A little over a month ago I wrote a post on some things I wanted to accomplish in this life and there was a list of 11 things that I wanted to start working on. Well I’m excited to say that I can now check some of those off my list and some others are well underway.

I have already mentioned how I have started planning my trip to Alaska and, although there are no definite plans there yet, I feel pretty confidant that I will be able to make those happen within the next year or so and I’m putting that on my underway area of the list.

Next on the list was the desire to sew my own curtains and shopping bags and today I ordered my very first sewing machine from Overstock.com! I’m really excited about it and I got a great deal. It is refurbished but the reviews were great and the price was right so now I await its arrival and then I plan on taking a sewing class.

Number 6 on that list was to build a compost bin and to acquire rain barrels. Check and check! I got an email from my awesome friend Terri yesterday and she had found an amazing deal on rain barrels on Craigslist and wanted to know if I wanted in on the deal. Of course I said YES, especially since they were about half the cost of ones I had seen other places, and then I dropped by her house to give her the money for them. She is going to detour by and pick them up for both of us on her way back from a family reunion this weekend. I hope she doesn’t have trouble with four rain barrels strapped to the top of her wagon!

While I was at her house she also gave me some plastic mesh that she had left over from when she built her compost bin and tonight John and I ran to Lowe’s to pick up some stakes for the corners and put together our very first compost bin. We are really excited about this and I think I can now check off #6 as complete!

The other two things that I have spent some time on but that still need some major work is the biking to work and the focus on shopping local. I have taken my bike out a few times and rode to the store but I till have not made it fully to work. I’m still trying to figure out the logistics of getting all my stuff there and trying to decide what I may need to buy to make that easier. I need to investigate this a little more and I’m sure I will need to come up with a little bit of cash somewhere to get what I need. As for shopping local, I have been going to the farmers market on Sundays and trying to buy as much as I can there and then trying to find the Kentucky grown products at the Good Foods Coop when I can as well. I know I can improve on this but I feel pretty good about my success here so far.

I’m enjoying this todo list thing. I really like checking things off and seeing progress that I have made so this works well for me. I think putting this out here for others to read makes me more accountable too. It’s a good thing!