to brag about (hopefully not annoyingly, but happily).

Personal Goals: 

  1. 9 Ball Break and Run
    • Listen I am in a pool league and I am clearly my team weakest link, but one day I will be better! I am slowly getting better, I mean I’ve lost like four weeks in a row right now, but I am learning a ton. Either way it is my own personal goal to run the whole rack and get my little pin for it! Yeah they have pins for those sort of things, the higher ranks are like “oh god a pin,” but I am young and new and I’m like “I want it!”
  2. Complete a Dozen Escape Rooms
    • Love escape rooms, therefore I need to do more.
  3. See a Play on Broadway
    • So fun fact about me: I love plays and musicals and I pretty much grew up on them. I go to the theatre almost every month and sadly I’ve been to New York twice and have yet to go see a play.
  4. Stay in a Haunted Hotel
    • Sounds like a potentially good story and something I know I’d talk about.
  5. Ride First Class
    • I gotta know whats there!
  6. Have the best Theme Party
    • The best will obviously be hard to define, but essentially I really want to have a themed something that literally feels like the best decision/plan I’ve ever had. Oddly enough I do think I have a plan already in the works, but it’s still too rough to discuss.
  7. Go to a World Festival
    • Would absolutely love to go to Holi, but if the chance arises to go to a different one I will definitely take the opportunity!
  8. Cook Everything in a Cookbook
    • I’m talking about a single cookbook and doing all the recipes! I do realize this may coincide with one of my health goals for learning healthy recipes, but that’s only after I have made it 5 times. So this may help me out! Either way cooking everything from a book deserves total bragging rights.
  9.  Drive an Expensive Sports Car
    • I didn’t fully complete this the other day as I only parked it to a spot that was like 15 feet away, but I sense I can properly do this one someday soon since you know I at least got to park one.
  10. Teach dog utterly useless, but cool trick
    • Honestly this may be done. I don’t know what I have trained my dog, but she responds to conversations with sarcastic and loving eyes. So potentially she may know something that she just picked up on from me.

Social

I am pretty introverted as a person, so I wanted to have a set list of challenges that kind of forced me out and expand myself socially. But also allow myself to have fun doing them and not make socializing feel like a chore. I want to get out there, but I don’t want to do too much and lock myself up.  This list is set up to put me out there, but allows me to stay true to my personality.

Social Goals:

  1. Go Dancing at least twice a month for a year
    • I actually love going swing dancing or line dancing or literally any dancing people invite me too and I go a lot and then I just stop. Not sure why, I clearly enjoy it, but I just start avoiding it. It’s something that I wanna enjoy and it’s an activity that is fun and gets me socialized.
  2. Monthly Board Game Night
    • I would like to keep this up for the rest of my life so I’mma need a consistent group! But for challenge purposes I will say this will be accomplished after a year of consistency.
  3. Go out every night for one week
    • This has to be when I’m home, when I’m traveling or on vacation this is easy, but when I’m home going out every night is a struggle. I don’t think I’ve ever successfully gone out every day of the week before, so gotta get on that.
  4. Throwback outings
    • I didn’t really know how to phrase this, but once a month I should get someone to go out and do something that we would have done when we were kids. Like as a kid I went bowling and did laser tag a lot, but in recent years haven’t gone since I turned eighteen, so that would be a throwback outing.
  5. Live music
    • I’ve gone to quite a few concerts, so I don’t really know what I mean by this, but it’s social and it’s something that I should do more of for more life experiences. So maybe see ten live shows in a given amount of time to make it more of a challenge. I have figured out what I’m doing for this challenge! For this to be accomplished I have to go see bands at 10 different concert venues. I realized I have been to quite a few concerts but only at 1 or 2 venues and so I have moved the focus of this goal to going to more concert venues.
  6. Make New friends
    • I know this is super generalized and I love all my current friends and I do have friends so thankfully I’m not a total loner, but I do realize that I have my own little circle. That’s fine, but I’d like to meet more people and the more friends the more social experiences I will get.
  7. Say Yes
    • Take the Yes Man mentality for a day or a week
  8. Go to Vegas with a Group
    • This used to be a conversation social challenge, but then I spent a weekend in Vegas with friends and with the level of socialization I did it felt like that had to be swapped out for Vegas. Plus I really want to cross off some more goals so this one is going to be a give me.
  9. Dating
    • I don’t go out on dates often and it’s definitely because of some insecurities and me being picky, but I do know it is something I should start doing a bit more often. Dating doesn’t have to be just to find a special someone (though that’s kind of the purpose), they provide some great social times and even if it is initially a date, but becomes a friend thing that’s even better cause I am always down for some friends! Plus it will leave me some (potentially great) stories.
  10. Join a Club
    • Maybe I’ll find a new hobby or expand on my current ones!

