Nice to meet you, 2021

 It feels like we're off to a good start, but I can't believe all that's happened just this month. What a crazy, terrible, beautiful world we're living in.

Completed:

55. ultimate lucky New Year's meal

• Have you been waiting on pins and needles for me to tell you what we ate? I sure hope so.

Baked Fish - viewed as lucky in many cultures as they can only swim forward - no going backwards!

Toshikoshi Soba with fish (traditional in Japan for New Years Eve), also dumplings - symbolizing money

Cider and 12 grapes at midnight (the tradition in Spain is to gobble one for each toll of the bell - we failed miserably, but hopefully the other foods make up for that...)

Greek Vasilopita - there's a quarter hidden in there! It's for luck!

Hoppin' John and cornbread - representing my Georgian heritage - cornbread for gold, black eyed peas for prosperity, pork for wealth and prosperity

Lentils (representing coins) and Sausage (Italy) and salad with greens and pomegranate - representing money, wealth, prosperity, good luck

Homemade marzipan pigs - pretty sure these go along with the wealth aspect of pigs and pork

• Most of these have to do with wealth/prosperity. So if we get all the money this year, I guess we'll know why! Even if we don't, it was fun to learn about different cultural foods and eat them all ourselves! Hopefully we've at least built up some luck for the year to come. :)

69. display 5 pieces of my art

• All done! I ordered some photo tiles from Snapfish - they had a very good deal and they print square, so it was perfect to order some of my instagram work and not have to worry about cropping or anything. I got 4 of them, and already had 3 pieces otherwise, so I get extra credit for this one!

Updates:

3. study daily routines, develop one that works for me, and keep it for at least 6 months

• I've officially started my 6 months and I have a schedule that I'm trying my best to stick to. It seems good so far!

11. study 12 famous chefs and cook 5 of their recipes each (2/12)

• This month was Samin Nosrat and her excellent cookbook: Salt Fat Acid Heat. We made some amazing chicken, delicious salads, and a killer chocolate cake, among others. I really recommend the book, as well as her series of the same name on Netflix. And if you need more Samin, she has a quarantine cooking podcast called Home Cooking that is just delightful. I learned this month that she came into cooking with no background - she ate at Alice Water's Chez Panisse and loved it so much that she asked to be a dishwasher and worked her way up into cooking. Her approach to cooking is so encouraging - if you mess up, it's just dinner and you can try again tomorrow. I love how popular she's gotten despite not fitting the stereotypes or matronly expert or charming keeper of the hearth. She's single, she travels, and everything is just so good.

30. see 30 new international films (8/30)

• I watched Sweet Bean (Japan), The Life Ahead (Italy), and Downton Abbey (UK/US). Hubster says Downton totally counts, haha. I liked them all okay. I am excited because our library just got us all access to Kanopy! It has a lot of international films, including a lot of the Criterion Collection (aka cream of the crop). I'm excited to watch some there this month.

35. watch 10 anime series (6/10)

• I finally finished catching up with Haikyuu! I came late to the scene, but it's such a lovely show. Sports anime are just so wholesome, in general (though I don't usually care for sports in the real world - funny how that is), and this series gives you lots of Hai-cuties to root for. There may be a season 5 before my list ends, but who knows with delays these days. I'm glad I've had it to keep me company.

40. knit a year-long line-a-day scarf

• The scarf has begun! And by that I mean the scarves have begun because I couldn't give up my idea of one for fries and another more serious one. So we have the fries scarf that's a simple binary - if I had fries I knit with yellow yarn, and if I did not, I knit with grey. The second scarf has 8 possible colors, depending on how far I travel from home (thank you, Emily!!). There is a color for traveling no distance from home, and I'm a bit self-conscious about how often that color show up so far. But it's going to be lovely to see as weather gets warmer and I go outside more and we hopefully are safe to travel more and farther. I'll get a picture for you next month, when it will be a bit more impressive.

