#74 Throwback Outings

For the past year I have joined a bowling league, so every Thursday I go bowling.

Now in my initial idea of throwback outings I would go out and do kid-ish things. What has happened was I started doing things that were things I enjoyed as a kid and it turned out that I still enjoy those things.

I’ve even gone back to collecting Pokemon cards because I enjoyed that so much when I was younger and I still have my collection from 20 years ago.

Thursday night is becoming a throwback night period. I go out get Chinese food, hit the Pokemon card shop, and then go bowling with friends. It’s one simple night a week that is just easily the essence of this goal. I go out and have a good time and forget about adult life. Plus it’s fun and what’s the point of life if you aren’t having fun.

#78 Go to Vegas with a Group

This was not on the original list. Stuff happens and lists change. No big deal.

But actually after spending a weekend in Vegas with a group of people and some friends I haven’t seen in a while, it felt like I deserved to cross off a goal. So hence this goal was created!

Now I just spent 4 days in Vegas and as far as my social comfort zone is concerned I stomped over it and properly socialized. Went to brunches, fancy dinners, crazy dinners, hung out by the pool, went to Blue Man Group, saw Penn &Teller, got to drive sports cars, and lots of walking around the strip. That’s a lot for my workaholic introverted self. I crammed just enough of Vegas for me to probably not want to do Vegas for a decade or 2.

No offense, but Vegas is not for me. I had a lot of fun and it was great to see my friends, but when it comes down to it I was definitely socially overloaded. Grateful I did it and I was proud of my dorky self for going and enjoying myself.

#79 Dating

All right y’all back when I started the master list I put dating on there and lemme tell you I had no idea where that would lead me! I really thought I would go out casually and have some fun dates and come back with entertaining stories.

But you see I am way too particular for that to actually work. I mean I went on a dates and was really hoping to get some enjoyment, but I just never really clicked with anyone.

I went to dinner with a stand up comedian and I was like heck yes this is gonna be a great, but nope. Guy turned out to be one of the dullest people I have ever met and we just operated on different wave lengths. Plus don’t get me started on the guy who was apparently married and going through a divorce which he stated while we were eating dinner (don’t worry, I called for the check immediately). Hell at one point a guy told me he was planning to go vegan soon and I needed to bail from that (no offense vegans, just not the lifestyle I want).

Honestly, I didn’t get much out of these dates (except that one guy that showed me the existence of fried mac and cheese) and I went on most of these dates a couple months after I had made the list really hoping to just figure out what all this relationship nonsense was about. But after many failed/weird/boring/uncomfortable dates I decided to just focus on my life and just have Future Lauren deal with dating.

Which brings me to September 2020 in the midst of a pandemic.

I was obviously not looking for anything, so when a boy from my past (that sounds dark, he just went to the same high school as me and we had recently reconnected back in August) comes along and asks me out I am shooketh.

But ya know what!?

WE CLICK!

The interaction was easy and not uncomfortable and I wasn’t sure about him, but I knew that we got along and had wonderful conversation. Fast forward another month of seeing him and I realize I like him and he’s what all this relationship stuff is supposed to be. Now here I am dating him. It’s still new, but it makes me feel confident in being able to check this off because dates with him are fun and just make sense.

I could never be a casual dater, because I think I was always just holding out for a relationship.

Don’t get me wrong I have no idea what I’m doing and I know it’s still new, but this introverted dork is dating and y’all I am so proud of me. I’ve come far. I could probably go on about my new found dating life, but that seems a smidge weird, especially if he stumbles upon this. So best just end this and cross this off the list!

#77 Say Yes

I decided to go for a full day of saying yes for this challenge and though I have completed my day of Yes I do think I have to redo it.

Not saying I didn’t say yes all day or anything, but it honestly just wasn’t the chaos I was expecting. It was just oddly calm and when I initially thought of this challenge I thought it would get me out of my comfort zone, but instead it just created a very chill vibe throughout the whole day.

Doing this challenge I did set limitations to the things I would say yes to, since I didn’t want any one make me do something that would be against my morals, but none of that came up.

The day started and I met up with Ashley and from there the challenge begun. Beginning with us asking if we were hungry and ending up at yes and then driving 40ish minutes away to this tiny Asian fusion brunch place that I’m not entirely sure how we found it.

After spending a slightly confused time at this brunch place we ended up wandering and found our way to a book store. We challenged ourselves to find the oddest book titles and though we came across a few, none of them really sparked the “this is the weirdest title I’ve ever seen” feeling. Ended up in the travel section and tried to decide where we should go in the world. If we had the money my guess is if one of us asked to go somewhere we would have bought tickets that moment and driven to the airport. Sadly we aren’t financially there yet in our lives to buy a spontaneous trip at the moment.

