2/22/22

 Happy Tuesday, 2/22/22 - the final day of 101 IV! I'm too excited to share with you everything I've finished!

Completed:

6. keep a daily logbook

• Brazenly stolen from Austin Kleon (as you'll soon learn other tasks are, as well), I have kept a logbook of all my daily doings since the start of the list. I think it's helpful to see what I spend my time on. I started with a separate logbook, but I've since incorporated it into my bullet journal, which is much more economical. I love that I can look back at these and see what I've been up to.

7. monthly French Frydays

• Once a month for the whole list I've posted fries on my instagram, usually from a new place or a new recipe. So many fries! So much happiness, haha. Here are just a few of them:

11. study 12 famous chefs and cook 5 of their recipes each (12/12)

• The last chef I chose was Shirley Chung, who I loved watching on Top Chef. She's wonderful. We cooked her Chinese fusion dishes and super enjoyed them. The best were her egg pancakes with veggies and her Chinese shrimp and grits - yum! We also made cheeseburger potstickers, hahahaha. This was a really fun goal, and really delicious!

17. create a workable studio space in our home

• I have long been making do in this area and I have finally created what I think will be more conducive to my work, I hope. I bought a new desk with drawers (I had previously been working at just a table!) and obtained some organizational towers and such. I think it'll be a lot better now! (I hope!! Fingers crossed!)

25. monthly blog updates

• Well, here we are finishing this one! :)

30. see 30 new international films (30/30)

• I watched 5 films this month to finish up (including 3 in one day, haha): As It Is In Heaven (Sweden - meh), On Happiness Road (Taiwan - started so strong, but finished poorly...still beautifully animated!), Another Round (Denmark - really interesting!), Kedi (Turkey - cats!), and Flee (Denmark and other countries). Flee is nominated for Oscars this year - it's an animated international documentary, so it's actually been nominated in all three categories! It tells the story of an Afghani refugee and his struggles to reach safety. Gut-wrenching, seriously, but such an important story. It's animated to protect his identity - and the interviews were re-created with actors. Go watch this one! It's on Hulu now!

41. make a 24 hour comic each year

• All done! I did Hourly Comic Day this month and it was fun. It turned more into illustrated journaling than comics, really, but I'm okay with that. 

46. keep a cleaning schedule throughout the list

• I haven't been perfect at this, but I think I've kept the spirit of it enough to call it good. I am terrible at cleaning, so it's been nice to break things down by my dirtiness comfort level and make sure things get cleaned regularly enough. I have definitely noticed a difference in how things are kept clean - when we moved out of our last apartment, we really just had to do one last sweep and we were clean enough for checkout! It's really nice to apply small amounts of effort weekly/monthly instead of having to overhaul everything when it gets too bad.

50. keep a swipe file

• Another Austin Kleon suggestion - it's been facilitated by save features in instagram and by using pinterest, but I've also started a folder on my computer to save photos, etc. I love having these repositories to go look over when I need inspiration. :)

51. study artistic family tree

• And Austin strikes again (seriously if you haven't read Steal Like an Artist and his other books, you are MISSING OUT). The idea here is you study who inspires you, then work backward and study who inspired them, and then who inspired them, and so on. I was surprised to find some crossover in lettering and comic artists, and it's interesting to see common ancestors of people I like. I definitely want to keep this going!

It's not really a tree - more like spaghetti...

57. exercise twice weekly for the duration of the list

• Oof, this one was really good to do, but also really hard! I think my main exercise was walking, but I've also done hikes and Just Dance and other fun things! But I love walking. And now that we live in walking distance of the library, I've been doing it more than twice a week!

68. make 5 resin items

• I feel bad it took me so long to finish some of these things - I can get so skittish about starting things sometimes that I keep putting them off forever. So it took the pressure of it being the final month to make me finish this one (as well as some others). But here we go! I've only really made magnets before, so it was fun trying out more molded things!

71. make a chalkboard art bookshelf

• Another one that took me too long, haha. I painted the shelf near the beginning of the list, and it took me til the last month to do the art itself. I had to just call it good enough, but I'm overall happy with it! And now I can change it up and re-do it whenever I feel like it!

73. get ourselves in financial shape for the future

• I think we're good on this one! This is the kind of stuff that's a hassle, but important, so I'm glad we're taken care of now. 

76. maintain a personal website

• Alright, I'm giving myself credit for making brightlexicon.com and claiming this as done! I did go ahead and purchase my name as a domain if I want to do more in the future.

101. learn 10 new calligraphic hands

• All done! I had to do two hands this final month, but I got 'em! Here are the last two:

And I'm all done! Honestly, a few months ago, I didn't think I would beat my third list, but here I am with 89 complete (8 more than last time)! I definitely had to give up on some and you all know COVID already made me replace some of them. I think all-told, I've done pretty well for the majority of my list being in a pandemic hellscape. :) Thanks for sticking along for the ride and stay tuned for my next list, I guess (in a few months, don't worry I'm taking a break!!)!