the list: final wrap-up

this year has, without a doubt, been fabulous. i'm sitting here searching for the perfect words to sum it up, but i'm becoming convinced those words don't exist. or, at least, i don't know how to string them together properly. so, instead, i'll give you a quick rundown on how my goals turned out. that's why you're here anyway, right? :)

1. host a party. in october i had about a dozen people over for a Pumpkin Slaughter. we had a great time and proved that my house CAN hold more than five people. :)

2. attend a series of cubs games. this did not happen. beth & i drove out to denver, but only went to one of the four games. we decided to spend our time & money having fun in the mountains instead. so ... defeat, but definitely worth it. even if the cubs lost miserably at the game we attended.

3. organize my recipes. done! thanks to a nifty three-ring binder and some page protectors, my recipes are easily accessible and logically categorized.

4. take a trip with marlana for our 30th birthdays. so amazing. ireland is amazing. the scenery was amazing. our accommodations were amazing. marlana is amazing. i would not have traded this trip for anything. i can only hope we celebrate 35 with the same panache.

5. on time bloodwork & med refill. done! i'll need to get to the doctor in the next week or so to stay on time, but i did well this year.

6. secret. this was accomplished, but i'm leaving it a secret. :)

7. use my dehydrator. done! i used my dehydrator to dry both chicken bones & apples for halloween decorations. next, i'm trying some jerky.

8. finish catch 22. finally done! granted, the book is still sitting on my night stand, exactly where i tossed it when i was done ... but i finished it!

9. carry the french fry embargo through the end of april (with an exception for ireland). may 1, 2009 would have marked one year without deep-fried french fries. i made it until march 29, 2009 (excluding ireland). i had french fries in ireland, which was allowed, but i enjoyed them so much i had to eat them when i got back, too. :) almost 11 months though; that's impressive.

10. blog 260 times. done! did you get sick of me?

11. hang out with dave. done! dave came to the Pumpkin Slaughter!

12. secret. this one i will reveal. :) my goal was to take a photo a day for the entire year. the result? 342 photos. i only missed 13 days! i think that's pretty amazing. and you can see them here. if you view them as a slideshow, you may want to click "show info", as a few of them do have captions. i plan to continue to add to this photo album. and possibly even add older photos - one from each day i shot pictures. it's an interesting glimpse.

13. photograph the alphabet. done, three times over.

14. blog the tasting of a variety of cheeses. alright, it wasn't the "year of the cheese" as i'd hoped, but i did my best. :)

15. add three bloody games to my game closet. done! Falling: The Zombie Edition, Gloom and Unexploded Cows.

16. host a bloody game night. jonathan, laure, beth & i did some raucous bloody gaming in may.

17. send Christmas cards. done!

18. finish watching all the movies alan alda appears in that are available from netflix. done! it took me 8 months, but i watched 23 alan alda movies this year. and i love him more than ever.

19. take a trip to colorado. i spent a good long weekend in colorado this summer, and it was fantastic. i got to hang out with jonathan & laure. lynn came down to meet us, so we got to spend together. beth & i got to drive up through the mountains. *sigh* i could live in colorado.

20. plant some vegetables. last month i thought about burying a baby carrot in the dirt with my houseplant, but that seemed like cheating. :)

21. take a trip by myself. total defeat, and i'm okay with it. while i would have enjoyed a weekend away by myself, i was able to do so much traveling with friends this year that i could never complain. i wouldn't have traded a single one of those trips for a weekend by myself.

22. crochet a scarf. done! and the tree in my front lawn in warmer because of it.

23. eat pizza in 10 different towns/cities. done! this wasn't as easy as i expected, but in the end i actually hit 13.

24. make a muffuletta. done! it came out so tasty for new year's eve that i made baby muffulettas for hanging out with friends the next week.

25. journal my 30th year. done! well, mostly. :) it needs a couple of finishing touches (like a cover), but it's mostly ready to be bound.

26. attempt a traveling journal. can i count NaBloPoMo? there were 15 of us participating from around the country ... i have to be able to count that.

27. participate in illustration friday six times. done! and i had a lot of fun while doing it. even if it did make my blog pop up when my name is googled. ;)

28. finish a quilt for myself. at the beginning of the year i pointed out that i have three quilts for myself started right now. surely i could finish one of them, right? nope, shirley, apparently i couldn't. :)

29. customize the recycled table in the living room. another goal that bested me. other than moving the table into the living room & putting a plant on top, it's still the same as it was when i brought it home.