53. get all the Stardew Valley achievements 

• I should really revise this to get all the base achievements, because there are a few having to do with the in-game game Journey of the Prairie King and those are never going to happen. But there are a few "bonus" ones I'd like to do. Let's just say everything except JoPK, hahaha.
• In fact, I  did one of the bonus achievements this month! Only 3.2% of all players do this, so I'm going to brag about it. Stardew Valley is a game in which you play a weary corporate worker who decides to try their hand at farming. Throughout the game, you are able to restore a community center and bring joy to the town. However, they also offer a route that allows you to support the corporate greed of Joja, the terrible workplace you had just escaped. So I started up a new file and decided to be as evil as possible, naming my character Karen McButt and naming all my animals after Survivor villains. I didn't make friends with anyone and sometimes I gave them trash. It was great. I just focused all my time on making money so I could earn the upgrades and get out of there. I was able to do it by Fall 25 of the 1st year and honestly, that was a lot quicker than I expected! And now I never have to play with Joja again, hahahaha. I'm only sad I can't reap the benefits of my soda machine. Oh well!

86. develop a budget and stick to it for a year

• So in preparing for this, I realized I don't really overspend too much, except for in the treats department. I can justify anything, haha. So we've set up a fun money budget for each of us for the year, and we're going to just try to keep an eye on other expenses. I think tracking spending will be enough for us to stay aware of how we're doing. But the year has started as far as my personal budget goes!

91. play 20 games from Board Game Geek's top 100 (10/20)

• This month brought a life-changing discover: Tabletopia. This website has tons of board games to play online for free, including many that are highly rated by Board Game Geek! I was able to play Die Quacksalber Von Quidlenburg and Roll Player this month, checking 2 off the list. Added bonus, we were able to play with faraway friends. I love the internet. If anyone else wants to play online, just let me know! I still have 10 games I need to play, but I'm hopeful I can wrap this up soonish with the help of Tabletopia. It's a lot cheaper this way, too, hahaha.

96. wikipedia cooking challenge

• I decided upon the wikipedia page List of dumplings and seeing that there was a dumpling for each letter of the alphabet, it has morphed into an Alphabet of Dumplings challenge. 52 weeks in the year means I'll make a dumpling every 2 weeks. So this month so far, we've made apple dumplings (Northern US) and Banh Bot Loc Tran (pork and shrimp tapioca dumplings from Vietnam). I'm very excited for this one!

Whew! That's a lot of updates! But so it is with the beginning of a new year. 

2 more done this month puts me at 38 total, and lots more in progress promise that number will continue to rise. This is my last full year of the list, so I've got to be working hard!

Happy new year to you all! I hope it finds you well.

Smell ya later, 2020!

Exorcising 2020 has been so very productive and helpful. I am going to make this a yearly tradition, I think. It's so great just attacking the year and getting everything done that you can before the new year begins! It's especially nice for those goals you've had in progress forever or have just been meaning to do for months. Thanks to all my hard work (and because some of them have been in progress all year), I proudly present EIGHT! completed items (bringing me to a total of 36!):

Completed:

18. try 20 new ice creams (local companies)

• Pretty great that I'm finishing up ice cream in winter, huh? But we were so close to finishing, I just had to! Though, while typing this up, I realized I had counted one flavor twice! So we hurried out to the store and got one last flavor: Umpqua Huckleberry Cheesecake. This has been so fun. Lots of delicious Tillamook and Snoqualmie, but also a few wonderful local shops when we've been able to travel. I also really loved Umpqua's garishly colored Cotton Candy, haha. Yay ice cream!

31. a year of (silly) holiday celebration

• This month we did Giving Tuesday, Repeal Day, Ambrosia Day, Ice Cream Day, International Tea Day, Wear Your Pearls Day, Eggnog Day, Thank You Note Day, Call a Friend Day, Still Need to Do Day, and Make Up Your Mind Day. This was a blast and it ended up being a good year for it. Next year we are going to look at more religious holidays and see what we can take from those celebrations. It's fun to have little things to look forward to and learn from!

47. go through the Coverville backlog

• All caught up! It's fun to go through these. The podcast is a little hit or miss for me, as far as the actual cover songs, but when it's a hit, it's a hit. It's worth it for those. I'll keep staying up with it!

49. read the apocrypha

• I started the apocrypha back in October and I didn't think I could finish it this month, but the exorcising spirit really helped with this one, and I breezed through it in a solid week or two. I really enjoyed the book of Judith, but otherwise it was kinda meh. Glad to say I've read it, I guess!