Skill

Never a bad thing to up my skill game, though a lot of the skills I have already achieved are hobby based. I designed this list more to get me out in the world and have a more well-rounded set of skills.

Skill Goals: 

  1.  Gardening
    • This is something that is ridiculously hard for me and for the life of me I don’t know why. When it comes to plants of any sort I always kill them and I really don’t want that to happen. I’d like to get to a point to grow my own spices or my own food, but I’d settle for just keeping a flower alive.
  2. Fly Tying
    • My dad is a big fly fisherman and recently it occurred to me that I have no idea how to tie flies, though I have been watching him my whole life. I feel it is something that I should learn from my father and I think it would be good bonding time as well!
  3. Cardistry
    • I wanna get fancy with a deck of cards. Also looks like the best fidget thing to do.
  4. Survival
    • I have some basic survival skills, but I am not confident in them. So I will design a challenge for me to kind of test my abilities and see how and where I should focus my skills on.
  5. Knife Throwing
    • Truth: I actually already know how to throw knives and such, but I wanna get my accuracy on point.
  6. Leather Craft
    • Definitely don’t wanna get too serious of this one, but I definitely want to make something cool out of leather.
  7. Bartending
    • Listen I don’t actually drink. Like at all. All alcohol tastes the same to me, but I think being able to be a bartender is going to be a skill that is going to be forced upon me one day and I’m going to need to be prepared for that.
  8. Fighting
    • I took Karate when I was younger, but got bored and couldn’t get past yellow belt….Then like 12 years later I signed up for a Krav Maga class and did that for 6 months and got really into it, but didn’t like the fact that I was covered in bruises (though most people prided themselves on them, with my business life style it wasn’t really good for me having bruises on my neck and arms….). Also, you’d think after 6 months I’d kind of believe in myself that I sort of have this skill, but I am definitely really slow on the uptake of fighting stances and punching. I think if anything it’s a confidence thing because I had the motions down, but not the follow through. So, in short I just gotta get confident in some style of fighting.
  9. Videography
    • In today’s day and age video skills are essential and I’m shocked I don’t already have them. But I would like to have focus on this and make a (super dorky) short film to experiment and learn techniques and show off what I have learned.
  10. Beauty
    • Beauty with a focus on make up, self-care, and general style. This is something I am severely lacking in as a girl. Make up has never been a skill of mine and in fact applying anything on my face is an hour struggle then me furiously scrubbing it off my face. As far as beauty self-care I don’t think is anything wrong with me spending some time learning some skills that take care of my skin and make me feel better about my self (plus this leads in with helping me towards being acne free!). Style is whole other problem because I genuinely can’t find something that makes sense to me and just end up throwing on whatever is nearest and I look like a slight disaster. Beauty is gonna be a long process.

Financial

I actually wasn’t going to do financial goals just because I hate the topic of money, but it wouldn’t really be plausible for me not to have any finance goals before I turn 30. Money and finances coexist with everything else in life, so best to just get it all out there.

Also, before I get on with the list I didn’t want to do this list mostly because a lot of this stuff is stuff I can’t check off until I turn 30 and it’s more of the long-term goals that blend in together. Which are good, but with lists I just wanna cross everything out and be done. That won’t be the case for this one, as it seems like it is more my financial plan.