30. work on the california photo book. it's not much, but i do have the 500+ photos narrowed down to about 75 photos. and i have those 75 printed as thumbnails so i can pick my finals. i decided i didn't want to start printing full-sized photos until i finished the trip (before my 36th birthday). that way i could lay out the entire book at once. but i made progress. and that's all i was looking for.

now, onto the list for the new year ... :)

clog: butterkase & emmentaler

and the two cheeses that started it all: butterkase and emmentaler.

okay, so the cheese blogging was sad. but i did try some new cheeses. and learned that cheese is expensive. and, technically, accomplished the goal. :)

two days 'til my birthday!

clog: goat cheese

today's salad was garnished with goat cheese. i do love goat cheese. it's soft and moist. (moist. moist. moist.) flavorful, but not overpowering.

i want to try baking goat cheese. i saw a recipe that included roasted red peppers and olives. yumm-o.

clog: cotija

according to wikipedia, "Cotija is a hard cow's milk cheese that originated from Mexico. It is named after the town of Cotija, Michoacán. Cotija comes in two primary versions. El Queso Cotija de Montaña or "grain cheese" is dry and firm, with little taste beyond salt (the cheese is usually several times saltier than typical cheese, traditionally for preservative reasons). "Tajo Cheese" is a moister, fattier, and less salty version of the cheese that holds its shape when cut, with a flavor similar to Italian Parmesan and Greek Feta."

i'm going to say that chili's uses the latter cojita cheese on their tacos. and it is good.

hnf: food weaknesses

carbohydrates are my biggest enemy.


i like potatoes. i like them baked, fried and boiled. mashed, au gratin and buttered. hashbrowned. twice baked. i like them regardless of color. red, yellow, white, purple. i like potato chips. i crave the crunch, especially of a thick cut, kettle cooked chip. the salty, greasy feeling that left on my lips. mmmmm.

i like doritos. cool ranch, taco, sweet & spicy, nacho ... i like them all. i can polish off a bag in no time. and not feel a twinge of over-indulgence until i wake up the next morning feeling like i chewed a sock all night. and even then, i know it's worth it. i'm actually salivating a little bit just talking about them.

i like bread. toasted with butter & worcestershire sauce. grilled with melty cheese inside. holding together a tasty burger. smeared with garlicky butter. topped with pizza sauce, sausage and cheese. sliced thin with butter & chocolate. toasted into croutons for a salad. dipped in egg & fried for breakfast. bread is a beautiful thing.

the worst part of it is, i stink at moderation. when i have pizza one day, i want it the next day, too. and the day after that. and i can't just eat a serving of doritos; i want the whole bag. and if there's a bag of croutons in the house, most of them are eaten straight out of the bag.

and now you know why i don't keep bread in the house (unless it's in the freezer. out of sight, out of mind) and why i refuse to buy salty snacks for get togethers more than a day before i have people over. it wouldn't last until they got here!

hnf: what keeps me going

i've joined a group of health & fitness bloggers focused on making healthy choices in the way we eat and the way we move. i figure it's a good match to the biggest loser competition i joined on facebook. i mean, if i'm going to eat well and exercise, why not talk about it, right? :)

three things that keep me going when i just want to stop ...

1. Jillian: as much as i want to hate her, i also refuse to let her win. i've been doing her 30 Day Shred dvd, and it kicks my butt. but i'm not going to give up because i don't want to admit that i can't do it. sure, she's in way better shape than i am, but i'm just as tough as jillian. and i'm going to prove by continuing to do her dvd until i toss it aside because it's too easy. who's the loser then, jillian?

2. the groups: talking about health & fitness here and reporting my success/failure to the facebook group are also good motivators for me. yes, i wanted ice cream last night, but i knew i was weighing in this morning and the ice cream didn't sound good enough to blow that. and yes, we're having pizza tonight at the bowling alley, but i will limit my intake because i don't want to regain what i lost this week. because someone's going to hear about it. and talking with my people about it helps keep me focused.

3. stubbornness: i have no problem at all disliking certain parts of my life because they're outside of my control. but i can control my choices. and so i will. i will make healthy choices because it's something i do for myself. i get up & walk in the morning because i like that the first thing i do in the morning is for me. it's not for my boss or the credit card company or even my family & friends. it's for me. it gains me confidence. and if i can boost my own confidence, why wouldn't i?

23. eat pizza in 10 different towns

while eating pizza might not be the best fit for my focus on healthy eating, it did accomplish my goal to eat pizza in 10 different towns/cities. yay!

blc: mid-week 1

my abs hurt when i sneeze.

sure, my quads are sore ... but i expected that. yesterday was my first experience with a jillian michaels dvd. i picked up her 30 Day Shred workout at the red dot on wednesday. on thursday i did the Level 1 workout. jillian likes her lunges ... so the sore quads were no surprise. but when i sneezed and my abs hurt? fabulous! when i came home from work, i popped the dvd in & did it again.

now i want to sneeze just to see if it hurts more. ;)

biggest lower challenge kickoff

i've joined a biggest loser challenge with a handful of my friends and a handful of their friends and a handful of their friends and so on. in all there will be about 30 people involved, and we each are kicking $20 into the pot. at the end of the 14 weeks, the participant who has lost the highest percentage of their beginning weight wins all the money. quick math: 30x20=$600. that's a decent chunk of change.

