Feeling all accomplishy.

Yeah, turns out that folding a fitted sheet is super easy.  I recommend this video, if you want to learn. #51 on my list, check.
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#53 was learn more about world geography, until I changed it to learn all the world's countries because that's actually what I want to do. Europe and Asia - check. I've been taking quizzes that I'm pretty sure are meant for kids in elementary school. 

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#79 is to complete 10 of the 52 projects. This weekend I finished Project 50:

"Go to the library. Find your favorite writer’s books. Then, see which writer comes next on the shelf. Someone you’ve never heard of before? Good. Check out the works of this newly discovered writer and start reading."

My favorite author is Anita Shreve. The next author after her was Porter Shreve. I brought home one of his books and read it in 2 sittings.

Also - the Berkeley library has self checkout, like it's a grocery store. Weird.

Progress Report: 8 Things Down

A little while ago, my mom asked me how I was doing on my list. And I felt like I had been doing OK, crossing some items off completely, and making some progress on others. But when I checked to see how many days I have left, I may or may not have freaked out. At that point, I should have had 16 items checked off (strictly going by 1 thing accomplished every 10 days) but I only had 6. And now, probably even more 'behind.' But, since it's my list, I'm going to stop freaking out about it and just keep plugging away.

Done!
#11 - Berry picking. It was hot.
#28 - Always take off my makeup before bed. Yep, I get back out of bed if I get in bed without doing it. That counts as done.
#34 - Transition from plastic to other materials in the kitchen - Done, and I'm so happy with it all. I thought it would be weird to use all glass storage because they're so heavy, but it feels totally natural now.
#80 - Find my professional organization home - Yes! I'm actually, finally, really getting involved with an association that I like. I went to a conference earlier this summer and had a bit of a revelation that this group was just my size. Because I'm a classic over achiever, I'm already on two different committees.
#97 - Dolores Heights stair walk. Reliving it makes me tired.

In Progress
#7 - Go to New Orleans for Mardi Gras - planning has now stalled. I'm lazy.
#12 - Plan a trip with friends - Orlando. Space Shuttle Launch. We'll see.
#42 - Bake 5 new kinds of cupcakes - 1 down, I made the Chocolate Cupcakes with Chocolate Chambord Frosting. They were OK. Am taking suggestions for new recipes (no cream cheese frosting though).
#43 - Taste 50 things on the Big Eat lists - This is a most enjoyable goal. 30 items down, some new favorite foods discovered. (Secret Breakfast ice cream - vanilla ice cream with Jim Beam and cornflakes. wow.)
#46 - Learn to play chess - I have 1 game left to play! This has taken forever, I know, but I've found that I have to have a certain motivation to spend an hour racking my brain to play a game and then still get my ass handed to me by Dan. It doesn't come often. 

The thing we work the most on is #39 - Finish cooking our way through our seasonal cookbook. We make recipes from this one cookbook at least 2-3, usually 4, times a week. Since we've joined the CSA, we definitely have more reason to cook with vegetables, so that has really been helping. And honestly, I feel like we're learning how to really cook as we follow all the recipes, which is a nice skill to learn together. (cue: awwwwwwwwwwwwww).  But, even though this is one of my goals we focus on the most - we've only made 108 out of 308 recipes. So, this won't be checked off for awhile.

I'm curious what you all are working on as personal goals, regardless if you have any sort of list or not. Tell me, and I'll make them into a fun "let's celebrate each other's accomplishments" post next time around.

For starters, check out Ro's ultimate purse. 

Go berry picking (#11)

Everytime we go pick up our CSA box, we get a newsletter along with it. It tells us what is in our box for that week, what the vegetables are, how to store them, and some recipes for how to use them (which has been handy). The second time we picked up our load of veggies, our newsletter had a little headline "Don't forget to sign up for strawberry days!" Turns out, the farm plants twice as many strawberries each year as they predict they will need for the CSA boxes and then opens the farm up to visitors four days a year so we can come pick our own berries.

So, we of course signed up and found ourselves driving up to the farm one lovely sunny Saturday afternoon. We found the farm, drove around and couldn't find a living soul to figure out where the strawberries were. Because we weren't supposed to be there until Sunday. Awesome. We wrapped up Saturday with some outlet shopping and a trip to Costco.

