A Monday Roundup

I keep looking through the list of stuff that I have to do, and I'm pretty sure that I need to start saving up a fair bit of money to donate to charity; I'm trying to imagine finishing all of these goals, and it's not easy!

1. I unfortunately had to rip out the last afghan panel (there was a mistake), and so I'm redoing it right now. I'm hoping, though, that it'll be finished this upcoming week! It's an exciting thought.

2. After that, I get to start playing with the yarn bin. I think I may have an idea for a scarf for a friend of mine, who heard me mentioning crochet and was like "make me something -- just kidding". However, I'm totally down to make her something, especially if it helps me use up some stash!

5. I'm pretty sure that there's no way the green cookbook will get finished, even if I copy down all the recipes I have to copy down out of cookbooks. There's just SO many pages (and honestly, some that I'd like to remove out of there, because they don't deserve to be kept forever!).

13. Oh the dish cooking. Sigh. I honestly don't remember what I've cooked recently. November has, so far, been full of a lot of frozen spanakopita -- I've been getting home well after 7 several nights a week, and have to be asleep by 10, which does not leave much time for complex dinners. I think I'm going to have to count this goal as broken, simply because I don't remember having cooked anything new. I tried so hard! I'm still planning to keep track of new dishes from now until the end, though.

21/22. I'm renewing my "be healthy" plan -- it's one of these things that works for a while, then I fall off the bandwagon, then I have to try again.

24. Dentist happened. That was grand.

31. Got more CMV, which means that I have even more to read, oh no! She's too prolific for me to keep up.

34. I've been listening to a ton of 8tracks and Songza recently, so I've heard a TON of new music -- but haven't been listening to it on my computer much. Alas and alack! I'll have to get back to going through some of it. Perhaps I'll get started with that now...

43. I've gotten three new books in the past few months:

108. The Melancholy of Mechagirl, Catherynne Valente
109. The Ocean at the End of the Lane, Neil Gaiman
110. Best American Essays 2013, ed. Cheryl Strayed

As far as previous books go, I've again read one more that I own (I've been digging on library books recently):

• Catherynne Valente, Six-Gun Snow White

So, I've now read six out of 110 books -- leaving me with 104 to read. I'm working on a few right now; I think my goal will be to get it to 95 by the end of the year.

49. Although my road-trip goal has not yet been completed, it is going to be made much easier by the fact that I now have a car. 2003 Hyundai Accent GL by the name of Hugo. Very exciting!

79. Which also gets me 79.

Thursday Roundup!

Wow. So, I have 501 days left; I'm officially halfway through this project. Dear lord, do I have so much to do. :P Luckily, some of these should be of the easy "just do it" variety; I might try to do them sometime in the next week.

In the roundup:

1. I'm currently working on the last afghan panel. With luck, I'll have it done in the next few days -- how exciting that would be! I've been working on this for so long that the idea of finishing it is kind of shocking.

3. I'm considering the "what looks good on me" as genuinely figured out. Like, I know that structure looks good on me; I have to be careful with soft silhouettes; I'm good in dark colors and jewel tones; I know the shapes of pants that look good on me; etc. I'm good for the most part.

24. I also finally made it to the dentist, after much procrastination on re-scheduling my appointment. My teeth are much, much happier now.

30. I've also been calling my parents more recently (so good! I feel so good about it!). It's so good to get to talk to them regularly.

34. As always, my music is always fluctuating; currently at 4301/6441 songs listened to.

43. To my reading list, I must add:

106. Rhiannon Held, Silver
107. Brian Vaughn, Saga: vol 1

Luckily, I have READ some books, so I can cross off:

• 32. Gorey, Amphigorey Also
• 35. Emily Dickinson, Favorite Poems
• 105. E.B. Hudspeth, The Resurrectionist
• 106. Rhiannon Held, Silver

So, I'm back down to 103 books! Go me. -_-

48. I've watched some new movies; there's Pacific Rim, The Wolverine, and Much Ado About Nothing for new letters, and I'm counting From Russia With Love too, though honestly we were treating it as background noise more than anything else.

75. I even managed to make it to a new restaurant in town (Stagnaro's).

80. A very exciting thing: I now officially have a furry pet. I've adopted one of my housemate's cats; it's a long story, but my housemate has three cats and will be moving soon, and can't take all of them. So, the one furry beastie is all mine. She's a wonderful (and evil) creature.

A long overdue roundup (Thursday)

Again, I've not posted in ages, like a bad, bad person. In my defense, I've been travelling like a madwoman---a week and a half with my parents, a week and a half with N., four days in Spain, and now five days here in the UK. It's been quite busy.

A rundown of things (and hopefully a more detailed travelogue will follow):

1. Afghan: My hands are feeling better, but I'm so far from my yarn. ;_; I'm looking forward to getting back to it.

13. New dish: I made a squash soup with sage and thyme while at Nick's. It's not a really new thing for me---I've made squash soup before---but the exact recipe was new, off of Smitten Kitchen. It wasn't my favorite soup I've ever made, but I also forgot the cumin, so perhaps I'll try it again some time.

15. Key interest is still under $3000, at least. I should be getting a big chunk of money some time soon, which I will probably most put towards that, but I'm not counting on it yet.

