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?

Back from the Beach!

And just trying to get back into the swing of things.  Today has been a long day adjusting back to working, missing my husband and dealing with kitty issues among other things. 

I haven't downloaded my camera yet, but Sandy took this beautiful picture of the beach!

While traveling back and forth to Florida, I managed to read two books cover to cover!  The Last Song by Nicolas Sparks (total heartbreaker) and Hero at Large by Janet Evanovich (good fun romance and if you haven't read the Stephanie Plum series, you're missing out!).  Bringing my total to 5 out of 30 since I started my 30 by 30 project.  Not as many as I'd like, so I'm working on that.  I'll be back soon with some pictures of the beach and results of my dedicated crafty time.

Thank you a million times over to Tabby and Heather for the blog love!  I wish I had the energy and time to pick only 12 blogs to give the sunshine award to, so to everyone reading this, I love reading your blogs!   You girls made me smile with the love ya left me. So thank you! :)

30 by 30: March Progress Report

So here we are 20+ days past my 30th birthday!  I feel like I am accomplishing a lot, but due to life adding additional challenges, I have not met my full goals quite yet.  Despite not making all these goals by my 30th birthday, I will be continuing to work on this until the end of this year and, I hope, that I will be finished with it much sooner than that!



Three finished now and four in progress.   So far I have completed:

Something Borrowed...
Something Blue... and now
Pirate Latitudes by Michael Crichton (loved it)

Lots of progress made, here's the list so far...
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.... we love it! Pictured above... now I just need to paint those walls.... and we need to build out our living room alcove.... it never ends!)
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!)
Still in progress:
13. Christmas Elf Hat for my new 2nd cousin Gabriel
14. Mini recipe books for Christmas Cookie Exchange party
15. Reclaimed Window Frame (joint project with Brian.... needs glass too, then it will be a frame for pictures)
16. Gift for Nancy (almost done!)
17. 365 project every month



8/30 watched.  Not a big change since Brian and I both have been working on the projects or traveling when not at work.  And with Brian's irregular hours during winter months in recent years, we only watched one movie in two months.  Yikes!



15/30 made.  Half way is not bad considering I only cook on average once or twice a week!  And I'm a creature of habit... I usually make the same things all the time.



Last, but certainly not least.... the 5k.   I'm glad to say that thanks to the help of my good friend Andrea, I did do a 5k and while I was only a few minutes away from breaking 30 minutes, I know I gave that run 150%.  I'm really proud of my finishing time!  And I'm hoping to try again later this year in November with Andrea to finally beat that time once and for all!!

I'll be back in the next week or so to share about our birthday trips -- Disneyland for my birthday and a biking road trip for Brian's birthday.  We have had a great time in the last few weeks traveling on our weekends!

30 by 30: The Davis Stampede 5k

Well my birthday has come and gone.... lots of things were accomplished!  Over the next few weeks I'll be catching up my blog as I get caught up.  May take a little longer as I am now blogging for Flamingo Scraps and I'm working hard at getting some projects done in my craft room!

As far as my 30 by 30 goals are concerned, one of my goals was beat my best time in a 5k and, hopefully, beat the 30 minute mark.  My good friend Andrea saw my goal and jumped in to run it with me.  She was a great cheerleader and I'm glad we got to run the race together.  With her pushing me, I got an official time of 33 minutes and 45 seconds!  My best 5k time and now I know that 30 minutes is within my reach if I actually train to run instead of just working out like I do now. :)

Darn flash on the camera always gets me!

So I guess I didn't officially meet the mark on this goal, but I did complete the 5k and push myself to the edge, so I'm going to happily check this one off and next time I will definitely beat that time on the race clock!

Recipe #11: Tomato Sauce with Onions and Butter

Wow. Who knew it could be so simple and so GOOD?! I have not tried it this way before but this is definitely going in the recipe box. Found the recipe on the smitten kitchen blog. Was not in the mood to cook tonight, but starving and lacking many choices... so it seemed like as good a time as any to try!



I used a can of diced, no salt tomatoes and a can of tomato sauce, both organic of course! Diced the onions and left them in, though next time I will probably follow the recipe and just half the onion and pull it out. Served over some Barilla Piccolini Mini Penne pasta and topped with a little shredded parmesan. Give it a try... I think you'll like it! I know I did....

Recipe #8: Blueberry Oatmeal Pecan Muffins

wrote and forgot to post! oops!!

mmmm.........

Modified from this cookbook.

