At Bryn Mawr College, twice a year our dorms had finals teas (or if your Hall Advisor was creative, final-i-teas) where everyone would sit down with some essential supplies. These supplies included construction paper, markers, glitter and candy. On the paper, we would list everything we had to do before the end of the semester, including finals, term papers, final projects, work at the library, TA sessions, and quite often low hanging fruit like packing to go home. Next to each task, we placed a piece of candy as a reward — never as an incentive — for completion.

So, in true Bryn Mawr College fashion, I’m going to make this TODO list a “Done is Good” list. There are a couple of differences between the TODO list and the Done is Good list that are important to note. The first and foremost one is that everything on the Done is completely non-optional, and this is how I want to view my list. The second is that I want to do everything on my list — they are not mere chores! Same goes for the Done is Good list. Here goes.

1. Migrate my WordPress blog to Blogger
   WordPress and I have gotten into many a fight, and it may be time to call it quits. I hate what pain it has caused me recently, and it never brought me flowers to apologize. Therefore, I’m going to move this blog over to Blogger, hopefully in the very near future so there will be less to migrate.
   
   
2. Create a tool that takes a Picasa Web Album and outputs a portable HTML5 slideshow
   I was going to originally do a Picasa desktop plugin, but it seems that the desktop API is deprecated. I really want an easy way to just take a whole album and create a clean HTML5 slideshow that I can drop onto my site. I had one that did this using flash, but didn’t easily find one for HTML5. If you know of one already out there (and open!), feel free to send it my way, but I’ll probably still write my own.
3. Read four books
   My life lately has not left a ton of time for reading, so I’d like to catch up on that. My goal is modest, and I’ve already achieved 25% of it, but I need to make sure it is on my Done is Good list. 

   
   

4. Clean up / revise my own site
   I’m no designer, and I make no secret of that! However, I’d like to redo my own site to incorporate some principles that I’ve learned recently. This shouldn’t take too long, and is a nice break from any serious work.
5. Take pictures of my travels
   This goal is something that tends to fall by the wayside when I travel to familiar places. Even though I’m used to the scenery, I want to seek out new places to visit, or rediscover beauty in the old ones. 

   
   

6. Try 6 new recipes
   Just like reading, my cooking adventures have steeply declined. I need to branch out into new cuisines, try new flavor combinations and record the results! Hopefully my readers will appreciate the rate at which I take pictures of food.
7. Go to the gym or exercise 3 times per week
   Oh, fitness. How important you are, and how much I ignore you! I want to make fitness my friend, so I can head off those minor ailments that always seem to strike when I least expect it. I’m to a good start with the gym and a fantastic new trainer, but I want to make sure to stick with it. Therefore, it is on my Done is Good list, despite the fact that I will hopefully never finish it.

   
   

8. Shed my obsession with even-numbered lists
   Ooops…

There you go! Definitely achievable while still leaving time for other fun (except number 8, maybe). I’ll try to post any cool updates here!