Category Archives: Life List

I think I may be doing this wrong…

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It was nearly a year ago when I set out to get more from life by starting my life list and since then I haven’t conquered much.  Most of my goals are fairly difficult or long term, and since I’m a relatively lazy person and have been finding it easiest to check off the small things.  Basically I gained 20lbs in the first few months, since then I lost 10 of them.  Still, my pants haven’t been agreeing with me and my favorite part of the day is pajama bottoms time.  As a part of my quest to get more out of my youth I’ve begun to never say no.  Mostly to trying new things… like food.  I’m really picky and usually stick to a small menu, however, in the last year I’ve tried several things and have also begun chiseling away at two particular list items, trying more fruits and cheeses… mostly the cheeses.  I blame the cheese.  I don’t usually go more than a day or two without it.  I started packing a cheese stick or wheel with my lunches, and if I don’t will normally snack on one sooner or later throughout the day.  I’m an animal.  I think I might have to work on another list item, joining a gym.  Once I noticed the weight I began training for a 5k, another listed dream, but when Terrence and I left for our food driven road trip down south I returned unmotivated and plump.  I can’t seem to get back in the swing of it.  I’m not fat, though I feel it… I’m still squeezing into a 2 dress size but my once tone frame has melted into a very unattractive curd-like thing.  My 27th birthday is approaching and I’m setting the goal, in public, to the 3 people I know for a fact read this nonsense I post.  I will tone up by my birthday, scouts honor.

 

P.S. I know I never posted about our road trip… Did I mention how lazy I am? Soon. Maybe.

1080 Recipes

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I recently wrote a story for my writing class about Terrence and my first Valentine’s Day together, and it got me thinking… “I forgot to post an update about this years Valentine sweetness.”  In case I haven’t made it apparent yet in this blog, I have the most wonderful partner a gal can ask for and I can’t help but tell him just how wonderful he is all the time.  I hope he doesn’t get a swelled head, just in case I’ll be sure to tell him he’s fat, smelly and bad in bed every now and then to throw him off.  That’ll show him.  What was I talking about? OH! Valentine’s Day.  On top of being wonderful, Terrence is also a terrible procrastinator.  Valentine’s Day actually happened in shifts this year and didn’t end until about a week ago.

The gifts rolled out in their own time but were all equally appreciated, ok so some more than others.  The most important of all being a major help to my new goal, my life list.  Terrence has begun to help me in my efforts to cross things off, starting with my first gift, the cook book:

I originally said in my life list post that I wanted to cook all 1,080 recipes from this book… I may have lied.  Seriously though, theirs an entire section on “variety meats”.  I don’t know if I can eat organs.  I’m frightened.  Maybe I’ll try some of them but others are more terrifying than most.  I may be looking forward to a close personal relationship with the butchers at Western Beef, where I always see things like jars full of tongues, bag of intestines and shrink wrapped goat heads. Yum.  Why do I belong to such a creepy culture?  I thought it would be fun to cook the food of my ancestors and all… get in touch with my grandfather’s Spaniard roots.  Think again.  I showed the book to my mother and she reminisced of the weekends spent during her youth eating organs.  She informed me of just how disgusting they were and how she loathed the weekends when her father would cook.  I thanked her for never cooking vegetables or organs and letting me eat fried chicken and McDonald’s as a child.

I’m going to try to take my gag reflex to the limit.  I’ll keep you posted.

Another thing about most of the recipes, they’re really involved.  Cooking with this book is going to be expensive (truffles?!), time consuming (how many hours does that have to rest for?) and a definite learning experience (I have to kill what?). One of the chapters teaches you how to bludgeon an eel to death, skin it and eat it.  I CAN’T WAIT!  My mother also shared stories about helping her dad kill bunnies and chickens in the basement for their weekend dinners, it’s a pity I never met him… we could have had loads of fun.

I’m excited to kill things.  How excited are you?! (Does sarcasm translate in the blogosphere?)