58. see 30 new documentaries

• Got the last three this month! My Octopus Teacher, Little Miss Sumo, and Jasper Mall. I liked them all very much. So many good ones on this list, but my favorites have to be Spelling the Dream, Frozen II: Into the Unknown, The Imagineering Story, Love on the Spectrum, Most Likely to Succeed, Boys State, and 63 Up. 

60. r/52weeksofcooking - year-long cooking challenge

• I can't believe this one is all done, but here we are! This was so fun. I would do it again if I didn't have other cooking challenges to do. Maybe in the future!

30 minutes: Curried Couscous

Sage: Pork Scallopini with lemon and capers (and sage!)

Jewish - Very Sad Challah (ask me for the dramatic story and Reddit's reaction, haha)

Garnish: Japanese Christmas Cake (Strawberry Shortcake)

63. [redacted]

• Last one, I promise! I'm all done with redacted goals now.

79. try 30 new salad/side dish recipes

• We are terrible at eating vegetables along with dinner, haha. If it's part of the dish, that's great, but we're not so good when the main is only meat or grains. So this goal has definitely helped us eat more and I love it. I hope we can keep it up! 

Updates:

15. Wilkes Weekly newsletter

• This is really finally happening this year, so let me know if you'd like to be on the list!

40. knit a year-long line-a-day scarf

• Thank you for your ideas! I think I'm going to actually make two scarves, because it's just as easy to make another when I'm already doing one, right? And it's just one line of stitches a day. I'm going to the fries scarf because I think it will be delightful. And then, Friend of the Blog Emily recommended an adventuring scarf - something that shows how far from home you went. Which I love, and I am hoping will show our return to normalcy this next year. I'll post more next month!

55. ultimate lucky New Year's meal

• The meals have been planned and we'll have 2 today and 3 tomorrow! I guess I can't count it complete yet, so tune in next month for photos, etc.!

59. publish a yearly best of list

• It was nice to have Procreate to put this together this year - I think it made it a lot easier to create it and print it easily. And as always, it's so fun to look back at our year and see what our favorites were.

72. complete 12 30-day projects

• Exorcising was just so good. I got so much done! That being said, I am exhausted and may take a break from 30-day projects for the next bit here. I've spent so much time checking things off that I'm ready to be chill for a bit.

I have big goals for 2021, so I'll take my little break and get back to it! Happy New Year!! May 2021 be so much better than this year!!

Your input humbly requested

Hello friends! My humble request is at the bottom, so you have to read everything, ha! 

Completed:

88. support 20 local restaurants/business

• All done! This one started because a restaurant we wanted to go to closed down before we actually went. In that time another restaurant has opened and closed in that same location and we also never went, hahaha. But we have been supporting local businesses and I love it. Especially now, we feel it's really important to keep supporting our favorite places and finding new ones! I counted our favorite restaurant twice because they actually had to close completely for a few months due to the pandemic, so when they finally reopened I went the first day and got double credit. We found a few new places we really like, too, and we feel happy knowing the money stays more local than going to big corporations.

99. complete a reading challenge

• The Popsugar challenge is finished! I finished it very early into November, actually, so it already feels like I did it ages ago, haha. My last book was a book from a series with more than 20 books (Monstrous Regiment by Terry Pratchett). It was good! I am debating if I want to do the challenge again next year. It really was fun, but I also felt like I had to focus on those books more than any others, so it was a bit restrictive. We'll see! I think they're dropping the new challenge list tomorrow, so we'll see if it sparks my interest.

Updates:

3. study daily routines, develop one that works for me, and keep it for at least 6 months

• This month's thirty day project (#72) was using my Daily Rituals books (the original and Women at Work) to use different working styles, so I could get a jumpstart on this one. I feel like I'm staring to realize what works for me and what doesn't, and I'll try to do 6 months of keeping to it daily starting next year. I really love studying these things and trying them out. Super fun. I also read My Morning Routine to supplement more and I read about a study in the 50s that showed that more than doing things to specifically increase productivity, it was enough to just make a change. So part of my routine might just be changing up little things every once in a while. Change, in and of itself, can be a routine. 

17. create a workable studio space in our home

• So I switched my table from being long to being wide and it's made a big difference. I think having more arm space on my table is good. And now I'm not right in the spot where the sun hits, which is good, but I do miss my view out the window. 
  