21/22. Fruits and veggies: I've been kind of average recently---not a great job of keeping track of the noms, but not super horrible, either. I was exercising with C. quite a bit before leaving for this trip, but have been travelling and therefore my only exercise is from walking (which has been not bad at least). The most fun thing about this is that I started a walking challenge at Walker Tracker with a few folks, which has been really fun. I'm 4th out of 15 people, although I suspect several of those people have given up on updating. Still! I'm over the goal I'm trying to meet, which is 7k a day, and that pleases me. I'd love to be able to get it up to 10k, though. I'd feel very nice about that.

25/26. Skin and teeth are going pretty well, though I need to remember to set up an appointment to get my damn wisdom tooth out. :(

29. I've been better about contacting Mum and Dad, though still not perfect.

37/45. Utter fail on language practice and Lang-8. So sad.

40. I've completed my Goodreads for this year already! (Actually, I did this at the end of October. I've been reading like mad this year.)

61/62. I went on a lovely hike over the moors with W. the other day (to be recounted in more detail in a later entry). It was incredibly pleasant. I'd also been biking more, what with trying to bike to school. I'm really hoping to just be more active this year---I feel like utter shite whenever I'm just doing school stuff ALL the time.

84. I AM IN THE UK RIGHT NOW OMG. More later.

91. I've been to enough conferences this year---been to the (Mis)match workshop in Berlin, plus the workshop I just presented at in Spain. And now, for the Annual Meeting in January!

So, things are not looking too terribly desperate right now, although of course I'm freaking out over my dissertation and the job hunt. I'll ignore that now, though, and think of doing Other Things with life. :)

Tuesday (Wednesday) Roundup

I've managed to get some work done in the last day and a half. I finished both a work book and a pleasure book yesterday, and the plan is to get a bit of reading done today, too. This is better than it had been, at least, if not as good as I would like it to be.

Roundup:

1. Added about a foot and a half to one of the afghan panels.

21. Fruits and veggies: Okay this week, though not great. I need to make more effort still.

22. Exercise: I've started again! I've run four times and biked once. The first three runs, I was very good---I didn't run too far, and was careful to take care of my knee, which has a few problems. However, on the last run yesterday, I went with two friends to run on some coastal trails. This was lovely---it was a great run. However, we went for 5 miles, and that was just too far. I now have sore metatarsals. I am currently the picture of "don't overextend yourself when you're starting an exercise program".

24. I went to the dentist. Apparently I am to now go once every three months, not once every six---I guess active saliva glands=insane amounts of tartar buildup, no matter how often you brush your teeth?

25. For skin care, I've been doing good with lotions and pumicing, but also got myself a sunburn, so I guess that's some fail.

26. Still doing better with tooth care. Go me.

28. I've managed to do okay with calling the parents---I've made my goals. ;)

36/44. I've been writing on Lang-8 some this week, which certainly helps both with the Lang-8 goal and the language practice goal. I'm also considering adding a second language to my set, just for the hell of it. I'm just trying to figure out what language to do. I took Spanish in high school, and can still read fairly well, but it doesn't interest me very much. I'm trying to figure out if I want to do Azerbaijani (which I've studied a wee bit), or if I should play with Dutch, French, or Korean.

37. Utter fail at making the bed. Admittedly, it's quite difficult to make the bed when your partner is still in it when you get up.

73. I forgot to mention this in my last spout of talking about new restaurants, but my housemates and I went to Upper Crust Pizza to celebrate one of my housemates' advancing to candidacy. It was excellent to see him level up, and the pizza was quite good (certainly some of the best in town).

Tuesday Roundup

So, here is my first roundup. I'm going to do periodic roundups (typically on Tuesdays, I think) which will let me know what I've made progress with recently---and, in high likelihood, setbacks.

I'm putting all my `regular commitments' on here, as a way to keep myself doing these things. I'm also going to update `someday' goals as they happen. So, to wit:

1. White afghan: Two panels in, first zig done on the third panel.

5. Green cookbook: 50 pages left

7. Three new baking/cooking: Have decided that one will be sourdough.

13. One new dish: April 2012 was Thai slaw, quite tasty.

15. Key interest: Is currently at 3465.

19. Emergency fund: Currently covers three months.

21. Fruits and veggies: week of 22/4/2012, 4/7

22. Exercise: week of 22/4/2012, 2/7 (and not very intense) :(

25. Skin: week of 22/4/2012, 5/7

26. Teeth: week of 22/4/2012, 7/7

28. Parentals: week of 22/4/2012, 4/7!! Go me.

29. CMV: Fairyland, Deathless, The Folded World, Under in the Mere, Inanna, Apocrypha, Music of a Proto-Suicide, the individual poems, the individual stories.

32. Music listening: 3146/6369

36. Foreign language practice: week of 22/4/2012, 4/7

37. Bed made: week of 22/4/2012, 7/7

39. Goodreads: 20/50

41. Books own but not read: Counting this right now is just far too intimidating.

44. Lang-8: week of 22/4/2012, utter fail

Unsurprisingly, I'm doing a lot better with the things that take 2--10 minutes (making the bed, etc.) than I am with the things that take serious time (like cooking and exercising). Baby steps, self, baby steps.