101 in 1001: A few big work developments!

I’m really excited to be absolutely pounding through my second 101 in 1001 so far…after kicking it off less than two months ago, I’ve already checked off (or made plans to check off!) several items on the list. As many of those are professional at present, it’s an added bonus.

First, and most exciting, I’ve been invited to represent my employer on the 2017 Greater Twin Cities United Way Campaign Cabinet, checking off #52, “Get more involved in the United Way!” Joining just 40 other professionals in the Twin Cities area, the invitation is an absolute honor and will enable me to not only bring greater visibility to my employer’s campaign, but to shape and impact the campaigns of some of the Twin Cities’ biggest and most dynamic companies. The networking opportunities are killer, the mission is inspiring, and I can’t wait to be a part of the United Way’s next season.

Second, in February and March I checked off #41, “Plan an event for my board.” As I’ve mentioned in the past, I hold a position as a boardmember for the Saint Paul Public Schools’ finance curriculum, and it’s been a total adventure over the last year. I’ve learned so much about successful administration and partnering with the community – experiences I count myself very lucky to be having this early in my career. In February, we hosted 150+ high schoolers at my office for “Career Day,” with over 30 volunteers from my company running sessions on interview skills, resume reviews, and professional networking. The day was an absolute riot – I don’t think I stopped moving for the entire 6-hour event – and we got amazing feedback from students, volunteers and SPPS administrators on the day.

Then, in March, we welcomed 120+ sophomores to the office for “Branding Yourself Day,” a series of sessions on how to build a personal brand and ensure that these students have the skills and self-awareness to present themselves well. I ended up teaching several of the 45-minute sessions, covering everything from how to shake hands and dress properly to what makes brands successful in the millennial age. The day culminated with a 1.5-hour etiquette lunch taught by a professional etiquette coach…everything from how to eat to converse to generally succeed at a business luncheon. I had such a great time, and again, the feedback from the day was fantastic.

When days at the office get dull or I get dissatisfied with life, it’s always nice to know I have these relationships and experiences tucked in my back pocket. Serving the communities I live and work in, and representing my company positively in the Cities, doing what I love…does it get better? I’m incredibly grateful to the Greater Twin Cities United Way and to Saint Paul Public Schools for trusting me with these platforms, and can’t wait to continue growing in my civic and philanthropic engagement, whatever the next steps on that path may be!

101 in 1001 #34: Try a foot peel.

Gang, this was so satisfying and so gross and so generally "out there" that I debated even wanting to share it BUT! I genuinely feel like it's a public service to evangelize for a minute here. 

I'm terrible about pedicures. I generally only get them in the summer, when I'm, you know, strolling around barefoot or in sandals or whatever and everyone has to look at my feet. Feet are gross, and I don't generally love letting people look at mine...let alone touch them. I always feel kind of guilty when I go in for a pedicure and it's like, "Hey, here are my feet that have been shoved in shoes and walked/run on all day and are now going to be in your face for the next hour." 

Anyway, I got a pedicure for the first time since August before my family's trip to Miami and Puerto Rico, and it was stressful and not pretty on a lot of levels. I left the salon and ended up randomly Googling "pedicure fixes," and stumbled on Baby Foot. It's this crazy cult beauty phenomenon, apparently - a literal chemical peel for your feet. After reading way too many reviews on Amazon and various beauty blogs, and clicking through dozens of equal-parts horrifying and gratifying before and after photos, I was sold. I was going to try a foot peel. 

Per the website, Baby Foot is "an innovative foot care product that will make your feet as smooth and soft as a baby's foot." The formula is supposedly all natural, based entirely on natural fruit enzymes, and works within ten days to make you shed dead skin and legit peel your feet down to smooth perfection. 

I ordered it in early March, and waited until after St. Patrick's Day to do it. With a bit of apprehension, I soaked my feet for awhile beforehand, then booted up and covered up with my very sexiest fuzzy granny socks for the requisite hour. 

You KNOW you've never seen anything more appealing than that, come on. Really pleased I've made the decision to share that with the world. 