• I ALSO created a workspace kind of unintentionally downstairs. I reorganized our dining room and pushed our table to the wall instead of being in the center of the room. I also put a shelf on top of the table and organized all my teas and it makes me SO happy to sit there and look at them. G and I did a lot of NaNo writing there this month and he said he really likes it because it feels like writing out at a café or something. Which is really nice as we can't really do that right now. So it's a bonus workspace, I guess! Still working on the upstairs studio space.

31. a year of (silly) holiday celebration

• Almost done! This has been a lot of fun. This month we had Sandwich Day, Cook Something Bold Day, Rock your Mocs (moccasins) Day, and Drinksgiving (virtually, of course). 

58. see 30 new documentaries (27/30)

• A few this month! Best Wishes Warmest Regards (the Schitt's Creek behind the scenes documentary), Cat Heaven Island (so many cats), The Most Hated Family in America (I read Megan Phelps-Roper's Unfollow and it made me want to know more about Westboro. What a good book! The doc is okay. I prefer her story in her own words. So powerful.), and The Babushkas of Chernobyl, which was cute and sad and also so interesting.

60. r/52weeksofcooking - year-long cooking challenge

Apples: German Apple Pancake

Sous Vide: Onsen Tamago

Seasonal: Brown Butter Chai Scones

Mushrooms: Creamy Mushroom Pasta and King Oyster Mushroom "Scallops"

Gourds: Brown Sugar Roasted Carnival Squash

95. healthy food plan for 3 months

• I read Intuitive Eating on sort of a whim? But it made a lot of sense and I feel more drawn to it than an actual eating plan. It's more about eating what your body wants, but honoring your hunger and fullness - not eating when you're too full or not really hungry. I love the idea of connecting more with my body and really thinking about what I want and not just mindlessly eating. So I've officially started this as of November 15th and we'll see how it goes! Here are the principles of it if you're interested in knowing more!

Your help requested:

• For December's 30-day challenge I am exorcising 2020. I want to get rid of 2020 in all of its terrible glory and send it off and say good riddance. I'm going to try to finish up as many things as I've got in progress to start 2021 with the freshest slate possible. I also want to clean my house and just get rid of things and go into 2021 giving myself the best start I can. So! If you want to join me, please! I feel like the more people we have doing it the better. And if you have any more ideas for what I can do, please share!
• I'm also planning my ultimate lucky New Year's meal (#55) because we need all the help we can get to make 2021 a good year! I've done a fair amount of research already, but if you have any suggestions for foods or traditions, I am all ears.
• In 2021 I need to knit a line a day scarf, but I'm having trouble deciding what to do. The ones I've seen before have been temperature or mood tracker based - you use a different color each day for the line to represent the temp outside or your mood for the day. These are okay, and I'm open to them, but I was thinking it might be more fun to do something else. Like maybe a tracker of each day I get fries - that would be easy - white if no fries, yellow, if fries, and it might even end up looking like fries in the end. Some other ideas: number of pages read each day, what main color I wore, amount of screen time, how many cups of tea I drink, hahaha. What do you think of these? Any other ideas? 

Okay, you guys are great. We're gonna make it through 2020 and 2021 is going to be amazing! We will make it so!

All treat, no trick!

Guys, I have so many things done this month! 

Completed:

4. read 100 books in a year

• All done! You can see all my books here. I'm actually at 104 and I'm still going strong! We'll see how I end up stacking up to last year's 132. As I'm reaching the end of my Popsugar challenge, I'm feeling free to read a lot more liberally. And our libraries have reopened so I have a ton of books on my shelf again. :)

23. see 30 new animated films

• October 28th was International Animation Day and fittingly, I watched film #30 that day. We saw a total of 5 animated features this month: Abominable, Over the Garden Wall (technically a mini-series, but I'm totally counting it), Ride Your Wave, Over the Moon, and Ernest and Celestine. We had some sad ones this month - I find it interesting that so many of these addressed grief. But all wonderful! 

81. make a zine

• I took advantage of 24 Hour Comics Day to finally put together a zine! I made it about COVID and Survivor and how it's helped me survive staying home, hahaha. If you want a copy, let me know! I would love to send out copies if anyone is actually interested in it, haha. It's pretty niche, but still enjoyable, I think?