Blueberry Oatmeal Pecan Muffins

1 1/3 cups bread flour
3/4 rolled oats
1/3 cup sugar
2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1 egg, beaten
3/4 cup milk
1/4 cup cooking oil (I used a blend we have of canola, soy & olive oils)
1 cup blueberries
1/4 cup pecans

Line a muffin tin with muffin liners and heat the oven to 400. Mix all the dry ingredients in one bowl. In a separate bowl, beat the egg, then add the milk and oil. Stir to combine, then mix with the dry ingredients. Add the blueberries and pecans. Stir until just combined. The batter will be really lumpy. Spoon into muffin pan, filling about 2/3 full. Bake at 400 for 20 minutes or until golden brown. Cool in muffin pan on wire rack at least 5 minutes before serving. Makes one dozen muffins.

30 by 30: January Progress Report

So with 49 days left until my birthday, here's the status so far:



Two finished, but 5 in progress. That sounds a little crazy, but trust me, it's totally typical for me! Guess I haven't left my college days of multi-task reading behind me. :) Here are the two books finished so far:



Something Borrowed. And of course I immediately had to read the follow-up! Something Blue (Thanks for letting me borrow them Nancy!)



Lots of progress made, here's the list so far...
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
In progress:
8. Christmas Elf Hat for my new 2nd cousin Gabriel
9. Mini recipe books for Christmas Cookie Exchange party
10. Reclaimed Window Mirror (joint project with Brian.... just need to get the mirror glass!)
11. Reclaimed Window Frame (joint project with Brian.... needs glass too, then it will be a frame for pictures)
12. Gift for Nancy (almost done!)
13. 365 project (take a picture every day of 2010, so far I got this going!)



7/30 watched. Now, if it weren't for the fact that we watched our normal Christmas movies, The Proposal for the second & third times and Maid of Honor & 50 First Dates again we probably would be further along here! Add that to Brian suddenly going back to work crazy hours and we have not had the time to watch them. Hoping to catch up next weekend... if Brian is home!



9/30 made. Again, the holidays kinda killed the chances on attaining more. But I can say I made 8 dozen gingerbread men, 3 batches of shortbread and 4 dozen chocolate cherry peanut blossom kiss cookies, so I feel like I spent a lot of time in the kitchen lately!



And finally, the 5k. Going to run one with Andrea in February. Got back into exercising post-holidays and starting the serious running regiment this week... have about 9 minutes to drop from my time. yikes!

Recipe #9: Leftover Chicken & Rice Casserole

Brian suggested using up leftover rice by adding some cream of mushroom soup, some chicken, some cheese, some tortillas... so here's what I ended up with. Sorry no pic.... late dinner led to inhaling the food before I even thought of my camera!

A+B's Leftover Chicken & Rice Casserole

Leftover rice, about 2-3 cups
Can of Cream of Mushroom Soup
3/4 can of water (use the empty soup can)
Mix in a 8 or 9-quart casserole dish
Add 2 cooked chicken breasts (we use boneless, skinless), cut or shredded into small pieces
Stir to mix.
Add a handful of shredded mozzerella cheese, 2 teaspoons paprika and 1 teaspoon of black pepper.
Stir again.
Top with two tortillas that have been cut into 1/2" squares, then sprinkle another handful or two of mozzerella.
Bake at 350 for 20 minutes.

YUM. Great way to use up leftover rice, tortillas and chicken! Would be excellent with some veggies added (mushrooms, squash).

Recipe #7: Vanilla Spice Oatmeal

YUM. Give this recipe a try! I made this in less than five minutes by taking a scoop of oatmeal, adding some water and microwaving for three minutes in a bowl. I then sprinkled with cinnamon, nutmeg, a splash of vanilla extract, a spoonful of brown sugar, a little milk and a handful of raw pecans. Stir and eat. So tasty!

I skipped posting recipe #6 for biscuits. Had not made this recipe before, but they turned out great! Used butter and instead of Gold Medal Flour, used White Whole Wheat by King Arthur Flour. They went great with our homemade "KFC" dinner of pan fried chicken, mashed potatoes, gravy and steamed broccoli!

Off to take down the Christmas decor and finish cleaning out + reorganizing two of four closets in the house!