While there are hundreds of photos of the process on the internet, I'm 100% not subjecting people to the process on MY feet. I didn't take a single picture, because, like I said, it's a bit repellent and a bit horrifying. You can Google it if you just NEED to see pictures of the process. That said, I started peeling in about four days, and was done in about eight. In that four-day window, though, I only had about one or two days of really massive peeling. I think this is mostly because I made a point of soaking and scrubbing my feet daily once the peel started working...it seemed to accelerate the process quite a bit. 

Now, ten days out from the initial application, I will say that I've noticed my feet are super smooth and in way better shape than they've been for a long time. Are they baby-soft? No, but honestly that's probably a good thing...I have noticed a few spots that are a little irritated and blister-prone in my gym shoes now, and any more peeling/exfoliation would probably have made that worse. 

Looking forward to sandal season! If you're feeling crazy, pick up your own foot peel here. Or, if this is just too out there for you, head to my 101 in 1001 and tell me what I should do next instead of grossing you all out - ha! 

101 in 1001 #45: Upgrade my iPhone 5 to a newer model.

I've been limping my 3.5-year old iPhone 5 along for...well, the last 3.5 years, and it was finally time for a change. After countless "Storage Nearly Full" alerts, random power-downs causing me to oversleep (despite a full charge), and the traumatic lack of the most current emojis thanks to the lack of upgrade space, I have officially joined the ranks of the latest and greatest. I have an iPhone 7. 

You guys, I am so excited about this. It's got 32gb of space for downloading 10-hour Spotify playlists and taking way too many pictures for this blog. It's shiny and clean and has a fingerprint recognizer that actually works. Yeah, it's a bit big for my Donald Trump-sized tiny hands, but I'll get used to it. 

My mom, dad, and I went to Target on Sunday and did a series of phone swaps...I upgraded my 5 to a 7, Jodester upgraded her 6s to a 7, and my dad adopted my mom's rose gold 6s...with a case to cover the pink. We proceeded to spend the rest of the night not talking as we all messed with our respective new tech, and it was wonderful. 

With a super cute Wit & Delight phone case in tow (the portable battery charger included says "Swipe Right," hi duh that's funny), I'm ready to go - lots of storage, lightning-fast load times, and general extra-functionality for the win. Now if only I could fit it in my pocket...

For more of my second 101 in 1001, head here. Lots to check off! 

101 in 1001 #43: Unsubscribe from junk emails.

Way to start my second 101 in 1001 off with a bang...the ever-glamorous task of unsubscribing from junk emails! 

After I did all my holiday shopping digitally this year, I found myself subscribed to a plethora of random companies' email lists...companies I would likely not be purchasing from again (looking at you, Santa Flask). Additionally, having been the principal planner of several international trips at this point, I was on random distributions from France, Norway, Iceland, Sweden, the UK, and Puerto Rico. Ummmm...awesome, but also the pain of getting emails from the English National Opera or our Norway fjord tour company was just too much to handle on any given Tuesday at the office. 

Enter Unroll.me, an app that fuses the swiping fun of Tinder or Bumble with the practical benefits of reducing junk emails. I downloaded it on one of those random Tuesdays, and went to town. 

Screenshots below: 

Swipe left! 

Swipe up! (I didn't swipe up at all. It's too different from my dating app world - whoa, Unroll.me, make me step out of my comfort zone!)

Swipe right to keep! Awwww, so fun! 

As apparent by the timestamp on my phone, the process of setting it up and getting going took all of 2 minutes. With 478 subscriptions to go through, I thought this was going to take forever and be a pick it up as you go type deal. Instead....

I was whizzing through subscriptions faster than I swipe left on Tinder when drunk. And before I knew it...

FOURTEEN MINUTES, CAMPERS. And that junk email is gone. How insanely amazing is that?! I can't recommend Unroll.me highly enough...it was such a perfect random discovery in the App Store, and saved me hours of laboriously going through my emails one by one and unsubscribing from the computer. Check it out! 