Ended up in a record store after leaving the book store and bought Princess Mononoke DVD because we have been talking about this particular Studio Ghibli movie for months and we have yet to watch it.

We said yes to go hunt down some cool street art and ended up in a slightly sketchy area which was then that we decided that this yes wasn’t the right place to be. So we pivoted to driving around for an hour until we found a coffee shop. Talked for an hour about life and such and plans cause I actually haven’t seen Ashley in a few months so we were catching up.

This is when we reached the evening portion of our day and so far the day had been relatively chill. Nothing crazy, nothing intense, nothing really bad about saying yes. In fact our last yes of the day turned out to be eating apple pie while watching Princess Mononoke (side note: why is this movie so popular? What am I missing? I wasn’t really a fan of it….).

I don’t know this Say Yes challenge didn’t really go where I thought it should go mostly cause I think the opportunities and the choices we had that day did not lead to the most exciting Day of Yes. I wanted more. I thought more chaos would ensue. Maybe my personal life is too much in flux and my subconscious wanted the chill and though it was a great day, it was not the day I was hoping it would turn out to be.

Not that it was a bad day, but it’s almost so uninteresting that it just sounds like any other day off. Yes we tried to different places we don’t normally go to and explore different areas, but when you put in perspective the other things we’ve done this challenge falls short at the moment, as I don’t think I fully pushed myself out of my comfort zone.

As for now it is technically completed, but I am not opposed to redoing this one in the future. Perhaps somewhere else where the choices of yes are more upped and where I will be completely out of my comfort zone.

 

#75 Live Music

Decided to make this goal about checking off venues because I realized I had mostly been going to concerts at the same venues and realized I should mix it up!

Challenge was to go to a 10 venues. I also found out I do not take any photos at concerts as they always suck, so makes for a boring post, but it’s here. It’s real. It happened.

Venues:

Bellco Theater – Cheetah Girls (first concert ever and if any one was curious Hannah Montana opened for them) (I’ve actually seen others at this venue, but I just really wanted to get that Cheetah Girls concert out into the open)

Pepsi Center – Cher (VIP tix and met the hottest Argentinian man and yes he was gay)

Red Rocks Ampitheatre – Bastille (Last one I saw, grew up next to red rocks so have seen plenty of bands here)

Soiled Dove Underground – Trace Bundy and Sungha Jung (Also seen Trace Bundy in Fort Collins at Everyday Joes Coffee Shop)

Fillmore Auditorium – Milky Chance (First time being there)

Washington’s – Devotchka (Third wheel on valentine’s day with my brother and his wife)

Ogden Theatre – Murder by Death (Bonding time with the sister-in-law)

Grizzly Rose – Scotty McCreery (Though I am not sure I should count the Rose, as I’m there almost weekly for dancing, but eh I’m adding it here anyway)

Boettcher Hall – Ella Fitzgerald and Frank Sinatra Tribute (Not all concerts are head banging events! Sometimes you need to get your symphony on)

Bluebird Theater – Spencer Crandall (This guy right here is basically male me)

Gothic – Aly & AJ (Was going to just go alone since no one wanted to go experience the awesomeness of this duo with me (y’all are lame btw!), but really didn’t want to go by myself so I begged my sister in law to come with me)

 

And that’s 11 venues. Which when I was talking to people about the concerts they’ve been too it sounded like most people had easily attended concerts at over 20 venues. So I apparently just really suck at going to different concert venues. Either way I did it!

 

#80 Join a Club

Guess who stupidly didn’t realize she accomplished this goal a long time ago and while looking over her list had the revelation that she was already in a type of club!?

If you guessed me you are 100% correct. If you did not guess me, I have no idea what state your mind is in, but based off that one question I can assume you need coffee.

Honestly, I had actually fulfilled this goal while the original list was in the making and it didn’t occur to me until today. Ya see I am on a pool league. Meaning I meet this group of people weekly and I pursue this hobby of mine. Sounds like a club to me.

I have been a part of my pool league for a year now and it’s one of those things that I am slowly getting better and is a place to hang out with people. When I joined it was cause my brother signed me up and got me a spot on the team he was joining. At the time I thought I would just do it for a session and then find out it wasn’t my thing and quit. Which is around the same time I started this blog, so it never really hit me that I was in a club already because I didn’t think I was going to initially stick with it.

The thing is after that first session I realized I really liked playing at pool halls. I mean I am not the best pool player, but the people on my team are pretty good and I learn so much just by watching them. I liked pool before joining, but I have learned so much more than I would have on my own just by talking to them and watching them. Which I mean that’s what happens in a club you learn more about your hobby and just enjoy it.