92. see a new Claes Oldenburg sculpture

• Okay, so the goal on this was to travel and see one of his larger than life installments, but with things going the way they are, and with all of them being pretty far away, I was thinking I should change this one up. But I don't have to change it too much - we were actually able to see some of his smaller pieces at the art museum in Spokane! We saw Profiterole, Tilting Neon Cocktail, and Baked Potato - they might have been more satisfying if they were larger, but I'm counting it. They were still delightful and I love how he re-creates the everyday.

98. Treat Yo Self

• If there was ever a time we needed to treat ourselves, this year was it. We took the opportunity to spend a socially distanced day in Spokane and got lots of treats at Trader Joe's and Asian World. Another treat was just walking through a bookstore. Heck, it's been too long. We got to visit the aforementioned art museum and saw the Pop Art exhibit - not just Oldenburg, but lots of other good stuff: Warhol, Koons, Hirst, Lichtenstein - it was super great. There was a severe wind advisory (dang weather not cooperating with our schedule!) so we had to hurry home after that, but we treated ourselves to pho in town and ordered some treats online, too (tea and more Overtone!). We did set spending limits, because let's face it: we're not fictional characters who don't have to answer for their actions, but we felt like Tom and Donna would be proud of us nonetheless. 

Updates:

30. see 30 new international films (5/30)

• Just one this month: Parasite. Heck. I had to spoil it for myself and watch with a summary open so I knew when to look away because I'm super squeamish and also didn't want to get spooked, but what a good story. No wonder it got Best Picture. I felt like it deserved to be watched for this list because of that. 

31. a year of (silly) holiday celebration

• Getting close to done! This month we had International Raccoon Appreciation Day, Improve Your Office Day, Garlic Lover's Day, Bathtub Day, and the aforementioned International Animation Day.

41. make a 24 hour comic each year

• See zine above! It took me hours to write and get it all put together, so I'm totally counting it. I didn't want to do an hourly for every year and I was feeling generous to myself to let it count for two things. It's too late to change things now! :) 

49. read the apocrypha

• I ordered a hard copy with a little bit of commentary and I've read the first two books! It's pretty interesting!

58. see 30 new documentaries (23/30)

• Just one this month! It was short, but it profiled a production of Little Shop of Horrors at the Pasadena Playhouse. It was such a unique production - I had heard about it before - and I was glad for a closer look. The actress who plays Audrey is a trans woman, and they took a more avant garde approach with Audrey II - making the bloodthirst and need for murder all in Seymour's head. How I wish I could have seen the actual production, but this was a close second!

60. r/52weeksofcooking - year-long cooking challenge

Local Specialty: Spaceburgers (from our county fair - it's basically a griddled burger uncrustable)

Lebanese: Batata Harra

Microwave: Elote en vaso

Food Mashups: Lomo Saltado burrito

72. complete 12 30-day projects

• This month I did inktober! I've done it before, but this year I followed a prompt list, which was new. I did it from They Draw and Cook's list and did food illustration, focusing more on pen drawing. I enjoyed it a lot!

99. complete a reading challenge (49/50)

• I tried so hard to finish this month, but I just couldn't do it (but now I'll have at least one thing to write about next month, haha). This month I read a book set in a country starting with C (One Hundred Years of Solitude), a book from a past prompt - I chose a book written by a musician (A Dream About Lightning Bugs by Ben Folds), and a book published in the 20th century (A Tree Grows in Brooklyn). I loved A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. Heck. I've started my last book so I am on track to get this goal finished in November!

So 5 goals done! That brings me up to 26. At halfway through I'm officially a quarter of the way done. As you know, though, I've got a lot of irons in the fire! We'll have a few wrapping up in December with the end of the year, and I'll keep chipping away at the rest. Hope you all had a happy Halloween!

Ohhhhhh, we're halfway there!

 And we're livin' on a prayer? I dunno. But I'm a little under halfway done with my 1001 days! I contemplated changing things up here at the halfway mark, but at the moment there's not a lot I would change. Maybe a few small tweaks. The biggest thing is COVID-19 and how it will affect. There are a few that it makes impossible or rather difficult, at least, but most of my goals are fairly home/individual-centered. I think I'll take stock again when I have a year left and we'll see if things need to be adjusted. 