For more (and more exciting) 101 in 1001, head here! 

101 in 1001: The final recap.

As I wind down my first 101 in 1001 list, I wanted to hit the rest of the highlights in one quick post, as well as check in on what I didn’t achieve (by choice or by negligence). At just over a 50% completion rate, I definitely think I can do better on my second list, which I chose with a lot more intention behind the items and a healthy dose of realism.

First of all, the items I got through but didn’t blog (yet):

#40: Double my savings.

I’m so proud of this one – and considering I had plenty of money saved at the inception of my list, this was a pretty massive goal. I banked my tax returns annually, set up recurring monthly transfers, set my Venmo to transfer straight into my savings account, and received an inheritance after my grandma Lo passed away which also went straight into my account and has remained largely untouched. Going forward, I put this one on my list again, but depending on lifestyle changes and what the next few years hold, I don’t know how realistic it is to try to double again. We’ll see…either way, this was a major financial achievement for me and I’m really thrilled to have the added security of a healthy savings account.

#41: Put $20 into savings for every item on the list completed.

This ended up being such a quick and easy way to add a little extra to savings every month. With 57 total items checked off, that’s a total of $1,140 added to savings over the last three years. Doing the transfers in such small doses meant I barely noticed it was gone, but it’s the equivalent of several car payments, a month’s rent, or all my season tickets to Minnesota arts events. Nice to have saved it with virtually no impact to my financial bottom line.

#27: Buy my first cashmere sweater.

I did complete this one…with a heather gray J.Crew v-neck…but I was so disappointed in the quality and fit that I returned it immediately. Cashmere shouldn’t be see-through! And a v-neck doesn’t have to mean “hey, here’s the point where my ribcage meets in the middle.” Points for effort, and I still dream of finding the perfect luxe cashmere sweater to add to my forever pieces, but this one missed the boat.

#90: Get and regularly use a museum membership.

I became a member of the Minneapolis Institute of Arts about a year ago, and have completely loved it. My mom and I went to Art in Bloom, their signature fundraiser, last April…a gorgeous fusion of floral design and classic art. I also checked out “Seeing Nature” with her last summer, and went back for a ramble through the photography on a cranky day in December. I was super sad to miss the Martin Luther exhibition this winter, but according to Hannah (who went), it was so oversold and claustrophobic that attendees could barely see the pieces and it was just generally unenjoyable.

As for what I gave up on/didn’t accomplish:

The bulk of what I failed at hinged on personal fitness and health goals, which really saddens me. I didn’t run a 5k (#21), let alone a half-marathon (#22) – what was I thinking? Along those lines, I didn’t wear a bikini (#26) or a strapless dress (#28)…with my body in the shape it’s in, those just weren’t realistic goals. Most disappointingly, I didn’t reach the healthy BMI range for my height/age (#20)…a goal that matters so much to me, I rolled it forward to my second list.

Other randoms I missed:

#43: Join the Junior League.

When I started this list, I was fresh off a terrible breakup and feeling really friendless and isolated. I thought getting involved in a community like Junior League would help me connect with friends and rebuild a life, but I realized about halfway through the 1001 days that JL was never going to be the right way to do that. Instead, I sought organic, natural communities through the social circles I already had established, and focused on cementing high quality friendships that are enriching my life in so many ways on the regular.

#78: Finish the Brunch Challenge.

God, I haven’t written about brunch in a long time, have I? Part of the back-off on brunch comes from the realization that I couldn’t meet health and fitness goals while mainlining mimosas weekly. Further, brunch is freaking expensive, and 100 brunches in 1001 days would have seriously impaired my ability to hit savings goals. Finally…with so many amazing brunch places in the Twin Cities, let’s be real…the Brunch Challenge will NEVER be over.

There you have it, campers – the highlights and lowlights of my first 101 in 1001. And with this post, I officially check two more off… #77, “Blog every item as I complete it,” and #101: “Create a new 101 in 1001 after the first 1001 days have passed!”