Done! #62

♡ 62. Go to the top of the Space Needle.

It's cold up there!

Update: #31

♡ 31. Try the recipes I’ve clipped out of magazines. 

Are you like me? Do you clip way too many recipes out of magazines and then stuff them somewhere only to occasionally remember them and think, oh yes, I need to make these and then put them away again and totally forget? You know what I'm talking about? Do you also keep the discarded magazines from your library job with the plan to go through them and tear out what you want? You know, like recipes from old issues of the sadly defunct Gourmet? And then they sit on your desk forever until the day you feel inspired to clean up a little and you get through a couple of issues and put the others aside for another day? And then you forget? Yeah.

A friend offered to trade one of my zines for a pot of butterscotch pudding recently. If only everyone made such offers. Butterscotch is one of those flavors I don't think about and then I have it and am reminded that it's possibly one of my favorite flavors. Mmmm, butterscotch. All that to tell you that I found this recipe for butterscotch pudding in an old Gourmet and, as part of #31, made it this week. It's dangerously simple and delicious! Tastes real--like brown sugar and butter--not artificial.

We also made the steak tacos. Skirt steak with an ancho chili and cocoa rub. It was good, but not mind-blowing enough to go into the keeper file.

Partially Done! #66

♡ 66. Do projects #9, #15 and #26 in Keri Smith’s How to Be an Explorer of the World. 

Activity #15 in Keri Smith's How to Be an Explorer of the World has the reader record everything consumed or purchased in a specific period of time (a day, a week, etc.) How wasteful are we? How much to do we spend on frivolous things? I decided I would record what I purchased during this past work week. 

I'm still not sure what my relationship is with money. I grew up poor, six on one pretty low income, so during my entire childhood and adolescence I very rarely got anything I wanted. Our clothes were either hand-me-downs or from the Salvation Army. Prior to leaving home for college I think I only saw one movie in a theater (and it was a showing of Charlotte's Web that our neighbor took her kids and us to watch). I've become more self-conscious about crying over all the things I didn't get to have as a kid because I can see now, as an adult, that it wasn't a huge deal. Or was it? I think this is definitely one of the things about my life that defines how I view and use money. I am at once very aware of something being a non-necessity, but also wanting to give myself these things because, goddamnit, I earn my own pay now and can.

Admittedly, I started out the week doing well and then it kind of went down hill. Partly as a result of how the schedule changes on Wednesday when I work the evening shift. Partly because sometimes I see something on sale and while I deliberate to a painful degree, sometimes I cave in. And then I feel guilty and ashamed of myself for spending money on crap. I'm glad I didn't do this the previous week when I bought that pair of Fluevog boots (which are awesome, and for which I only have a drop of regret).

Anyway, it's kind of embarrassing, but here's what I spent my money on this week.

Monday, January 14

• Two pairs of knee high socks (one black, one brown): Macy's $15.30 
• One tube of mascara: Sephora $19.35

Tuesday, January 15

• One salted caramel latte: Metropolis $3.49 [It was tasty at first, but too sweet toward the end. This is another thing I do: I buy something and then always manage to feel disappointed.]
• Lunch stuff for E: one cucumber, one honeycrisp apple, one pear; package of small sweet peppers; pack of Newman's Own Ginger-Os; bag of Barbara's Cheese Puffs [holy crap these are good!]; pack of gum (for me): True Nature $19.02

Wednesday, January 16

 

 

• (Lunch) Coffee-braised pork burritos, a slice of pecan pie and coffee: First Slice $14.71
• Slingshot Planner: Women and Children First $6.56 [It was on sale! 50% off!]
• Hippie bracelets (one on sale) and zinc letters: Andersonville Galleria $20.84 [I saw those zinc letters and thought, hmm, we could really use a P and a Z above our front door....]
• CTA card: I think I added $10
• (Dinner) Noodle soup: Wow Bao $4.19
• Coffee: Starbucks $2.15 [In my defense, I was really concerned about its fair trade status, and I asked for a "medium" and not a "grande" when I ordered, but the Starbucks choice really came down to my being too lazy to walk to Intelligentsia. God, I'm an asshole!]
• Pack of Godiva chocolate caramels: Walgreens $5.45 [This is the kind of bad impulse buy I make when I work the evening shift. I ate three of them, and then I felt like crap.]

