Halfway!

Just 491 days left on my list, which means I'm a little over halfway done!

I've gotten 17 items done so far, which is great. I have a lot more in progress and I'd say about 10 are close to being completed.

I've made a lot of progress just in the last month with my 101 focus:
I finished 2 whole goals!
I read one volume of manga, watched 6 documentaries, read one Shakespeare play, watched 4 Ghibli movies, tried one new local restaurant, finished one LDS President biography, read a few books off my shelves, and listened to 5 episodes of This American Life.

To keep this pace up, I've got to keep working hard even if it's not 101 List focus month. I'm going to set new weekly and monthly goals and hopefully stick to them, as I still have a lot of work ahead of me.

Weekly:
Watch one documentary
Read or get rid of a book from the shelves
Do some Turking
Read an Uchtdorf talk

Monthly:
Read one volume of Yakitate
Watch Good Eats and make a recipe
Cook with Dog
Read 2 Shakespeare plays
Watch 2 Yakitate episodes
Read an LDS President biography
Cook a new recipe from a new country
Watch an international film
Try a new flavor of Red Button
Listen to 2 This American Lifes

There's a lot on the list that I can't chip away at, so I have to keep those in mind, too. I just gotta live every day like it's 101 List Focus Month!

Complete: 4. See 10+ new plays live

One more down!

I saw:

1. The Foreigner at the Covey Center 
2. Antony and Cleopatra by the Grassroots Shakespeare Company
3. See How They Run at the Hale Center Theater
4. Princess Academy the Musical by Kensington
5. The Merchant of Venice by the Grassroots Shakespeare Company
6. The Crucible at BYU
7. Mother Wove the Morning by Welcome Table Productions
8. The Barber of Seville at BYU
9. Seussical at the SCERA Shell
10. Noises Off at the Mercury Theater 

A big shout out to Grassroots for being lovely, as always. Merchant of Venice is seldom produced, as it does have strong anti-semitic messages - I felt like they handled it well. Portia is hands down my favorite Shakespeare lady now.

The Foreigner, See How They Run, and Noises Off were all hilarious. If you get the chance, you should see them. The Foreigner was my favorite of the three.

Mother Wove the Morning was amazing - I actually saw it twice, it was so good. It explores the feminine divine and it was so so cathartic to see it. It's also discouraging to realize how far we have to go, but reassuring to know others feel the same as me. I loved Lydia and Elizabeth Cady Stanton and every character in it. I'm on the hunt for Carol Lynn Pearon's performance of it on DVD.

I'm glad I've seen so many great plays!

Complete: 91. Beat Dinky Park

I've been playing Roller Coaster Tycoon on and off since like, 6th grade. I love managing everything. I love picking the sickest guest and naming them Barfo and following them around the park as they continue to ride rides that make them sicker. I love getting the balloon stall and watching them fill my park. I love making money. I would certainly never pick up guests and drop them in the water or leave them off paths (On a related note, you should check out this review of a RCT park as if it's a real park someone visited - I did have some deaths in my parks, but they were very rare).

For years, though, I'd get stuck at one particular scenario: Dinky Park. It's a minuscule park, and you need to get a $10,000 park value, which is just impossible with the land you have. There's a parcel of land you can buy to expand, but the parcels aren't connected. You can only buy the rights to extend your rides over the land between it. For the life of me, I couldn't make it work.

I've finally done it. It actually wasn't that hard, so I feel pretty silly, but nonetheless, I did it! To be fair, I was never really into constructing rides from scratch, and that's what it took to get it, so I'll cut myself some slack.

The original land is to the left, added land to the right in the lake, connected by a train line.

The only problem is people didn't know how to take the train over, so the original parcel got suuuuuper crowded. 

I ended up dropping people over there who were trying to get to the roller coaster, but I also ended up having to help people to the exit, as they couldn't get back over once they went on the train. People. 

Anyway, it doesn't matter if people actually rode the rides in the new parcel - just having them boosted the park value. 

So I did it! I now have 16 out of 101 goals completed!

101 Focus Month

I feel like I've been slacking lately, so the 30 day project this month is putting at least 30 minutes of work into a 101 list item each day.

I have a commute now (bluh), but one really great thing about it is having dedicated time for reading. I do love that. I'm putting a dent in my bookshelf books (#60) and my Yakitate manga (#2).

We watched Tales from Earthsea (bluhhhh) and Ponyo, so only 5 more Ghibli movies to go (#29). I've also watched a few documentaries - Regency House Party (#9)! I need to stay up on the documentaries or I'll have to watch a ton in the last few months of the list.

I'm also making lots of plans! Items #12 and 13 will be completed in September, and I've done research for some others.

I think it's been good to center myself and re-focus. Doing things!

Complete: 84. Keep a consumption instagram for 1 year

I'm done! One whole year of posting my food on instagram. I love that I have a record of this. I think it's really fascinating to go back and look at things.

I had 2096 posts in the end, that's an average of 5.7 photos per day.

I only posted pictures of empty or mostly empty vessels 7 times (though confession: I probably forgot a few more times than that. But only a few, I promise!)

166 of the photos were from eating out
75 were takeout eaten at home

28 photos were from samples at Costco or the like
6 hotel breakfasts
3 weddings' worth of food - probably like 20 photos

sandwiches:
32 salami
30 tuna
8 tomato
4 BLT
I realize I should have counted ham, but I'm not going through the photos again...it would probably be between tuna and tomato

2 mini donut batches
2 cotton candies
6 rosemary shortbreads
7 crazy breads

It took me 2 months to finish a box of chocolates, it being featured in 4 photos.

my most popular snack was popcorn: 98 times
44 almonds
34 sunflower seeds

34 cucumbers

27 peanuts

26 fries

popular dinners included
31 refried bean tacos
23 mabo dofu
21 manchurian cauliflower and tofu
12 cilantro chicken dumplings

most popular restaurants were
Kohinoor 10 photos
Cubby's 8
Bombay House 8
Ganesh 6
Shoga 6
McDonald's 6

I guess we've learned that I like popcorn and Indian food. But we knew that already!

Instagram deleted my old account apparently, so keep following me @everythingsaraeats for now. I may change the name in the future, but it'll be the same account. I would hate for Instagram to delete my food record so I'll stay there.

I hope you all enjoyed looking at my food!