The best news is I finished some goals this month!

Completed:

16. visit 3 new National Parks

• We visited Crater Lake this time last year, then in July we did Mt. Rainier, and finally over Labor Day weekend, we visited North Cascades (though we technically just drove through the highway and you can't get into the park by car, but we're not serious hikers or anything, so I'm totally counting this one - we saw the park as close as we could!). So we are done! We have really really loved getting to visit the parks here in the Northwest. I would totally do any of these trips again.

93. recreate the Epcot bundt cake

• We ate the best cake in India of Epcot when we visited a few years ago for the Food and Wine Festival. It was a pistachio cardamom bundt cake with chocolate coconut cream. I knew we had to at least find a similar recipe to get that goodness in our life, but I happened to find the official recipe! I made it as part of this month's 30-day and we enjoyed it so so much (we're still enjoying it, haha). I highly recommend it!    

Updates:

2. digitally transcribe my journals

• I'm working steadily on this now, at least! I do at least a few pages every morning. I got two journals typed this month, though one was super short. I also found a few more random shorter journals to add to the transcription pile, haha. I've got to keep whittling away at this one or I'll never finish.

4. read 100 books in a year

• I hit 92 books this month! I'll definitely hit 100 at this pace. A big shoutout to They Called Us Enemy by George Takei. Why did it take me so long to read this? It's so good.

5. digitize my lifebox

• I have begun in earnest. I have a ton of papers, old report cards, school awards, photos, etc., that won't stand the test of time anyway, and are just taking up a lot of space in the meantime, so I'm scanning everything in! Then I can get rid of things without feeling guilty about it. It's actually pretty hard work, and it's going to take me a while, still. But I'm confident it'll be worth the effort to pare down a few boxes. I'm such a dang packrat, but a lot of these old things really do bring me joy. They can bring me joy digitally instead. :)

18. try 20 new ice creams (local companies) (15/20)

• Our Labor Day trip brought many ice cream opportunities - Cascadian Farms raspberry chocolate chip, Clever Cow Perfectly Peach, Whidbey Island Ice Cream Co. Lavender and Skagit Triple Berry, and finally the Snoqualmie Scoop Shop's Licorice. It was so great to visit so many cute little shops and they were all amazingly delicious.

23. see 30 new animated films (25/30)

• This month I watched Trolls: World Tour, which amazingly had a relevant message? and Children of the Sea, which was all kinds of trippy, but beautifully animated! 

31. a year of (silly) holiday celebration

• September's holidays included Make Your Bed Day (because it takes a special holiday to make me do it, hahaha), National Video Game Day, Fortune Cookie Day, and Pepperoni Pizza Day. 

35. watch 10 anime series (5/10)

• We finished all of Aggretsuko! It's so cute. And cathartic for my hard-working hub when he gets home from a busy day, hahaha. 

58. see 30 new documentaries (22/30)

• Every documentary was amazing this month: Most Likely to Succeed, Boys State, and 63 Up. I could write a blogpost about each of them, but I don't have time for that, so please consider them having my very highest recommendation and watch them if you can! And if you do, tell me so we can geek out together!!

60. r/52weeksofcooking - year-long cooking challenge

Chilean: Churrasco

Caramelization: Miso Caramel Apple Frangipane Tart

Bacon: Bacon Pancakes

Yemeni: Honeycomb Bread (THIS WAS AMAZING)

Dipping: Carrot Fries with Avocado Chimichurri Sauce

72. complete 12 30-day projects

• I know, the suspense was killing you. This month's 30-day project was 30 days of birthday celebration for my cute hub! He turned 30, so it was the perfect time to do it. We did some big things like our Labor Day trip to the coastal islands, and lots of small things like his favorite recipes for dinner and lots of treats. I also organized a secret card submission and had about 20 cards for him to open from friends and family! Many thanks if you sent one - he loved them SO MUCH. 

88. support 20 local restaurants/business (13/20)

• I'm not sure if I've updated on this one yet, but we're trying to shop small and support local businesses over chains when we can. We ate a few new restaurants this month! It's fun to explore what's in town, especially when we're still in phase 2 with limited dining capacities. Gotta keep these delicious places in business!