Anyway, on Sunday, we went back to the farm, slathered on some sunscreen and joined about a hundred other folks who were also out picking. Lots and lots of kids, which I can't imagine trying to wrangle and explain the art of strawberry picking to. Strawberries grow close to the ground, the plants probably only grow  about 10 inches, and the berries often lay directly on the ground - there is a lot of reaching and bending involved. Even so, Dan and I persevered and picked about 5.5 pounds of berries to take home with us. We just finished cutting them all up for dessert tonight and we picked them almost 2 weeks ago. I'm super impressed with how long they've kept in our fridge.

It's also sort of boggling my mind how achieving one goal (CSA) directly led to another one being achieved as well. Hopefully this sort of karma continues. There clearly has to be something to the theory that if you make your goals/dreams known, then others will somehow help you achieve them.

That being said, is there anything on my list that you also want to do? Let's make that happen. Or, is there anything you want to do that I can help with? Let's make that happen too.

Transition from plastic to other materials in the kitchen (#34)

We have been making a big effort to transition our entire kitchen from plastic to mostly stainless steel and glass. It took awhile to complete it because every time I thought we were done, we noticed something else was plastic. First we replaced all our mixing bowls and storage containers with Pyrex bowls and food storage. Then, duh, our colanders were plastic and...oops, plastic mixing spoons and spatulas. And, oh hell, our cutting board. Then, shopping trip to replace them with pretty wooden spoons, recycled paper cutting board, and metal colander. And...maybe some other things.

The hardest thing to find were measuring cups that weren't total pieces of crap. We have metal measuring spoons, and glass measuring cups for liquids. But measuring cups continued to elude us. It was really difficult to find options that weren't really flimsy. We found to be any sort of substantial, they had to be one piece of metal instead of cups with the handles fused on separately. And...most of those sets were $40 or more (Paula Deen's were $70). Um....for measuring cups? How about...no? But, when I was looking on a friend's wedding registry, I noticed a $20 set that was exactly what I was looking for, score.

We do still have some plastic items, for specific purposes. We're looking for a non-plastic ladle that holds a decent amount and isn't ridiculously expensive. We kept a silicone spatula to use on our non stick pans, because you can't use metal on them. Also, ice cube trays. Where the hell do you find non-plastic ice cube trays?

Anyway, I'm counting this goal complete because all the things I really wanted to find have been replaced. A lot of people have asked me why this was a goal in the first place. I'm not going to write a long winded report about studies and everything, but the more I read about plastic and chemicals leeching into our food, the more I just didn't want to chance it. Some plastics were safe a few years ago, and now are known to be harmful. Maybe the same thing will happen with metal or glass, but getting rid of plastic is a step I'm taking for now.

The measuring cups in action:

Join a CSA (#31)

CSA stands for Community Supported Agriculture. Basically, you pay a farm directly, and every so often you get a box of whatever fruits and vegetables they grow on their farm delivered to you. I'd been wanting to do this for awhile, because I love the idea of the people who grow the crop actually getting paid for it directly, rather than selling it for less than what it is worth to large companies, who sell it to grocery stores, who sell it to you. Also, cuts way down on the amount the food has to travel before it gets to you. This way it gets picked, and delivered...that's all.

The CSA we chose has a pretty wide distribution in the Bay Area and they have the option of pasture raised eggs, which I'm pretty excited about. The picture shows everything we got in our box last week. We get a box every other week because it is actually a LOT of food in there.

If you click on the picture to make it larger, you can see: swiss chard (leafy green with bright red stems), radishes (small, purple and white), onions (huge and purple), a bundle of fresh rosemary, fava beans (right in the middle, they look like huge pea pods), carrots, a bag of fresh baby spinach, asparagus, green onions, strawberries, sweet potatoes and the eggs. The paper bag on the left side has dried peaches in it.

We've picked up two boxes so far, and we're pretty happy with it. It does take some adjusting to, and it does help if you've been comfortable making dishes that rely on vegetables, which we'd gotten used to. But now, we get our box and then have to plan our recipes and go to the farmer's market to pick up anything else we want/need. Also - this is all fresh picked, harvested. That bag of spinach still had dirt and mud, so it is a little bit more time intensive to clean/prepare, but we enjoy it.

I'm not sure we'll stick with this specific farm (we have two more boxes to go on our trial run) but I think the CSA idea may stick. Either way, goal complete.

Progress Report

Happy Birthday Missy! :) 

Congratulations to Meghan and Jess on being gainfully employed! I'm so happy for both of you :)

Before my dad sends me another entry about his visit here, I just wanted to say that for maybe two days after finishing my 100 things list, I was a bit overwhelmed. But, since then, I've pulled myself together and some items are being knocked off my list, and others have been started, although I still have a long way to go.

