So During the Last Year...

I have been horrible at this.


2. Try 12 new-to-me restaurants
Distrito; Saigon Harbor; Percy Street Barbecue; Kaya's.


3. Find out about three interesting foods, seek them out, and try them.
Went to North Carolina to try their version of barbecue. Good stuff!


40. Sort scrapbook supplies and donate the things I don’t use, preferably to people who do therapeutic scrapbooking with MR kids
In the great craft room clean-up, I went through many, many crafting supplies (including the scrapbooks). The organizer I worked with took the supplies and donated them. When she came back, she told me that she had given them to an organization that worked with adults with intellectual disabilities. Serendipity!

50. Finish current WIP—Tree of Life Window
I finished! It is framed and waiting for my MIL to take it to my SIL for their new home!

70. Complete catalog of books
Done!


72. Organize craft room
DONE! I'm not sure that anything I've done has made me happier. My whole house feels cleaner! Now my craft room is a place I can work. I can find all sorts of things in there. It's remarkable.


75. Host three dinner parties 
I threw a fun little party for a friend's birthday last month: white chicken enchiladas, guacamole salad, and margarita cupcakes. Ole!


78. Host five game nights
Just before Christmas we had a couple of friends around for Apples to Apples. It was fun. 


79. Go OUT on a date once a month with the dude (13/33)
We went out to the National Acrobats of China, to the orchestra, and to see Aimee Mann. I'm sure we've gone a few other places, but I seem not to have kept track. 


95. Watch an Eagles game at Lincoln Field
We got a couple of free tickets to a preseason game. What fun! I love the Eagles' little touchdown song; it's so thoroughly dorky. "Fly, Eagles, Fly. On The Road To Victory/Fight Eagles Fight, Score A Touchdown 1-2-3/ Hit 'Em Low/ Hit 'Em High/ And Watch Our Eagles Fly/Fly Eagles Fly, On The Road To Victory/ E-A-G-L-E-S, EAGLES!"


101. Post updates about this list once per month
Well, this hasn't gone so well!

Overdue Update II

Last year I set out to make all of my Christmas presents and ended up making 20 out of 24 which I declared a happy success. This year, that goal was not on the list, but it was on my mind. This year I got up to 22 out of 25 (my sister got engaged). Unfortunately, all that productivity left me with less time to focus on this project.

My attention has returned.


2. Try 12 new-to-me restaurants --I read about a Szechuan restaurant in Philly that hosted a monthly banquet of 20 courses for $25. We went--once for the banquet and once where we ate off the regular menu. Fabulous! I've got to take my dad here when he visits.
20. Watch Roger Ebert’s 102 Films to See before you die (list below) --the other day I got all my errands and chores finished early and decided to watch Duck Soup. You know what, there's a reason I haven't seen a lot of these movies! It was so tedious. Yes, yes, there's clever word play. But I'm much more a screwball than a slapstick kind of girl.
23. Trace my ancestry back to the old country (not Canada). I've been working on this slowly but surely. Here's the surprising thing--it looks like two of the three French Canadian branches on my family tree have been in Canada since the 1600s. I really didn't think I was going to have to go back so far! I'm down to one branch left--and it is replete with Josephs. During a certain period in Canada, French Catholics were all named Joseph and Mary (Marie), which wreaks havoc on the research!
71. Purge five things from every room in the house on (each) November 22, National Declutter Day (1/3) Sadly, I did not do this. I was reading Peter Walsh's book It's All Too Much and was gung-ho about decluttering and then I think it all got lost in holiday preparation. However, the dude and I have been discussing the state of our basement, and it looks like we will work on that soon. We are planning to participate in the neighborhood yard sale in late April, and this will give us an opportunity to purge.
77. Write a note to my grandmothers each month. I made Halloween cards, wrote birthday thank you notes in November (a little late), sent Christmas cards, and thank you notes in January. I've made them valentines too. So far, so good!
79. Go OUT on a date once a month with the dude. We have not been keeping up with this.
100. Talk to my mother on the phone—or in person—weekly. I've definitely spoken to her a time or two in the past months! :)
101. Post updates about this list once per month. When you fall down, you just have to keep getting up.

September Review

The big news for this month is we have completed No. 96--pay off second mortgage! It's so exciting to think that even while I've been unemployed, we've been able to keep up with our obligations. I guess that's what comes from living within your means. (Well, if we did that truly, we wouldn't have had a second, but whatever.) So happy.


The other day our neighbor was on the roof helping us fix a leak and while he was up there, he completed No. 32-- take the antenna off the roof. Forever more I will remember the celebration of paying off the second mortgage as taking the antenna off the roof, after nearly five years(!) in this house.