Recipe #5: Asian Beef Stirfry

I found this recipe and changed it from skewers to stirfry. I heated a skillet with a little canola oil, added steak that was precut fajita style. Added the onion after a few minutes. While that was cooking mixed up the sauce, then poured it into the pan once the beef was no longer pink. Added a tablespoon of cornstarch to thicken up the sauce, then added some fresh cubes of pineapple. Served it over rice instead of pasta. Yum! Brian and I both liked how hot this one was. Another keeper!

Recipe #4: Chocolate-Peppermint Cookies

These are a definite favorite that will get made frequently. (And no, that is not what my cookies looked like!) Think Girl Scout Thin Mints...yum! So I got the recipe here. I made some definite revisions to the recipe though, so here is my version of the same recipe.

Chocolate-Peppermint Cookies

Ingredients
Makes 6 3 dozen.

1 cup all-purpose flour, plus more for surface
1/2 cup unsweetened Dutch-process cocoa powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 1/2 ounces (5 tablespoons) unsalted butter, softened
3/4 cup sugar
1 large egg
1 large egg yolk
3/4 teaspoon pure peppermint extract
8 large candy canes or 30 peppermint candies or about 15 mini candy canes, crushed
2 pounds white chocolate, coarsely chopped Note: Do not use white chocolate chips, they will not melt down enough!

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Sift flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder, and salt into a bowl. Beat butter and sugar with a mixer on medium-high speed for 1 minute. Reduce speed to medium-low, and add egg, then yolk, beating well after each addition. Beat in peppermint extract. Slowly add flour mixture, and beat until just incorporated. Shape dough into 2 disks rectangles about a 1/2" thick, wrap each in plastic, and refrigerate until firm, at least 1 hour (or up to 2 days).

2. Roll out 1 disk of dough on a lightly floured surface to 1/8-inch thickness. Freeze until firm, about 15 minutes. Using a 2-inch round cutter, cut out circles, and Work with one rectangle at a time (keep the other in the fridge), cut into 1/2" by 1/2" by 1/2" cubes. Working quickly, on a floured surface roll all the cubes in hands to form small balls of dough. Press to 1/8" thick with a flat-bottomed drinking glass. Generously use flour on the bottom of glass, your hands and the dough. It will not show up on the cookies once they are baked. The longer the dough is out of the fridge the stickier it gets, so work quickly! Once you have pressed the balls of cookie dough flat, place 1 inch apart on parchment-lined baking sheets. Roll and cut scraps once. Freeze cookies until firm, about 15 minutes. Repeat with remaining disk. Bake immediately, no need to freeze.

3. Bake until cookies are dry to the touch, about 12 minutes. Transfer parchment, with cookies, to wire racks, and let cool. (Undecorated cookies will keep, covered, for up to 3 days.)

4. Sift crushed candy, and separate larger pieces from dust, reserving both. I didn't do this and they turned out just fine! Melt chocolate in a heatproof bowl set over a pot of gently simmering water. Remove from heat. Dunk cookies into melted chocolate. Using a fork, turn to coat, let excess drip off, and gently scrape bottom against edge of bowl. I ended up spreading the melted chocolate on the top with a knife. I wouldn't recommend using white chocolate chips -- not the same! Next time, I may even just use milk chocolate because it will coat better. Place on parchment-lined baking sheets, and sprinkle 1/4 teaspoon of either candy pieces or dust on top. Repeat, sprinkling half the cookies with pieces and the rest with dust. Refrigerate until set, up to 3 hours. Decorated cookies are best served the same day. Again, I disagree. They tasted great until yesterday, a full 2 days after making! I don't think they would have lasted any longer, but they will taste just as good if you make a day or two ahead of serving or giving them to people!

Definitely adding to the recipe box in our house!

Recipe #3: Baked Chicken Meatballs

So I saw this recipe over on the Smitten Kitchen blog. Hop on over there for the recipe. A little on the salty side to us, but I think that's the pancetta talking. Only change I made was to put a little shredded mozzarella on the top before putting in the oven. Very tasty and definitely going into our recipe box.

Recipe #2: Lime Meltaways

Remember Lemon Coolers? They were this tasty lemon cookie covered in powdered sugar that lived in a green box in the grocery store? Oh how I miss those cookies!

So when I saw the Lime Meltaway recipe in this cookbook:


Martha Stewart's Cookies

I HAD to try it!


You can get the recipe here.

Now we want to make using lemons too. Delicious! :)

Recipe #1: Sweet Fire Chicken

Recently, I tried a new dish at Panda Express -- the Sweet Fire Chicken. YUM. But I knew that it was somewhat unhealthy and probably easily recreated in our kitchen. I was right!