99. complete a reading challenge (46/50)

• 5 books this month! I'm so close I can taste the finish, haha. I read a book with the main character in their 20s (Emma), a book set in the 1920s (Mrs. Dalloway), a book I picked because the title caught my attention (100 Days of Sunlight), a banned book during Banned Book Week (The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-time Indian), and a book about a world leader (Alexander Hamilton!!). That chonker of a book is behind me now! I'm so proud I've finally read it. The others were pretty good, too (except for 100 Days of Sunlight - an interesting title does not a good book make). Just 4 more and I'll be all done!

I'm really pleased with what I've been able to do this month. October should be good, too! Hopefully I'll have a few more wrapped up, or at least lots of progress to share. Yeahhhhh goals!!

Auguuuuuust 2020

Hello! I have been trying to work at least a little bit at things every day this month. There are a lot of goals I need to chip away at or I'll never get them done. And too many big things I can't really do at the moment.

Completed:

Nothing! Absolutely nothing!

Updates:

2. digitally transcribe my journals

• I finished journals up through high school and I'm almost done with freshman year at BYU! This is one I really need to work on a little every day or I might not finish. I write a lot.

4. read 100 books in a year (84/100)

• 11 books! Boosted by finally reading my color Scott Pilgrim volumes, haha. And I finished a few books I had been working on for a while - Art, Inc. and Peace Is Every Step. Both very good! Just books I took in chunks more than one sitting.

23. see 30 new animated films (23/30)

• I watched Cars 3 before our Disney + subscription went away. It was pretty okay! That's saying a lot, considering Cars 2 was absolutely terrible. 

30. see 30 new international films (4/30)

• It's been a while since I've watched one, but I got one this month: Portrait of a Lady on Fire. Can I just share Andy Samberg's review? He said, "It blew me away. And I feel like it's a good movie for men to understand energetically how when they show up it can really change things. It's not a spoiler to say this. You get lulled into this amazing space of there being no men for a long time in the movie, then a random guy does show up. He's a nothing character; he's there to do an errand. He's not being a jerk or being weird. But him just sitting there eating some slop, you're like, "Ugh, what's this guy doing here? Get him out of here. He's ruining the vibe." 

31. a year of (silly) holiday celebration

• This month was full of excellent holidays: Mahjong Day, International Cat Day (celebrated by browsing r/catswhoyell), the 10-year anniversary of Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World! (we had a viewing party with friends online! with garlic bread and "Coke Zero"!), Potato Day, and the anniversary of my discovery of David Rio Chai. Heck. 

These are totally cans of Coke Zero.

35. watch 10 anime series (still 4/10)

• Okay, I haven't finished either of them yet, but I've watched 2 seasons of Haikyu!! this month as well as the first season of Aggretsuko. Why did it take me so long to watch Aggretsuko? It's so good. I'm sure we'll finish it in September. And Haikyu!! is so great. G's started calling them my Hai-cuties. If everyone could just watch sports anime, the world would be a happier place. You learn to empathize with opponents and cheer everyone on! And it totally inspires you to work hard and do your best!

58. see 30 new documentaries (19/30)

• We watched Love on the Spectrum on Netflix and it was delightful. I feel like they accurately represented the challenges of dating and finding love for those on the spectrum. No sugar coating, no inspiration porn! Though I did see some criticism of it for expecting them to conform to neuro-typical dating standard rather than allowing them to do what may come more naturally. But we really enjoyed it! I would totally watch a sequel.

60. r/52weeksofcooking - year-long cooking challenge

Cucumber: Cucumber Mint Lime Agua Fresca

Finnish: Makaronilaatiko (Macaroni Casserole)

Food in Disguise: Sweet Corn Panna Cotta sandcastle and Sand Dollar cookies

Figs: Fig Oatmeal Energy Balls

72. complete 12 30-day projects (3/10)

• Still working on these since I still have the momentum! This month I wanted to focus on typographic literacy so I got some practice in copying fonts and hand-lettered alphabets just to practice a bit more and get used to letterforms. I did a different style each day and I think it really was good for me! September's 30-day project is TOP SECRET and it will be GREAT (you can hear about this one later, don't worry!).