Terrence also helped my life by getting me a huge external drive to toss my photo’s and other such junk on after he watched me struggle with space on my computer.  It is so pretty.  Using my pc has gotten that much more fun since this drive has come into my life.  I’d hug it if I weren’t so afraid the smudging.  It is REALLY pretty.

In keeping with tradition Terrence also cooked me a super tasty dinner and we sat on the couch, stuffed our faces like piggies and watched a movie.  We like to stay in on Valentine’s Day.  We’re not huge fans of crowds or people.  Terrence made me some delicious apple pork chops, salt/pepper/garlic powdered french fries, something green (which I most likely didn’t eat), a simple salad, and tied it all together with some apple juice (to go with the pork chops, of course).

This is what I have to live up to.  Terrence is a fantastic cook and spoils me rotten with food.  I’m hoping with my new cookbook I can one day wow him with my Spanish cooking style and not kill him with MSG (me and sazon go way back).  For dessert Terrence wanted to make his famous red velvet cupcakes (from scratch) but the food coloring didn’t arrive until like a week after.  He finally got around to baking those last week.  He was super-cute and spelled out “I Love Your” on 9 of them.  “I love your” is a running joke in this house.  Downstairs theirs an Asian $0.99 store and everything is terribly translated and hilarious.  A few years back Terrence bought me a candle holder of two hands holding a heart with those words across the heart.  Hilarious and classic.  Unfortunately I forgot to take photo’s of the cupcakes, it’s because I’m a terrible girlfriend.  I should work on that.  Maybe I’ll start by cooking something soon… ish.

The overachiever that resides within.

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Inspired by Maggie Mason’s Mighty Life List I decided to put fingers to keyboard and plot out some goals that I’d like to reach before I meet my maker. I’ve always been a procrastinator and I’m hoping that having my goals listed and in my face will help push me towards actually achieving them. Along the way I’ll be adding more items as they come to me and here’s hoping that I’ll subtract even more.

  • Get my passport. (especially so I can cover it with this)
  • Learn to swim.
  • Take a dance class.
  • Finish college.
  • Visit family in Puerto Rico and Spain.
  • Go on an archeological dig.
  • Join a gym.
  • Run a 5K.
  • Own a bike.
  • Bike the entire 22 mile Cape Cod Rail Trail… and back.
  • Sit in an Irish castle.
  • Master every recipe in this book.
  • Take a road trip along the Mississippi River.
  • Get a lap dance in Montreal, Canada.
  • Row a boat in Central Park.
  • Take 365 photos in 365 Days.
  • Scuba dive in Hawaii.
  • Go apple picking.
  • Make a pie entirely from scratch.
  • Have cheese in Paris.
  • Eat 100 kinds of cheese.
  • Consume over 500 edible fruits.
  • Plant daisies.
  • Get married.
  • Give birth.
  • Be a surrogate for someone.
  • Remember my daily vitamins.
  • Take a portraiture class taught by Amy Arbus at ICP.
  • Own a bedroom set.
  • Make a quilt of all my baby clothes with my mother.
  • Make a documentary about my mother.
  • Be as good of a mom as my mother.
  • Be more active in my community.
  • Find a therapist.
  • Take a crochet or knitting class.
  • Start a business.
  • Have a picnic in Centralia, Pennsylvania.
  • Backpack through Smoky Mountain national park.
  • Take a boat through the ship graveyards around Staten Island and New Jersey.
  • Eat Lobster in Maine.
  • Co-Author a book about Staten Island, NY with Terrence.
  • Have a photo book published.
  • Find a beer I’ll enjoy.
  • Have a drink at Cheers in Boston, Massachusetts.
  • Buy a fancy camera.
  • Be paid to do something I love.
  • Inspire someone.
  • Kiss a girl.
  • Have a 50th birthday party.
  • Ride a horse.
  • Swim with a dolphin.
  • Cage dive with sharks.
  • Visit all 50 States.
  • Build a house.
  • Sing in a band.
  • Draw something better than stairs on an etch-a-sketch.
  • Own a cello.
  • Learn to play the cello.
  • Get braces.
  • Go skydiving.