Financial Goals: 

  1. Budget
    • Probably the most common financial goal because everyone needs to focus on their spending. I will say that my budget as a whole is actually not too bad, but I intend to rein it in and do some analysis and see where I should be focusing to get to where I wanna be by 30.
  2. Savings
    • Always smart to have money saved up for big purchases such as a home or traveling and at this current time I don’t have much in savings. Which is why it’s on this list so I can actually get saving within my budget and from there I will hopefully get a solid cushion of money in savings.
  3. Start Investing
    • With that lovely savings because just hoarding money isn’t fun and I really want to experiment with investing and markets. In order to do that I need money that isn’t going to be too risky and won’t harm me financially if it all goes bad.
  4. 800+ Credit Score
    • I don’t think this is something I can maintain long term, but I would like to hit an 800+ credit score just for the bragging rights to say I have a credit score over 800.
  5. Passive Income
    • The plan is to essentially have enough passive income that will cover my living expenses that way it will never be a worry.  But before that can happen I will need to find a way to establish passive income and let it grow on the side.
  6. Financial Freedom
    • This is where my passive income will hopefully come into play as well  if I have done it successfully. If not I can assume I tried it and still can count that as completing that item. But as for this it’s going to be a big reach and a lot to do in my 8 years until 30. I want to get to a point in my life that I won’t have to worry about living expenses or splurging on a last-minute trip. I’d like to do some of my best and profitable work in my 20s and then just allow whatever I do to grow for the rest of my life.
  7. Pay off all Debts
    • At this point in my life my debts are actually low, but since I still have quite a few years to accumulate debt I can’t really consider this done until 30. The main focus will be trying to keep low debt even on bigger purchases or loans that way I am managing debt and not drowning in it.
  8. Proper Accounting
    • So here is something odd, a lot of the work that I do is accounting and financial business. The thing is I was more thrown into it and I don’t actually have proper training. I came in to a business and it was a learn as you go experience and I worked with some people who showed me the essentials and then they were like be free. I need to get to a point that I know what I’m doing.
  9. Start my own business
    • I’ve done some freelancing and I currently have businesses with my family, but I don’t want either of those to qualify as solely mine. I guess the freelancing can be considered just mine, but at the time I felt more like I was hobby freelancing just to feel it out and it just didn’t feel like a business. Honestly this is something that I am not sure will be successful because though I have businesses those were already mostly created when I came into them. So, for my own I really want to experience starting from scratch, coming up with an idea, fulfilling that idea, and see if it works and to see if I have a little entrepreneurship in me. And if it fails completely then I am assuming I will have learned exponentially from it, so it’s a win/win.
  10. Own a Home
    • This is the simplest way I’m phrasing this because the full goal is not only own a home, but find the ideal place for me to live. Financially you have to buy the house, but before that I will need to live somewhere that suits me financially, morally, emotionally, etc. I don’t know if I intend for this home to be the home that I’d like to have for the rest of my life, but I kind of would like to find a place that I would keep forever. If not living in it forever, but then keeping it to rent or something.

Travel

Half way through making this list! It’s slow going, but I’m really trying to put some decent thought into these goals. This was a hard list to narrow down because I really do want to travel as much as possible, so picking the top 10 was quite difficult.

Travel Goals: 

  1. Puerto Rico
    • Not only am I a Puerto Rican that doesn’t speak Spanish, I haven’t even been to the island. Yeah…My mother is very ashamed of me.
  2. Spain
    • Technically I am more Spaniard than Puerto Rican, but that’s where they came from before they immigrated to Puerto Rico. It all kind of blends together. But I have always wanted to go to Spain, not just cause of my own history. The country itself is full of rich history and gorgeous towns.
  3. Italy
    • Everyone says to go to Italy and everyone is obsessed with Italy. Therefore, I must go to Italy.
  4. Peru
    • Machu Picchu here I come.
  5. South Korea
    • Listen if I am learning Korean as my hobby language I better go and use it. I don’t wanna know a language and never use it! Plus, way better to learn and practice it by going there.
  6. Southeast Asia
    • I’m curious about the culture, the food, the beaches, the water, just everything.
  7. Greece
    • The more that I think about it, Greece seems to be calling to me.
  8. Iceland
    • Everything about Iceland looks absolutely stunning and all I wanna do is hike and enjoy everything about the land.
  9. New Zealand
    • Lord of the Rings. Nuff said.
  10. Road Trip the U.S.
    • I’m from Colorado and I’ve been around to other states a little bit, but I really need to go out more. I’ve only been to like 5 states.

