Posts Tagged to do

30 Books before 30

Posted by Kristin in Life on January 25, 2012

I used to be an avid reader. But, then, I went to college, graduated, got a job and prefer to spend my free time watching awesome TV shows like Modern Family and The Bachelor. Go ahead, judge me.

However, I got an iPad for Christmas, and I am very excited to start reading on it. Mainly, because I enjoy “flipping” the digital pages. It’s awesome. So I asked friends for recommendations from friends before we left on our honeymoon. I read Unbroken and The Night Circus on the trip – and they were fabulous.

While searching for new books to read, I came across this list of 30 books everyone should read before their 30th birthday. I’m embarrassed to admit that I haven’t read many of these.

  1. Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse
  2. 1984 by George Orwell
  3. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
  4. A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
  5. For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway
  6. War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
  7. The Rights of Man by Tom Paine
  8. The Social Contract by Jean-Jacques Rousseau
  9. One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
  10. The Origin of Species by Charles Darwin
  11. The Wisdom of the Desert by Thomas Merton
  12. The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell
  13. The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Graham
  14. The Art of War by Sun Tzu
  15. The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien
  16. David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
  17. Four Quartets by T.S. Eliot – ugh, poetry?
  18. Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
  19. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
  20. The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
  21. Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
  22. The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli
  23. Walden by Henry David Thoreau
  24. The Republic by Plato
  25. Lolita
  26. Getting Things Done by David Allen
  27. How To Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie
  28. Lord of the Flies by William Golding
  29. The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
  30. The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov
  31. BONUS: How To Cook Everything by Mark Bittman
  32. BONUS: Honeymoon with My Brother by Franz Wisner

I guess I know what I’ll be borrowing from the library for a while… How about you? How many of these have you read?

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Mid-Year Goal Check

Posted by Kristin in Life on June 21, 2010

It’s hard to believe, but 2010 is near the half-way point. Just flew right by us. Seriously.

So, it’s time to check in on your list for the year. Whatever you choose to call them: goals, tasks, resolutions. Most people have some sort of a list of things to accomplish, a bucket-list of sorts.

How’s yours coming?

Taken straight from the right sidebar of my blog, here are mine as a reminder (and an update on where I’m at this June 21, 2010):

  • Stop biting my nails. – I think I might be there. Hooray!!
  • Read more. – Miserably failed thus far. I have two books waiting to be opened. Will start this weekend.
  • Take more pictures. – Ehh… not bad. Now that it’s summer, I have more opportunity to get outside and shoot. Might need to change up the scenery a bit.
  • Commit to exercise. — Decent. Not great, but a considerable effort has been made. And continues.
  • Be a tourist in MSP. – Good. Hit up Rock the Garden this past weekend, and have more plans to see local sites including Minnehaha Falls, the Greenway (if I learn to ride a bike), art fairs, etc. Again, summer is the perfect season for this stuff.
  • Build and grow relationships. – Of all my goals, I am genuinely pleased with my efforts here. On several occasions I have stepped outside my comfort zone, and fear of meeting new people, to meet up for impromptu happy hours with Meg Gerritson Canada, Kasey Skala and Lindsi Gish. I’ve got a long way to go, but this one is off and running.

How about you? What were your goals for this year? How far have you come in accomplishing them?

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2010 – What to do, what to do

Posted by Kristin in Ramblings on January 5, 2010

Warning: The beginning of this post is somewhat jumbled and could be frustrating to the reader. The independent thoughts are eventually completed, I promise. Just bear with me.

I am a list-maker by nature. Whether at work, school or home, I find great satisfaction in making lists and subsequently crossing off items upon completion.

Separate, but related: in participating in the Best of 2009 Blog Challenge, I tried to remember all of the highlights of 2009 and I’m sure that I forgot many great memories and moments.

So, to tie these two thoughts together, below is my list of to dos for 2010. Some are minor, while others are goals for the entire year. It is my hope that this list (by being public in nature) will help me stick to these goals. In addition, it provides a great opportunity for me to document some of the year’s achievements, no matter how small.

Read more…

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