i got my wii fit set up last night. i'm going to let it keep track of my weight and bmi from week to week. plus i really like that it estimates calories burned. plus i can enter info on exercises i do outside of the wii and it estimates those calories, too. it's a little disheartening that there are 3,500 calories in a pound of fat. but that's okay. i can do this. even if i don't win - the changes will be fabulous.

so here's to 14 weeks of focusing on eating right and making time for exercise. i'll keep you updated on how it goes. :)

26. traveling journal

alright, i'm going to give this a full-fledged attempt. who wants in?

the basic concept: there will be a journal that gets passed from participant to participant. when you get it, you add your contribution and then send it along to the next person on the list. how you contribute is up to you. some people are big on scrapbooking - others are good at doodling - others take photographs ... totally up to you.

topic: this is up for discussion. i like the idea of making it a memory book where each person writes about a memory they have with me. but is that too self-centered? maybe there shouldn't be a topic at all and each person can do absolutely anything they want. but is that TOO open? i don't want people holding onto it for weeks because they can't decide what to do. if we had 26 participants, we could each contribute a letter of the alphabet. the first person gets A and we just move down the line. it would be pretty open - i mean, for A you could talk about apples or anxiety or the first time you flew in airplane. or we could each journal about the day we get the journal in the mail. or ...

i know a few of you said you were interested before. let me know if you still want to do it and hopefully you have a topic idea to suggest, too? :)

10. blog 260 times

done! with these most recent catch-up posts, i have now blogged more than 260 times this year. yay!

it did occur to me that perhaps instead of archiving by calendar year, i should do it by birthdays. that way if you wanted to see everything that relates to my 30th birthday list, you would only have click the v3.0 tag once instead of doing it here in the current calendar year, as well as once in the 2009 archives. but then it occurred to me that probably i'm the only one who does that anyway ... so why mess with it? :)

24. make a muffuletta

i made a muffuletta for our new year's eve gathering. laure's family comes over to my parents' house for the celebration, and we play games and eat all night long. it's a fabulous time. and i figured we'd have enough people to make good use of a muffuletta.


step one: make the olive salad and allow the flavors to meld overnight.


step two: channel out room for the olive salad in the loaf of bread. then pile with salami, ham and provolone cheese.


step three: enjoy!

beaded christmas gifts

i made beaded tree of life gifts for the family this year. these are my prototypes. i originally thought i'd make pendants for the ladies (as on the left), but working that small was hard for me. so i went larger and made ornaments instead (as on the right).


this is my parents' ornament finished. it's about 3" in diameter. holly & wayne's and jonathan & laure's each have different beads, but i forgot to take photos of those. so you'll just have to believe me that they're all similar and unique at the same time. :)


i did make a pendant for alicia. in blue, of course. :) it's about 1.5" in diameter.

post-it note holders

i made these post-it note holders for Christmas. and while i still have a couple that haven't been delivered, the ones pictured above have. so i feel comfortable sharing them. :)

when photos lie

although these photos say otherwise, we had a fabulous time playing games over the Christmas season. :) jonathan & laure made it into town the Monday before Christmas. these photos were taken the night of their arrival.

having jonathan & laure in town invariably means we'll play a lot of games. my family playing games invariably means there will be a lot of laughing. and that is never a bad thing.

cookie exchange

i'm so excited to have gotten this silicone baking mold. i like making toffee, but the clean-lined, symmetrical side of me always wanted to make identical little pieces of toffee. don't get me wrong, the randomly broken up pieces taste just as good ... but how cute are these little squares? i love them. and i was able to get two molds for about $3 thanks to my jo-ann's coupons & a gift card. yay!


the cookie exchange went beautifully. in the center of the plate are liz's s'mores squares, and then (clockwise from lower left) melanie's chocolate chunk cookies, marlana's chocolate chip cheesecake squares, my toffee, april's snowballs, my mom's peppermint thumbprint cookies, lynn's cappuccino flats and holly's christmasy cinnamon doodles. yummy.

big surprise of the day: marlana came! she was able to spend a couple of weeks in the region visiting family, and so we got to spend some time together. after the exchange, she, liz and i went out for dinner and sat around talking for a couple of hours. i feel bad that the restaurant doesn't get a lot of business ... but it worked well for us that we could take the table just to chat for so long. :)

chicago with the girls

okay, so i'm a bit behind on posting photos. i'm working on it. :) these are from the trip liz, joanie, julie and i took downtown last month. it was too chilly to walk around looking at lights, so we drove around instead. i popped open the sunroof as we passed the Chicago Theater, and the light stayed red long enough to get a couple of nice night shots. too bad there wasn't a better show on the board. sure, it's Cirque Du Soleil ... but Banana Shpeel? really?

liz's birthday

well, if liz won't post the photo from her birthday dinner, i will. :) we had a good group of people show up at sanfratello's to celebrate liz's 30th birthday. lots of pizza, lots of laughter ... it was a good night.