Knowledge

Honestly, I want to learn all the things and just gain as much knowledge as I can through this life. Putting this list together was heavy struggle for me and it may change throughout the years, but as a basis this is where it is starting.

Knowledge Goals:

  1. Read 1000 books
    • Right out the gate with a big number and after seeing how difficult I’ve been struggling with a list of 100 things, I somehow believe that I can read 1000 books. I track all the books I read and have read on goodreads and currently I am up to 307 books read. Also, for this goal I’m not talking every book is a novel. Essentially, everything that I track on my goodreads will count and that includes novels, short stories, web serials, manga, manhwa, comics, etc. Just anything that I read and I think values to be added on my goodreads.
  2. Fluent Spanish
    • I’m a Puerto Rican that has terrible Spanish and that needs to be fixed.
  3. Proficient Korean
    • This just sounds fun and not gonna lie I am mostly learning this because I’m currently on a kdrama kick. Plus, the language is super interesting and now being able to recognize Hangul randomly whenever I’m out in town is cool.
  4. Obscure history
    • I am not sure how I will know if I have fulfilled this goal. Perhaps, know over 10 obscure history things that become my go to conversation topic. Classify them as known obscure history after I have had good conversations with people about the history. And by good conversations I mean actually having real conversation about the topic and not just me talking at a person about this cool fact.
  5. Connoisseur of Tea
    • I love tea. Therefore, I must be a tea master.
  6. Study Business
    • Ironically, I actually already do lots of business-y type things, but I don’t have proper education and I am getting to a point in my life where it is becoming a bit more essential to have the research. Can’t really wing things any more when lots of people and money are involved.
  7. Art History
    • I’ve always wanted to be the person that sees a painting and be like “oh yes, this is a Rembrandt.” To do that I’m going to have to study up on art styles and actually have a better understanding of how to tell the difference of art styles and the era it was done. Sadly, a lot of the time the meaning of art just goes over my head and I just nod like I get it, when really I am heavily lost.
  8. Astronomy
    • I’m not gonna lie this is absolutely an excuse to get into stargazing and to rationalize my want of a telescope. (Was originally Oceanography, but for the life of me I could not get into anything ocean related)
  9. Study a Theory
    • Not sure which one, but I would like an in-depth scientific one with lots of material out there, so I can get as much of an understanding as I can about it.
  10. Learn something I have no prior interest in
    • This will help me get out of my comfort zone of knowledge and maybe gain an appreciation for a topic that I normally wouldn’t care for.

Adventure

Here’s a list of all the cliché adventure, thrill seeking activities that I’ve decided I need to experience.

Adventure Goals:

  1. Zorbing
    • I saw a video on this back when I was 14 and have been curious ever since. Plus, what’s not to like about pretending to be a hamster for a little while.
  2. Sky dive
    • Preferably in Moab, cause someone made a very accurate point that it would be like sky diving on Mars. Everything about that sounds awesome.
  3. Parasailing or Paragliding
    • My parents said to do it.
  4. Canyoneering
    • I wanna repel down sides of mountains and see all the things!
  5. Sailing
    • My brother always goes on about sailing, not that he’s ever done it. But I’d like to try it since he always makes it sound exciting. Though I’d go with a professional because I really don’t wanna get stuck in the ocean and die a most horrible death. This one may terrify me the most, but commit?
  6. Zip Line
    • I don’t know why, but I’ve never been zip lining. There is this place in Kentucky where you can zip line underground in caves and that sounds wild to me. When I go zip lining I’d like to do it there, or some where equivalent.
  7. Surfing
    • Honestly this was Hang Gliding, but then someone was like a friend of mine died this way and I was like never mind that. Then I realized I haven’t been surfing before and that sounds fun. Plus I like the water.
  8. Get scuba certified and go diving
    • Never been into it before, but I think it’s time that I go discover what’s great about it.
  9. Bungee Jump
    • Someone may need to push me off.
  10. Backpacking trip
    • My dad has been talking about this for a little while and I really want to go on a backpacking trip with him. He just recently had a heart attack, so now the want to go is escalating. Right now we are getting back into shape for it and taking it easy with little hikes now. Eventually, he and I both will be in proper shape and then we can do our trip. I’d like it for my brother to be able to join as well so we’d have a family (minus Momma cause we know better) adventure.