79. try 30 new salad/side dish recipes (19/30)

• I made a delicious shawarma salad and sweet corn blessed us with griddle cakes as well as a corn salsa. YUM.

99. complete a reading challenge (41/50)

• Wow! I'm less than 10 books away from finishing! This month I read a medical thriller (Doomsday Book), a book written by a journalist (Garlic and Sapphires), an anthology (Black Pearls: A Faerie Strand), a book with just words on the cover (Men Explain Things to Me), a book I touched on a shelf with my eyes closed (The Breadwinner), and a book with an author with flora or fauna in the name (Spindle's End). I had to cheat on touching a book on a shelf because of COVID and no library (though now I'm realizing I could have gone to a bookstore...oh well!) by using a random number generator to select one off my to-read shelf on Goodreads. That's okay, right? It better be because I'm counting it! One of my final nine books is Chernow's Alexander Hamilton biography, so it still might take me til the end of the year to finish my challenge, haha.

Okay! Nothing completed this month, but lots of progress. September makes me want to go back to school, so maybe I'll try working on my daily routine and setting more regular working hours. We'll see!

July July Julyyyyyyyyy (it never seemed so strange)

Completed:

36. [redacted]

• This is all I've got for you this month. My sincere apologies.

Updates: 

4. read 100 books in a year (73/100)

• Super on track! I got 7 read this month. The most important reads were Me and White Supremacy and Untamed, but I enjoyed most of all of them!

16. visit 3 new National Parks (2/3)

• We visited Mt. Rainier! It was so nice to escape the desert and have cooler weather as well as mountains and trees. Such a nice escape. It wasn't too crowded until Saturday afternoon, so we just left then and chilled at our treehouse cabin and went back later. It's been hard being cooped up, so it was nice to take a social distancing vacation. :)

23. see 30 new animated films (22/20)

• I took advantage of Disney Plus to watch some classics I missed as a child: The Sword in the Stone and The Black Cauldron. They were okay? I know The Black Cauldron would have terrified me as a child, so it's probably better I missed that one.

31. a year of (silly) holiday celebration

• This month we had Gingersnap Day, Video Game Day, No Bra Day, and French Fry Day! But really, every day lately has been no bra and video games...

58. see 30 new documentaries (18/30)

• Disney Plus also brought documentary options. Into the Unknown: the Making of Frozen II and The Imagineering Story in particular were AMAZING. I love seeing how things are made and creative processes (and I love Frozen II and theme parks so they were perfect fits). Also a shoutout to Spelling the Dream on Netflix - a new spelling bee documentary to love!

60. r/52weeksofcooking - year-long cooking challenge

Retro Recipes: Depression-Era Peanut Butter Bread (this was seriously so good)

Soul Food: Smothered Oxtails

Emulsification: Sweet Corn Summer Pasta Salad with Lemon Basil Vinaigrette

Cartoon: Ja-pan #2 from Yakitate!! Japan (made entirely in a rice cooker)

72. complete 12 30-day projects (2/12)

• I decided July would be online learning - I focused on Creativebug and Skillshare, but I also took a calligraphy workshop with Carol DuBosch online, and this weekend I'm learning from the online Sunstone conference. I am really actually loving how much is available for me now, whereas before I was so limited by location. It's making life in a small town a million times more bearable.

79. try 30 new salad/side dish recipes (14/30)

• I haven't updated on this one for a while, but I did make 4 new recipes this month. We are so bad at eating veggies, so this has really been helping.

99. complete a reading challenge (35/50)

• This month I read a book with twenty in the title (The Twenty-Fourth of June), a book with a made-up language (The Fifth Season - SO GOOD), a book that won an award in 2019 (The Poet X), a book with a great first line (I Capture the Castle - "I write this sitting in the kitchen sink."), and a book from an author who's written over 20 books (And Then There Were None).

101. learn 10 new calligraphic hands (4/10)

• Speaking of those online calligraphy workshops! I've by no means mastered, but I've now put a lot of work into both Ben Shahn lettering and Bone Script. Ben Shahn is so much fun. Bone is more difficult, but I'm getting there! I'm gonna call it good, though, because we're aiming for progress, not perfection.

Ben Shahn lettering

Bone Script

Okay! I hope you all are well and surviving. Hopefully I can finish something not redacted so you can hear about it!