I’m really happy to know that this just sort of happened to me naturally and I didn’t have to force my goals to be a reality. It just kind of aligned to what I already value and just worked which is exactly what I want out of these goals. I didn’t want to be just doing things for the sake of doing them, I wanted these goals to be meaningful to me and fit who I am.

 

#73 Go out every night for 1 week

I did it y’all! Before I get on with describing my week I just want to ask how do people go out every single night?! Too much sleep has been lost for my liking if I’m being completely honest. Don’t get me wrong I definitely had fun and thinking of different things every day was a challenge. It was difficult to do this around my work schedule and my regular schedule, but I’m glad I pulled it off.

Thursday September 20th: Murder by Death concert at Ogden Theater (which I had never been to before!) with my sister-in-law Lynne. She invited me out that week and I instantly said yes even though I had never heard of the band. I find that I really enjoy going to concerts and I really enjoy going to concerts of bands I’ve never heard of. There is something really cool about the first time I hear a band is live and Lynne is pretty into them and have been to their other concerts, so I trusted her judgement for me to go in blind. Which by the way they are really good and the bass guitarist looks like a werewolf.

Friday September 21st: Went to see the movie A Simple Favor with Sammi (She will be present for almost the rest of these as she was my prime motivator to keep going out). This was a last-minute commit at the end of the day and there was only seats in the front section available. We really wanted to see it, so we just got those seats and found that they weren’t as terrible as they seem. Which was super shocking to me, definitely noted for future reference. Also, that movie is just ratchet and I don’t know if I liked it, but I had a lot of fun watching it.

Saturday September 22nd: Hadn’t been to the symphony in a while and looked up what was up at Boettcher Hall that weekend and ended up seeing that they had a Ella Fitzgerald and Frank Sinatra Symphony for that night. Which I immediately bought tickets for Sammi and I as she had never been to the symphony before and I thought that symphony would be a great introduction. It was absolute perfection and the Ella and Frank impersonators were stellar and got me in a jazzy mood. After the symphony we ended up looking for a piano bar and found this place called the Crimson Room. This place is underground and super classy and the customer range isn’t really 22 year olds (meaning the drinks there are over $100), but we didn’t care because we wanted Jazz and that was where we could find it. Needless to say we absolutely loved that place, the aesthetics of it were exactly what we wanted and needed to finish up our night.

Sunday September 23rd: After Saturday night Sammi and I were definitely exhausted and we couldn’t rest up in the morning as we had to go to a 2 year olds birthday and we were already 3 days into the streak and we were like we just gotta commit and do something. Luckily Sunday nights I am a part of a pool league so that evening we headed to the pool hall and played some practice games before my match. That night I played against a 4 (which is 2 ranks higher than me) and I have no idea what happened, but I played really well. I was just having a lot of fun and before I had played the girl I played we were having fun and laughing but during our game I could tell I definitely got on her nerves. She (and me too) didn’t expect me to play that well and I felt bad that I was causing her to have a rough night, but also I won, so at the time I didn’t care that much because I haven’t won in weeks.

Monday September 24th: Was gonna go do a cycle bar class with Lynne (that I also talked Sammi into going with me), but I didn’t make it in time to sign up. After missing that I realized that Sammi and I were still dressed to work out so we ended up going to a gym close by the cycle bar place. Maybe not the conventional going out that I was thinking about, but it’s hard to come up with ideas on a Monday night. Plus a gym is a social place and it was at night, so it counts. There was also this arm machine that just was absolute hell and I am still in pain from it.

Tuesday September 25th: This was the hardest day to figure out what to do. Sammi was gone and literally everyone I knew was working and I really wanted to hang out with my brother, but he also had work. Which left me to do something that I don’t normally do: go out alone. I am not a social creature and when I go out I always go out with friends. I hardly ever do things alone because I like sharing experiences with people. But I was on a 5 day streak and I couldn’t risk blowing it on day 6. I dressed up slightly smart casual and made my way to Denver. Didn’t have a full plan except drive to Denver and figure it out from there. Everything that I normally do downtown is on the weekends though, so I had absolutely no idea what I should do. Thus I ended up where I normally end up when I’m not thinking and wandering around Denver; the Denver Center of Performing Arts.  Fun fact that night was Dear Evan Hansen premier night in Denver and even more of a fun fact I got a ticket. I’ve been wanting to see this musical since I stumbled upon its soundtrack a year and a half ago. It was everything that I imagined and more and was fantastic. I am so grateful that I snagged a ticket and found something to do that night. If you have the chance to see it, go now. Don’t think, just go.

Wednesday September 26th: Sammi came back and we ended the 7 days strong! We went to a Sip and Paint and for those who know my list know that paint a picture is one of the creative challenges (#15 on Master List) and because of that this day will be posted in a separate blog post.

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