One of the other blogs I read posts an update to her life list every Friday, and she's mentioned it helps keep her accountable to keep working on her goals, and also that it helps her feel supported.

I don't know about all that weekly update business, but I'll try to occasionally.

Monthly stuff
#10 - Go somewhere new and local once a month - haven't missed it yet. that's right, I'm 100% for 2 months in a row!
#78 - Write a letter to someone every month. This one actually started in April, so I'm doing awesome so far.

In Progress
#7 - Go to New Orleans for Mardi Gras - planning has definitely begun!
#12 - Plan a trip with friends - Mardi Gras will be double counting it seems.
#18 - Figure out when it's necessary to make a will - Yes, it seems that it is in fact necessary, especially as Dan and I live together but are not married or partners in the eyes of the government
#34 - Transition from plastic to other materials in the kitchen - almost there with this one. Just have to get rid of some of our plastics, but we have replacements for them.
#46 - Learn to play chess - I have learned how, but I'm waiting to play 5 complete games with Dan before I count this as complete. We're currently 1.5 games in, played the first one with my dad!

The big news of today is that we have joined a CSA (#31). We picked up our first box today but I'll write more about that later.

See, writing that all down definitely feels like progress.

City Walk: Presidio (#88)

If you look up the Golden Gate Bridge on GoogleMaps, directly to the south, there's a big green area - that's the Presidio. It's 1490 acres - much of which is just open space. It used to be a US military post, as recently as 1994. Congress wrote a law stipulating that if it wasn't needed by the Army, it would be maintained by the Park Service and become part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. So, here we are. This walk only covers a tiny part of the Presidio, specifically in an area called Fort Scott, named after a general.

We walked by the parade grounds, and all the old barracks which are being updated to be leased out as housing. We walked by the pits where the artillery used to test dynamite, the Brig and the officers Rec Hall. We peeked through windows of other abandoned, decrepit buildings. We explored the old batteries where cannons used to protect the California coast line. It's a bit creepy - an entire civilization completely abandoned and just allowed to run down. Except that on the parade ground were people out for runs, walking their dogs and a little league baseball game. Strange juxtaposition.

It is one of the only places in the city I've visited where you get pictures from "behind" the bridge, and this is the only spot to get them so close. From here, you can see how the bridge actually has a bit of a rise in it that you don't notice from far away, or when you're on it.

This is the pit where they used to blow things up. We couldn't get inside of it, and Dan was sad.

This is one of the buildings that has recently been renovated, you can tell from the non moldy paint on the exterior. I couldn't get over the fact that they installed the chest high phallic looking artillery shells on either side of the entrance. For serious?

We completely missed this cemetery when we drove in, but had to stop and take pictures once we finally noticed it. Clearly, the similarities to Arlington Cemetery are obvious, but this is much more secluded.

Walk Stats:1.8 miles, 70 minutes

Coming next: My dad as a guest blogger!

City walk: McLaren Park and Excelsior (#99)

Ugh, that last post about the brewery tour would have been so much better had I written it when I actually remembered something - apologies. Hardly my best work.

While Dan and I have a car this month, we've been trying to get to different places in the city that would take a wee bit longer on public transit. So, we decided to do the city walks that were furthest from our apartments. This walk mostly takes place in the second largest park in the city, McLaren Park, which we had never heard of, so it was nice to explore a completely new area. The park was named for John McLaren, who was the chief gardener at Golden Gate Park for 60 years. I think that is a lovely gesture.

The walk took us through a bunch of groves, play areas, a couple different lakes, and other nature type things. At one of the lakes, Dan took approximately 47 pictures of ducks, which I have not included here, I know you're disappointed.

Other things we encountered:

Statues meant for children that also sort of look like they were made by children.

This woman with her 7 or 8 black lab puppies who were all not on leashes but all ridiculously well behaved who sort of adopted the bull terrier (the one that doesn't look like the others) and then the terrier would. not. go. back. to his owner. It was sort of heartbreaking to watch him have to leave his newly found gang.

The Jerry Garcia amphitheater. Underwhelming, don't you think?

This dog hanging out of his house window, just chillin, watching people go by.

Steep, steep stairs. Can't really tell from this picture, but remembering makes my calves hurt.

Walk stats - 2.3 miles, 1.5 hours