Thursday, January17

 

• Medium coffee: Intelligentsia $3.25
• Chicago Card: CTA $25.00 [I lost my old card.]
• Large champurrado: Street vendor outside E's school $1.75

Friday, January 18

• Two doughnuts, a burglaur and a coffee: Dinkel's Bakery $8.87 [I went in for just one doughnut and coffee but had no cash on me and they pulled the whole $10 minimum for debit card bull  and rather than do the right thing and just go get cash or something I bought two doughnuts and this egg, bacon, pesto thingamajig. And then I didn't even enjoy any of them. Except for the chocolate doughnut with Bavarian cream which I scarfed down at my desk at work later that afternoon and then felt totally guilty for (a) eating it and (b) eating it so quickly.]
• Added value to my CTA card: $5.00
• One Gala apple and a bottle of probiotics: Whole Foods $23.77
• Medium latte: Intelligentsia $4.00
• Two issues of Uppercase: Anthropologie $21.75 [They were on sale!]

I'm not even going to add up how much I spent this week. On the bright side, I brought my lunch to work three out of five days. Also, am I imagining things, or do I have a lot guilt about money?

Done! #68

♡ 68. Become a member of the National Museum of Mexican Art.

Done! #10

♡ 10. Send mom a bag of Meyer lemons.

While in Miami for the holidays, I discovered that my mom likes to eat lemons. I included a bag of Meyer lemons in her birthday package. No, I did not admit to the postal worker that there was something perishable in the box. Keeping my fingers crossed that they make it to Miami without oozing through the box.

The List

January is probably my least favorite month. It makes me feel down and kind of anxious. Autumn is over. The holidays have passed. It feels like the air has been let out of a balloon. A lot of build-up and then just flatness. I  compiled a list of one hundred things to attempt in 2013 to take my mind off the blahness of January and to prepare for a year of good things after a year of not-so-good. This isn’t a resolution list. What are you wanting to do this year?

