30 by 30: June Progress Report

Hard to believe the year is already halfway gone.  Still working away at this and making lots of progress in some areas, not so much in others!



Lots of progress made on this item thanks to two trips back and forth to the east coast!

1.  Something Borrowed by Emily Griffin
2.  Something Blue by Emily Griffin
3.  Pirate Latitudes by Michael Crichton
4.  The Last Song by Nicolas Sparks -- great story, know the movie won't live up to it (even though it was written first!)
5.  Hero at Large by Janet Evanovich  -- cute, fun story that I grabbed at the airport on the way home
6.  The Choice by Nicolas Sparks -- total tearjerker, what a beautiful love story
7.  The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger -- dying to see the movie now, but absolutely no way it will be as good as the book.  Which you should read if you haven't!
8.  Baby Proof by Emily Griffin -- fun, quick read.  Not as good as her first two books.



Lots of papercrafting and traveling the first half of the year... time to catch up.
Completed:

1. Bookmarks
2. Knit hat for Brian
3. Christmas Cards
4. Scarf for my sister's Christmas gift
5. Reorganize Master Closet
6. Reorganize Guest Bedroom closet (including reorganizing all wrapping paper + wrapping supplies)
7. Decorate (and undecorate) house for Christmas
8. Reclaimed Window Mirror (joint project with Brian)
9. January 2010 Project 365
10. February 2010 Project 365
11. Office/Craft Room closet -- gut and remodel (helped Brian with building it out)
12. Reorganize Office/Craft Room closet (once remodel was complete!)
13. Scarf for Nancy
14. Amy's quilt
15. Painting of exterior of house (mostly Brian's project, but I spent a weekend painting out some trim on the front and painting our door into the garage from the backyard)
16. Rearrange living room furniture (doesn't sound like much, but this an evening of hard work with Brian!)
17. 48 Scrapbooking pages and 14 cards completed in 6 months.  (Still a little bit to go to hit my goals of 150 pages and 25 cards!)

Still in progress:
18. Christmas Elf Hat for my new 2nd cousin Gabriel
19. Mini recipe books for Christmas Cookie Exchange party (need to get this done now that it's been six months!)
20. Reclaimed Window Frame (just need to choose pictures)
21. 365 project every month (painfully behind now on this by almost 3 months...)



18/30  More than halfway now.  Brian and I are back on the movie watching train.  Heck, we've even been to the theater twice so far this year!



16/30  Only one in the last three months that I can remember.  Cooked a few times.  Not as often as Brian would like though!  Definitely need to work on this a little more....  Have a few more recipes to share too.



Technically speaking, completed the 5k.  Gotta get to work on training for another before the year is up.  Aiming for breaking that 30 minute mark.... this time I will conquer it!! :)

Are any of you keeping track of goals for the year?  How are you doing as we hit the halfway mark for the year?

Recipe #12: Baked Cheesesteak Spring Rolls

Still working on doing 30 new recipes this year..... 12 down, 18 to go!  These were inspired by something we ate my last night in Pennsylvania at the American Bar & Grill in Lancaster.  We ate nothing but appetizers and wings for dinner... yum!  (I did end up paying for my fall off the food wagon though... I hate to say it but it was totally worth it!)

One of the appetizers we ordered was Cheesesteak Spring Rolls and I could have eaten nothing but that the whole night. YUM.  So of course, I wanted to recreate them in a slightly healthier version for Brian.  This was the tasty result!

Cheesesteak Spring Rolls recipe is here.  I changed it up by slow cooking the beef in the crockpot all afternoon, then baking the springrolls instead of frying them.  I actually bake eggrolls and chimichangas all the time.  To bake, I preheated the oven to 350, spray a baking sheet with cooking spray.  I put all the springrolls on the pan and sprayed them lightly with cooking spray.  Bake about 12-15 minutes or until browned.  We dipped them in ketchup (didn't want the hassle of making a separate sauce, though this one sounds tasty).  YUM!  Give them a try, I bet you'll like them too!

Our Home... Repainted and Ready for Summer!

The big project of repainting the house!  Brian did all the hard work and painted the majority of the house while I was gone... in just three days!  He totally rocked it.  All I had to do when I got home was paint one piece of trim above the garage door blue and the back door of the garage.  What a big impact it made.  So I won't keep you in suspense... here's the before:

All the before discussion is here if you missed it!

And the after...

All bright and happy for the summer now! And from a different angle:

So glad it is done!  Up next?  The front porch....

I'm either going to paint or stain the porch floor the same color as the garage door.  Add some furniture, maybe a hanging plant?  It will be a few months until I get the money and time, but for now, I'm happy with the house being done!  What do you think of our new happy yellow house?

Just Workin....

Hard at work leaves little time to play.  I feel like I'm constantly having to choose what to neglect.... my craft room, my house, my husband, my family, my friends.  There's always just so many things going on and I have no time to choose right now!  So I'm just going with it.  I'll be back around here soon to blog about my fun trip to the east coast, our newly painted house and all the little things in-between.  In the meantime, here are a few random thoughts....

Can't believe he's two!! And that he's going to be a big brother this year!! :)

Details are over on Flamingo Scraps.

While I was here....

....visiting my brother, sister-in-law and these three cute furballs....

Otis (bottom left), Belle (top) and Pepper (bottom right).

....I kept getting sneak peeks at the house like this from my husband....

....who did an amazing job painting our house over Memorial Day Weekend all by himself!  Apparently, the ladybugs ♥ it as much as I do!! (Just waiting for the right time of day and a clear street in front of my house to get the "after" photo!!)

And until I get a chance to update here.... check this blog out!  There are some fabulous crafty projects on there!!