I also completed No. 44--finish current WIP—Scared Silly. You can see it here, as soon as I photograph it and blog it. As for the more regular undertakings:

• 22. Take a cookbook out of the library every other month and make dishes from each--nope.
• 77. Write a note to my grandmothers each month--sigh, I'm bad.
• 79. Go OUT on a date once a month with the dude--yup we went to see a play on September 18th.
• 86. Try to be more positive-- At the end of each day, take five minutes to write down in a journal every good thing I did or experienced that day--I did start back up but fell off the wagon again just as quickly.
• 100. Talk to my mother on the phone—or in person—weekly--yes
• 101. Post updates about this list once per month--yes.

August Round-up

At first I worried that I hadn't managed a thing this month. Even though the local art house was playing two of the Kurosawa films I needed to see, we managed to miss them both. I didn't write to my grandmothers, though I did see one of them in the flesh.

I am pleased to present #49: Finish current WIP—folk art thread keep

I've also made significant progress on #50: Finish current WIP—Tree of Life Window. I'm pretty sure that will be done this month.

Also, since Sissy is getting married next May, I've gone back to Weight Watchers. I won't bore you with the details, but we might see the ticker start to move. And we shall make progress on the five fruits and vegetables.

July Update

20. Watch Roger Ebert’s 102 Films to See Before You Die
This month I saw two films on Ebert's list, The Day the Earth Stood Still and The Third Man. I have to step up the pace a little on this one--I have 19 months left and 63 left to see. I should be watching more than three a month, but not as many as four. Of course, I should also be reading two and a half Pulitzer winners a month, and right now I am in the middle of two (Gilead and March); which means I've still only read one.

2. Try 12 new-to-me restaurants
On Thursday, I met a friend for lunch in the city and we went to Bobby Flay's new restaurant, Bobby's Burger Palace. I had the Santa Fe burger with queso sauce, jalapenos, and corn chips. My friend had the Burger of the Month--arugula, basil ketchup, parmesan, and mozzarella. We split the sweet potato fries, which were outstanding. Next time, though, I am getting a plain cheeseburger because they make their own ketchup and other sauces, and I'd like to try some of those on an unadulterated burger. That brings me to seven. She and I also talked about going to the Han Dynasty special banquet, but they only do it once a month and the next time we can make it is October...

63. Make a piece of jewelry with the beads I bought two years ago in Oklahoma
I bought some beads to string with them, and I am working on the design.

77. Write a note to my grandmothers each month

I made little cards to send to my grandmothers--cute with flip flops and life preservers.

102 63 To See

Last night the dude and I went on a date to see The Third Man. Carol Reed's film was another on Roger Ebert's list that I had never seen...even though we own it, and it is one of the dude's favorites. (And yes, we paid $20 to see a movie we own. Big screen, people, makes so much difference.)

I think I could whiz my way through Ebert's list if all the movies were shown on the big screen, but even more if they were all this good. I can't believe I've never seen this, labeled a noir classic, without some of the elements that make noir noir. Though there's long shadows and hopelessness a plenty. And let's face it, there weren't many meaner streets than Austria after the war.

I can't believe that the dude told me how important the zither music was--Ebert asks, "Has there ever been a film where the music more perfectly suited the action than in Carol Reed's The Third Man?" And not only did I forget that, I have to admit, I found the jangle of the zither annoying. Does that mean I don't get into film school?

20

I've rearranged--or arranged--my days in order to get more stuff on this list done. In the afternoons, for a while anyway, I'll be spending time watching Roger Ebert's 102 Movies You Must See Before You Die*.

Today I watched Robert Wise's (1951) The Day the Earth Stood Still. About an hour into the movie, I thought to myself, "why is this on the list?" So I revisited the list, and here's what Ebert had to say about creating it, "These are the movies I just kind of figure everybody ought to have seen in order to have any sort of informed discussion about movies." That makes sense. These aren't great movies, but the kind of iconic movies that give us the sort of scenes that show up in genre films or don't, depending on what the director is aiming for. They're the kind of movies my students always hated because instead of seeing them as pioneering, they thought they were derivative. I love how backwards the young can see things.

I'm not much of a sci/fi person. But still I took away two things. Peace is good. (Give up the arms race!) (It was the Cold War.) And self-promotion at the expense of the entire world is bad. (No communism, but unfettered capitalism isn't all that great either, I guess.)

Helen: What about the rest of the world?
Tom, her fiance: I don't care about the rest of the world!
[Seeing her shocked expression]
Tom: You'll feel different when you read about me in the papers.
Helen: I feel different now.

* Or go to film school, either one.