♡ 1. Make a red velvet cake. 
♡ 2. Take a dance class at the Old Town School. (Latin Dance 1 in progress) Kind of a bust. I couldn't get with the taking direction thing.
♡ 3. Look into the school library certification requirements (but only look). 
♡ 4. Create a writing space. 
♡ 5. Get glasses adjusted or replaced. 
♡ 6. Make more watercolor postcards. 
♡ 7. Post a picture a day on FB. Somewhere along the way I gave up on this. Who cares, right?
♡ 8. Go to the opera. 
♡ 9. Read only books that I currently have at home or that are received for the Pura Belpre or see #74 (no new library books unless research related). Ohohoho, that's a good one!
♡ 10. Send mom a bag of Meyer lemons. 
♡ 11. Have a cocktail at Uncommon Ground. 1/20: I had to revise this one because the Sophia Loren is no longer on the menu. Apparently, they switch up the drinks every couple of weeks. 11/15 Had a mochatini: creme de cacao, gin, and I can't remember what else but here were coffee beans floating on top. Boozy coffee drink. Eh.
♡ 12. Establish a monthly date night with BZ. [1/19: "Lincoln"and a late dinner at Uncommon Ground; 2/1 Yo La Tengo at the Vic--we went with a friend, but it was kind of a date since there was no child involved!]
♡ 13. Make shadow puppets. 
♡ 14. Finish a draft of my book. (in progress)
♡ 15. Tattoos with Jenna! 
♡ 16. Write up the books I read this year. (in progress) NOPE.
♡ 17. Have a Halloween party. Didn't happen. I did, however, serve as a parent volunteer when E's class had their Halloween party! I had to come up with an activity for them to do. We made sugar skull masks. Sequins EVERYWHERE!
♡ 18. Let my hair down--literally and figuratively. 
♡ 19. Record mom talking about her life. 
♡ 20. Speak Spanish with E. 
♡ 21. Buy new underwear. 
♡ 22. Bake an apple pie and a pecan pie.
♡ 23. Learn to drive or swim.
♡ 24. Complete at least one zine. 
♡ 25. Catch up with ordering photos. 
♡ 26. Go to the Chicago Cultural Center and read in the big reading room.  Technically, I did not read. I worked on my zine.
♡ 27. Do something with my seashells and glass. 
♡ 28. Bake bread again. My first attempt at baking bread again resulted in a foul smelling "mother." You haven't seen the end of me!
♡ 29. Celebrate NYE with B and E--noisemakers and all. 
♡ 30. Learn to crochet. 
♡ 31. Try the recipes I’ve clipped out of magazines. (ongoing)
♡ 32. Add more color to my life / environment. (ongoing)
♡ 33. Start an art journal. 
♡ 34. Take the Empire Builder west. 
♡ 35. Write thank you notes. 
♡ 36. Show more love and compassion toward myself and others. 
♡ 37. Weed books at home. 
♡ 38. Wear red lipstick. 
♡ 39. Get a new winter coat. 
♡ 40. Volunteer with E. 
♡ 41. Write two blog posts per month. 
♡ 42. Create an internet schedule to cut back on time wasted online (and yet, here I am, creating a blog....) 
♡ 43. Get frames for prints and hang all the new art I got for Christmas. Some of it is up.
♡ 44. Go to the movies with Karen.  (3/2 "Beautiful Creatures;" 11/30 "Catching Fire")
♡ 45. Go to the Art Institute and the Field Museum. 
♡ 46. Read Treasure Island. (in progress) It got kind of boring after the first few chapters. I will give it another shot next year.
♡ 47. Write for 30 minutes every day. 
♡ 48. Make birthday cascarones for E. 
♡ 49. Get rid of clutter! 
♡ 50. Wear something leopard print. 
♡ 51. Take Doc Martens to a shoe repair place to see if they can be fixed up. Took them to the Doc Marten story and got new insoles and waterproofing cream and new laces so they're practically good as new except worn in.
♡ 52. Watch “Hecho en Mexico,” “Lincoln,” (1/19) “Hitchcock,” Ken Burns’ Dust Bowl documentary (12/2013), and “Twin Peaks” (again) [pilot 2/15]. 
♡ 53. Discover one new musician / band. (Best Coast; Waxahatchee; Mati Zundel; Las Cafeteras; A Tribe Called Red; Lemuria)
♡ 54. Read the Mexican Vogue special issue on Frida Kahlo in Spanish. 
♡ 55. Listen to twelve episodes of “This American Life.” (1/16 Doppelgangers; 1/30 surrogates; 2/11 Kid Logic; 2/12 Valentine's Day 2013; 2/16 Little War on the Prairie; 2/19 Frenemies; 2/20 See No Evil; 3/23 No Coincidence, No Story; The Seven Things You're Not Supposed to Talk About; It Says So Right Here; How I Got Into College; Use Only As Directed) I listened to more than twelve, but that was easy.
♡ 56. Go to Dance Dance Party Party. 
♡ 57. Go dancing at Mary’s Attic. 
♡ 58. Take E to Gainesville. 
♡ 59. Make two issues of “roots & wings.” 
♡ 60. Redo the kitchen. 
♡ 61. Make tamales. 
♡ 62. Go to the top of the Space Needle. 
♡ 63. Go to Oaxaca. 
♡ 64. Submit writing for publication / enter a writing contest. 
♡ 65. Make that calendula skin balm already. 
♡ 66. Do projects #9, #15 (here)and #26 in Keri Smith’s How to Be an Explorer of the World. 
♡ 67. Do a cleanse. 
♡ 68. Become a member of the National Museum of Mexican Art. 
♡ 69. Make a mix CD. 
♡ 70. Wear my Doc Martens on my 41st birthday (their 20th anniversary). 
♡ 71. See live music at least once.  Yo La Tengo; Carla Molina; My Bloody Valentine; Superchunk (Hideout Block Party); Las Cafeteras
♡ 72. Work out at the Broadway Armory during the free week in January. 
♡ 73. Go to Hot Doug’s.  5/15/2013 I had the celebrity offering. I've already forgotten who it was named after. Eh. It was not all that. I should've gotten the plain old Elvis as I'd planned.
♡ 74. Read all the Pura Belpré winners. 
♡ 75. Make maki rolls with E. 
♡ 76. Play kickball. 
♡ 77. Write more letters (inspired by the Parcel Ghost!) 
♡ 78. Go to the Lunch Break music series at the Chicago Cultural Center. 
♡ 79. Take a tour of the Chicago Cultural Center. 
♡ 80. Light a candle on the feast day of the Virgen de Guadalupe. 
♡ 81. Make lanterns. 
♡ 82. Do a lantern walk for the winter solstice. 
♡ 83. Make hanky panks a la Pop Z for the Super Bowl. 
♡ 84. Attempt to meditate. 
♡ 85. Make poached eggs. 
♡ 86. Have birthday dinner at Frontera Grill. 
♡ 87. Take another stab at growing a pumpkin. I did, but then neglected the poor thing. I am a horrible gardener.
♡ 88. Do more crossword puzzles. 
♡ 89. Do something with bottle caps. 
♡ 90. Try a new food.  Chapulines (grasshoppers) in Oaxaca!
♡ 91. Send surprise mail. 
♡ 92. Explore Miami with Gina. 
♡ 93. Get a sandwich at la lechonera. 
♡ 94. Dress up. 
♡ 95. Read and watch East of Eden. 
♡ 96. Pushups!
♡ 97. Try all the fare offered by the street vendor that sets up shop outside of E's school.
♡ 98. Read the entire Love and Rockets (or as much as I can get my hand on). Realistically, not something I will likely do (or even get to) this year, but a roll over to 2014.
♡ 99. Do some guerrilla art projects. 
♡ 100. Writer's retreat. Alone.