projects progress (update 4)

>Mission: 50x50.

#8-Donate 50 trunkloads of stuff to charity thrift store, etc.
Another bulging trunkful of stuff was carted off to the thrift store this weekend. (We are in big declutter mode here, and this is just the first trunkful of what will hopefully be several to head out this month.)

#14-Drink 50 different beers.

Kirin Ichiban

Coopers Pale Ale











#15-Try 50 new recipes.
Whipped up a little snack the other night--many thumbs up from all around for this one.

Chocolate Snack Cake

1 1/2 cups flour
1 cup sugar
1/3 cup baking cocoa
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup water
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 Tbsp white vinegar
2 tsps vanilla

Combine flour, sugar, cocoa, baking soda, and salt in large bowl.

In separate bowl, whisk together water, vegetable oil, vinegar, and vanilla. Add to dry ingredients and mix just until blended.

Pour into a 8x8" baking pan that has been sprayed with vegetable spray. Bake at 375 degrees for 20-25 minutes (or until a toothpick inserted near center comes out clean).

#16-Bake 50 different kinds of cookies.
Made chocolate chip bars--nothing exciting, but one I hadn't made for this goal yet.

#23-Give 50 "happy something unexpected" gifts.

(My regular model, Maxidoodle, wasn't available, so I got a substitute.)

I made my friend Kara (who is hopefully too busy to be reading boring blog posts because I haven't yet got this in the mail) a farmers market bag. Just because.










#47-Watch 50 different seasons of TV on DVD.

The boys and I finished watching the last few episodes of Kaze No Stigma the other night on Netflix. Ummmm...is it weird to have a crush on an anime character? :P

#48-Find 50 new bands that I like enough to download something by them. (And by "new" I, of course, mean "new-to-me.")

Well, thanks yet again to my dear friend Ana, I get to check another off this goal. This time it was the Mountain Goats that she got me excited about. :D


>Mission: Declutter.

This mission is still moving along fairly well. (Though it will likely lose steam over the next few weeks as I get back to a heavy focus on homeschooling prep--I'm afraid in my mad decluttering frenzy, I've ignored this and used up the small cushion I'd built up.) Anyway, my original plan was to stick with a single room and get it done before moving on. Yeah, that didn't happen. I'm sort of all over the place--but I am staying organized within each room, so it should all work out in the end.

--The library: Weeded out Max's bookcase. I was very impressed with him--he managed to give up quite a few books he's "outgrown." No book in any way involving a cat, however, will ever be outgrown. :P Also weeded out about half of Gray's bookcase (his bookcase is huge). And he's also doing a pretty good job of purging--a few he gave to Max, a few I kept for myself, several were listed on paperbackswap, and many were boxed up to give to the library sale.

--My scrap area: Still making pretty good progress, but it's really hard to quantify. I did box up one decent size box of tools and whatnot to get rid of. And a smaller box of embellishment type things. And so far, one big bag of books.

--Max's bedroom: We also weeded out his bedroom bookcase. He got rid of few books here, but not many (as this is the bookcase where he keeps the books he's currently the most excited about). We also got through his stuffed animals (got rid of a small bag full, but hard to make much progress there because most of the animals he has left are cats). Also got rid of one box of toys.

--The garage: Rich did a bit of work out there. Hauled off some bigger things (like the booster seat Max finally doesn't have to use anymore), along with the bags/boxes of stuff we'd been gathering up.


>Mission: Tackle the TBR Pile.

No progress here because I *still* haven't finished getting my books catalogued on library thing. Thus, I still have no starting point.


>Mission: Sell the House.

I can take no credit for getting anything done on this, but thanks to Rich, I did get to cross something off the list--he took down a tree that was growing up in the middle of a bush. We should have taken it down years ago, but it didn't appear that he had many problems with it anyway.


>Mission: Conquer the Unfinished Craft Projects.

Just the farmers market bag I mentioned above.


>Mission: Recipe Reorganization.

Went through an even dozen cooking magazines, tearing out all the recipes (too many!) that I want to try, before recycling. This is such a time-consuming task. *sigh* But I shall keep plugging along. Only managed to transfer two tried-and-true recipes to cards.


>Mission: Photographic Scavenger Hunt.

Yep, a new project. Because I didn't have enough. :P But this one is purely for fun. My darling friend Chris provided me with a list of 52 prompts. One a week for a year. I completed both last week's and this week's. (I'm posting them on my tumblr, but will keep track of my progress on this blog.)