the mysterious Project Zero unveiled!

It wasn’t supposed to be so mysterious, by the way, it’s just that I knew this would be a long blog post, and I just haven’t had time to write it all up until now (plus I wanted to finish blogging the A-Z Year first as this effectively replaces A-Z as our family’s main motivational ‘thing’ this year).

So – a bit of background….

At some point last year, I saw on another blog, reference to a site called Day Zero. The point of this site, is that users would choose a start date (Day Zero), and a list of 101 goals that they would like to achieve – some big, some small. From their Day Zero, they get 1,001 days (just under 3 years) to tick everything off of that list. So that’s roughly one goal achieved every ten days, if things go to plan, and the nice long timescale gives you time to make arrangements / save up cash for any goals that are tricky/expensive (one of ours, for example, is to go to California, which we will need a year or two’s saving up for, for sure).

The Day Zero website was fab – you could browse through everyone else’s lists for inspiration, and there were various other ways to help you pick your goals – I liked the “would you rather” tool especially. And there was somewhere to store your own goals too. Which I did. And I didn’t back them up anywhere.

(you know what's coming next, don't you....)

And then the web site disappeared last December! Nooooo! (The owner is travelling in India and is unable to get it fixed until he gets home, so it’s still down)

Which is another reason why I am late blogging this, as I had to start all over again building the list of goals. Bummer :(

I also, for some reason, started calling the thing “Project 101” in my head, which then got kind of merged to “Project Zero”, which actually makes less sense than either “Day Zero” or “Project 101” when you think about it, but never mind, it has kind of stuck now.

So – now you know what it is, here is our list!

(you’ll notice we’re not quite up to 101 yet, this is because we wanted to leave some scope to add new goals in during the course of the project, there are about 20 spaces left to fill)

Day Zero – 1st January 2011
End Date – 28th September 2013

Goals are categorised depending on who they are for (just me, me and Jay, or the whole family), and what type of goal it is (travel, creative, geocaching, none of the above….)

They are in no particular order of importance:

All of Us

Places To Go

• A trip to the IoW including a game at the Ryde rink
• A day out at Symonds Yat and Clearwell Caves
• Climb Glastonbury Tor
• Get lost in the maze at Blenheim Palace – progress made on this one, have already bought tickets
• Go to a Roller Derby bout
• Visit Gormley's "Another Place" sculptures
• Visit 10 UNESCO World Heritage sites – 3 down, 7 to go
• Go to the seaside in the Winter
• Visit the European Drag Racing Championships at Santa Pod
• Holiday in Blackpool – booked for next August, this was the kids’ choice, I’m not sure if I’m looking forward to it or not!
• A day out at Weston Super Mare – this one’s for me, as I’ve never been despite living so close, and we want to see the new pier
• Go to a Disney theme park – booked! We are off to Disneyland Paris next month, woohoo!
• Visit Barbury Castle – right on our doorstep but we’ve never been
• Go camping – not looking forward to this one :( I’m too old for tents!
• Climb Solsbury Hill nr Bath
• Holiday to California & Oregon – this is our long shot goal, fingers crossed for a lottery win!
• Ride 5 roller coasters that none of us have ever been on before
• Visit all 9 of the surviving Wilts/Oxon white horses – 2 down, 7 to go
• Visit the Isle of Man
• Go to Alton Towers – Connor has never been, and it’s at least 15 years since I last did
• Clifton Observatory
• Visit 10 different museums
• Go to Drayton Manor
• Holiday in Cornwall
• Visit 5 more National Trust properties before our membership runs out – expires June 2011

Geocaching

• Get a FTF! – we only want one, we’re not greedy :)
• Between our two accounts, own a total of 10 active cache hides – we currently have 3
• Find a geocache in a tunnel
• Solve and find a total of 10 puzzle caches
• Visit at least two of the Geocaching Trifecta in Oregon & Seattle – this relies on the California / Oregon holiday
• Find a night cache (one that is designed only for night time access)
• Find a geocache in a cave / underground
• Find a Wherigo cache
• Find a CHIRP cache

Other

• Bake (from scratch!) and decorate cupcakes – we aren’t the most domesticated of families, usually only making cakes from the sort of cake mix where you just add water and hope for the best - so this routine task for most will be an interesting adventure for us!
• Go kite flying on a beach
• Witness a solar eclipse – let’s hope there is one scheduled at some point in the next 2 and ¾ years! :)
• Attempt surfing – emphasis on the word attempt
• Make a wish at 11:11 on November 11 2011
• take Connor and Reece to their first live gig – the tricky bit will be getting them to agree on a band they both like
• Tie a note to a helium filled balloon and let it go
• Have a Facebook-free week – eeeek!
• Start a new family tradition
• See a duck billed platypus in the flesh – the trouble with this one, is they don’t seem to be in any zoos outside Australia!!
• Go horseriding 
• Go up in a hot air balloon
• Snorkel with fishes all around
• Go go-karting or quad biking
• Go to a football match
• Milk a cow

Just Sarah & Jay

Places to Go

• Have a smooch by or on the Eiffel Tower – Paris trip booked for February, just have to persuade him to kiss me :)
• A long weekend in Prague

Geocaching

• Reach the milestone of 500 geocaches found
• Find a 5-star geocache (difficulty and/or terrain)

Hockey

• Visit MKL, Telford and Manchester EPL rinks – MKL down, 2 to go
• See at least two more NHL teams play live

Other

• See comedians Ed Byrne and David O Doherty live – progress made on this one, Ed Byrne tickets booked for March 2011
• Get both our showers fixed!
• Make a list of 10 movies that we both really want to watch, and watch them

Just the kiddies 

• Reach the milestone of 300 geocaches found
• Make a water rocket (as seen on Backyard Science)
• Have a go at fishing
• Learn to ice skate
• Be early for school every day for a fortnight
• Connor – learn to ride his bike

Just Sarah

• Frame some of my own work behind glass and hang it up in my home
• Set up a circle/collaborative journal site/blog – I’ve set the blog up, but it needs a lot more work before it goes live
• Do the Project365 photography thang – I’m going to do this next year I think, easing myself in with the UKScrappers A-Z photography challenge this year instead
• Make a big-enough-to-be-functional quilt
• Send a secret to Postsecret
• Start a daily Art Journal – ACHIEVED 1/1/11
• Get back into ATCs - take part in three ATC swaps
• Sell something hand made on Etsy or Folksy – just one thing will do
• Photograph Highgate Cemetery
• Finish Darby's coif
• Learn to play 3 songs on the guitar
• Teach Lauren how to make a charm bracelet
• Finish Pacman needlepoint – about 40% complete but has been shoved in a drawer for the last 3 years
• Make a "our year in pictures" scrapbook for 2011
• Learn how to use my jeweller's saw 

And that’s about it!

That little lot should keep us busy for the next couple of years, eh? :)

I’ll blog every goal as we achieve them, in the meantime, wish us luck with finding a live duck billed platypus and saving up enough money to go to California! Oh, and remember, if I suddenly disappear from Facebook, I’m not actually dead, I’m just having a week off :)