Victorian Slum House

Have you seen the House shows on PBS? They take modern people and throw them into the past. There's Colonial House, 1900 House, 1940 House, Manor House, Frontier House (my personal favorite), and Regency House Party, among others.

I discovered that they filmed a new one, Victorian Slum House in 2016 and it's currently available on pbs.org. I'm undertaking the ridiculous task of watching a documentary for every feature film that I watch during the list, and I'm letting each episode of a series count as an individual documentary. We binged 4 episodes on Sunday, so that's 4 feature films canceled out!

This House show is unique in that they take the families through the decades. The first episode is 1860s, and they work their way up to the 1900s. Each episode brings changes, like in the tailor family where they started doing piece work, then had a sweatshop, and eventually opened their own tailor shop. It was harder for other families who didn't have a trade.

I'm slowly getting Hubster caught up on these and we just have a few more series to watch. I think I'm going to let myself count ones I've seen before for the list, because I'm sure I'll still learn things the second time around.

Do you guys have any good documentaries I should watch? Let me know, because I'm going to end up watching a lot of them!

Monthly Projects

So I'm in the midst of 2 years of 30-day projects. They say 30 days is long enough to make or break a habit, and I think it's a good way to try out things I may want to develop either into habits or bigger goals.

So far I've done daily dishes, banjo practice, wearing earrings, reading for one hour, and brush lettering. Each month I've definitely felt an impact from my project and I've tried to keep up on them when I finished.

This month I'm focusing on my morning routine. Let me tell you about how I usually spend my mornings. I usually don't even bother getting out of bed and I scroll Facebook, or most recently, tend to my Magikarps in Magikarp Jump. We're talking like a full hour of mindless phone stuff.

Now, I'm taking time to read in the mornings - I don't even look at my phone - as well as doing some stretching and thinking. I go through my bullet journal every morning and pick out one or two things to do right then if I can. It's great to already have accomplished something before I even go to work, and it helps me feel more focused for the day.

Maybe once I get a handle on the overwhelming daily to-do's, I'll be able to pick something for my 101 list to do every morning. That would be pretty great, but might also be enough for it's own 30-day project.

Any other ideas for me? I have 18 more of these to fill!

Lothlorien

I've walked the 920 miles to Lothlorien. Only like 800 more to go! I was expecting this to take the entire list, but I think I'll be done with room to spare.

Now with better weather I'll be getting even more steps in, woooooo!

Complete: 81. Put $20 in the coin pusher games at the Nickelcade

~30 minutes

400 nickels

5 bonuses 

1030 tickets

1 great day

Any Progress is Good Progress

This week:

I baked kouign amann with the invaluable assistance of Kellie Cat. 

Hubster and I tried out Scotland Yard, a Spiel de Jahres winning game where detectives track down Mister X through the streets of London and one person plays as Mister X. We quite enjoyed it!

I'm doing brush lettering for May's 30 day project and I think I'm getting okay? It's fun, at least! Hubster got me calligraphy pens you dip in ink for my b-day, so that might be another 30 day project.

I want to focus more and get items done all the way, but it's still satisfying to work slowly and make good progress. :)

Cream Puffs!

We baked for date night this week, and it was a super success!

I felt like I was on the GBBO, watching the buns to make sure my devil oven didn't wreak any havoc.

They were actually fairly easy to make! They seem intimidating, but they're not bad at all. The hardest part was getting the cream inside, as my piping tip was too small to do the job properly. For the second batch I cut the tops off and filled them and put the tops back on - that worked a lot better.

Anyway, bakes! 

Complete: 71. For 3 months, only buy what is on sale or what I have a coupon for

With the close of April came the close of item 71: three whole months of extreme budgeting.

I set a $200 budget for groceries for the month and any other purchase had to be on sale or I had to have a coupon.

I think the grocery limit stretched me a lot. We worked through the things we had stored in the freezer and I found myself not letting any food go to waste, since I couldn't afford to replace it. We only went to Costco like, twice the whole time. The student discount at Sprouts was a big help.

We did manage to see a few plays, one free, one discounted with hubster's student status, and one preview performance.

International Cinema at BYU became our weekly date night as it's free and counted for items on both of our lists.

The thing I missed the most was eating out. Frozen fries are just not the same as fresh ones, but I made do. I was especially glad to see coupons for Kohinoor in the Money Mailer these months, and I finished up my Indian food goal with their help.

Overall, I think it made us more mindful about our spending and I'm going to try to keep to the $200 budget for groceries as much as possible and look for sales and discounts for other purchases. I'm not going to be too rigid, though. It will be nice to get fries now when I need them. :)