Plus two more

I started two more items this week:

22. Watch the Up Series

79. Get up to 1000 HITs on Mechanical Turk

Maybe I should just see how many I can simultaneously work on before I actually finish one. Hah!

Items in Progress

So I realized this week that I've kind of doomed myself to a lot of work with delayed payoff. Only about a third of the items on my list that can be checked off in one sitting, as it were. The rest have multiple steps or time required, so it'll take me a while to finish most of them. Just so I can stop feeling bad about not finishing something yet, I present to you, the items I have started:

2. Read all of the Yakitate!! Japan manga in Japanese

3. Watch 50+ episodes of Good Eats and cook 25+ corresponding recipes

4. See 10+ new plays live

5. Make 10+ recipes from Cooking With Dog

6. Send picture or video thank you notes for the duration of the list

9. For every feature film I watch during the list, watch a documentary

15. Culling of the cookbooks

16. Finish a grown-up coloring book

24. Read a Newbery Award or Honor book for each year since I was born

29. Watch all Studio Ghibli movies in chronological order

33. Cook Meatless Mondays for 3 months

35. go to 10+ new Provorem restaurants

37. Try 10+ new Indian dishes

42. Find the best waffle recipe

43. Read a biography of each President of the church

52. Complete the Walk to Mordor challenge

54. Read/watch/listen to 30 min+ of Japanese media each week and keep vocabulary lists

60. Either read or get rid of the books I own but haven't read

65. Add pictures to our map for all western states

68. Have people over for dinner 10+ times

69. Cook a dish from 25+ different countries

82. blog updates weekly

86. Collect 10+ new smashed pennies and clean and organize my collection

88. Ponderize a scripture each week and handwrite that scripture each day

91. Beat Dinky Park

92. Catch up on Adventure Time

93. Try every available flavor of Red Button ice cream

94. Make 10+ new panna cotta recipes

96. Follow an apostle through their General Conferences

98. Listen to 100+ episodes of This American Life

101. Watch all of the Yakitate!! Japan anime with Garrett and re-create a bread from the show

That's a whopping 31 items, so it does make me feel a little better. I wish I had more completion news to share, but hopefully I'll actually finish something soon! I just need to cross something off that list! :)

Getting things done

It's been a busy week otherwise, but I managed to do a few things. I've started cooking Meatless Mondays and will continue for 3 months, I started my grown-up coloring book (this will take forever!), and I read a couple Newberys. I'm really close on those, but I can't finish until 2018's winner is announced. At least I've done all the groundwork! We also saw a new play: Antony and Cleopatra by Grassroots Shakespeare. These guys are amazing.

Something I've been putting off is adding more pictures to our map. I got this for Garrett for our first anniversary (it's paper!) and I needed to add Washington and Wyoming from our trips last year. Now I have! The goal (#65) is to add pictures for all western states, so now we just need Montana, Idaho, Colorado, Arizona, and New Mexico. We've got that west coast wiped out.

New smashed pennies!

I went to Spokane and Coeur d'Alene with my wonderful former roommate this weekend. We both love smashed pennies, so I made sure to look up where we could find them on the trip.

I ended up getting 2 - I'm well on my way to having 10 new ones by the end of the list.

The first is of the world's largest Radio Flyer we saw in Riverfront Park in Spokane (sadly there was no garbage goat penny). The second, pictured twice as it's double-sided, is of Tremors, a roller coaster at Silverwood amusement park. I do like a good double-sided penny. It saves you from having to get more than one if you want the location or a logo.

Wooo pennies!

I already messed up.

I had every intention of posting yesterday, the last day of week 6 of my list. And as per item 82 of my list, blogging once for each week of my list is what's required.

But I forgot.

Technically, I've already failed on item 82.

However, if I've learned anything while doing these lists, it's that you have to help yourself succeed sometimes. Maybe you weren't able to complete a goal up to your original imagined standards, but completing it at all is more than you would have done without the goal.

You also can't be too lenient, because then what's the point of the list at all? But it's important to give yourself breaks.

So for now, I'm calling it good as long as I blog twice in week 7. You gotta be nice to yourself.

Melon Tea Panna Cotta

Aw heck, you guys, I made the BEST panna cotta.

Based off this recipe, I changed it to an herbal tea, cuz that's my style. Melon and cream are excellent together, so I went with a Golden Honey Dew. I think other teas could also be great.

I also changed the method of gelatin incorporation, because heating the gelatin as she asks you to do can have disastrous results. Please follow the instructions of master David Lebovitz instead: recipe here.

So this is the first time I've really experimented with adding my own flavors and I'm ecstatic that it worked so well. I have to make 8 more panna cotta recipes for my list, and perhaps I'll do some more experimenting. :)

Until then!

Newbery Award Winners, Part 1

For item 24 for of my list, I'm reading an Newbery Award or Honor book for each year since I've been born. I decided to go ahead and knock these out now. They're short books generally, and they're lovely reads.

So far I've read:

• (1988) Lincoln, A Photobiography
• (1989) Joyful Noise: Poems for Two Voices
• (1990) Shabanu: Daughter of the Wind
• (1991) Maniac Magee
• (1992) Nothing But the Truth
• (1993) Missing May
• (1994) Dragon's Gate
• (1995) The Ear, the Eye, and the Arm
• (1996) The Great Fire
• (1997) The Moorchild
• (1998) Lily's Crossing
• (1999) A Long Way From Chicago
• (2000) Bud, Not Buddy
  

I think my favorites so far have been Joyful Noise, The Ear, the Eye, and the Arm, and The Moorchild. Great stuff!

I'm up to age 13, and I'm reading Hope Was Here. I've read a lot of the nominees and winners already, but it's great to catch the ones I haven't. I feel like this should be a lifelong goal - to always read the nominees and winner for each year. Kids' books are just so great!