Other than knowing for sure it had pineapple, red bell pepper, onion, chicken and sweet chili sauce, I wanted to make sure I was not missing anything. I turned to google to see if anyone else had created a recipe for it yet. I found this great resource and used this recipe to help me formulate a healthier chicken replacement for the deep fried chicken I know is in the original!

So this is how it all came together:










(Sorry for the less than fabulous picture -- this was taken mid-feast on my phone before we consumed it all!)

Amanda's Sweet Fire Chicken

2-3 boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cut into approx. 1" pieces
1 cup flour
salt & pepper, to taste (we hardly use any salt and add more pepper)
canola oil, just enough to cover the bottom of the pan or PAM cooking spray
1/2 of a red bell pepper, seeded and chopped
1/2 of a small onion, chopped
1 cup fresh pineapple, chopped (could substitute a can of pineapple, drained)
Thai sweet chili sauce (I used about 1/2 cup, but we both would have liked it hotter, so next time I'll probably add more)

Chop and prepare all ingredients before starting. Heat oil in pan on stovetop. Mix flour, salt and pepper in a gallon ziplock bag. Add chicken pieces and coat evenly. Once pan has heated, add the chicken pieces. Throw out the leftover flour mixture. Cook 4-5 minutes, stirring several times to cook chicken. If the pan surface gets dry, spray some additional cooking spray on the surface or add a little bit more oil. Once the chicken has browned, add the bell pepper and onions. Stir in and cook about 3-4 minutes. Add the sweet chili sauce and stir. Then immediately add the pineapple and stir. Allow to cook for 2-3 minutes. Serve over rice immediately.

SO yummy. Definitely adding to our list of regular dinner menu items around here!

30 by 30

On and off for months I’ve thought about doing a 30 before 30 kind of list. Just the fact that I have come back to it so many times has taught me that it is time to just commit to it and go for it! And really, I turn 30 at the end of just 3 months from today, so no better time to start, right?!

Of course, I saw this somewhere. Multiple blogs and websites for sure. But I have no clue where. So rather than look to see what others have done or find what I saw before, I’m going to do my own thing with this: A moving, flexible, adaptable 30 by 30 list. In my mind, I look these lofty lists I’ve seen of backpacking through Europe, Skydiving, reading the BBC top 100 list. Me? I think these are great, but I would much rather focus on the here and now. The things that are staring me right in the face that I want to spend my time on today. That I can accomplish in 3 months.

Aside from that lofty ever growing and changing list of things to do someday, here’s my idea of a 30 by 30 that I want to accomplish by my birthday on February 28th, 2010!

1. Read 30 books by 30. I seriously have a HUGE collection of books I want to read. I even have a stack of loaned books that have been sitting in my living room for over a year now. So that pile of books is where I intend to start.

2. Finish 30 projects by 30. I have a never ending list of projects. The to-do list just seems to grow and never seems to get smaller. Small projects, time consuming projects, annual projects. Even if that list continues to grow I want to finish 30 projects by 30.

3. Watch 30 movies by 30. Our Netflix queue is out of control. Hundreds of movies. Time to catch up a little. We’re on a roll right now and I want to at least get our $'s worth out of Netflix again!

4. Cook 30 new recipes by 30. No other rules here, just to try 30 new things. Anything really. I just want to spend more time cooking and baking. Already have a few in mind!

5. Run 30 by 30. And by 30 I mean a 30 minute 5k. Totally doable, but a commitment to getting back into running 3-5 days a week. I was close to running this time once by a few minutes. I am a better runner now than I was then. I’m mentally tougher now and have endurance now that I didn't then.

So how will this all work? Right now I look at it as three months, 30 items on those four lists and one goal. Just ten a month... ten books, ten recipes, ten movies, ten projects. Check in at least once a week, start building those four lists of items done.

As for the running goal, I will go back to my old program I liked so well, the ten weeks to run a 5k. Want to keep my evening class workouts of aerobics, kickboxing and the occasional boot camp... maybe even toss in the occasional bike ride with my husband, but I think I will be getting up the morning to run again. All I need is my iTunes play lists and some sleep.

So in three months, I hope to look back satisfied and maybe then I’ll write an impossible pie-in-the-sky 40 before 40 list. Old school style. But there won’t be in skydiving on that one! :)

Do you have any lists of things waiting out there for you to do? What helps you stay motivated? Have you finished any of those lists?