24 in 24 -- Rolling Over

Wasn't on the list, but I did walk through the City of Berkeley (IL not CA) holiday lights display.  NTB.

Below are the 24 in 24 tasks that I really meant to do, really wanted to do, and just didn't.  They will be rolling over to my 25 in 25 list -- coming soon to a neglected blog near you.

What do the items below have in common?  They all would require me to leave my house. 

2.  Walk the Steps at Swallow Cliff.  I heard about these when my son was preparing to go on a scout high adventure trip at Rocky Mountain National Park.  Some scouts walk these steps with their packs on for practice.  My son never did, but I have been meaning to visit the Steps at Swallow Cliff for over five years now.  

Rolling it over.

5.  Take my family to a Brazilian steakhouse.  I mostly just want to watch my boys react to endless offerings of animal protein.  

Hmmmm, I am not sure I actually want to roll this one over to 2025.  

6.  Take a walk at Lake Ellyn.  Twenty minutes away, and I've never seen this lake.  Actually, had never even heard of it until a dogsitter told me how much my dog enjoyed walking there.  My dog is not an enthusiastic walker so I gotta check this place out.

Rolling it over.

21.  Visit the Art Institute of Chicago.  I have not been there since my freshman year of college.  What?!  I took a screenshot of the "free days" as motivation, but it wouldn't kill me to pay either.  I'd love to get one of my kids to go with me, but it may be a tough sell.  

I became a member so I really, really have to get there.  

22.  Visit the National Museum and Shrine of St. Therese in Darien.   There is daily mass there at 11:30 am.  I can easily fit this into a weekday.

 Rolling it over.

24 in 24 -- Middling Successes

See below for commentary on the things I can check off of my 24 in 24 list.

9.  Develop the habit of bringing reusable grocery bags to the store.  I would love to stop dealing with flimsy plastic bags.  The space, the guilt, the annoyance.

At the beginning of 2024, I was really hard on myself.  If I forgot my reusable bags and had to use a flimsy plastic one, I had a tally going inside the door of a closet (that is, btw, jam-packed with all the plastic bags I collected back when I was a terrible person).  After about six plastic bag tally marks, I was like, "Megan, get a life.  Just do the best you can."  And then I did do the best I could.  Remembering reusable shopping bags did become a habit.  Did I forget every now and again?  Yes, I did, especially if I had failed to bring the empty bags back to the car.  But, in general, if I had the bags in the car, I brought them into the store.  And, since I am self-checking pretty much everywhere, I realized that I really prefer packing groceries in reuseable bags.  

My Spotify Wrapped for proof of item 10.

10.  Learn five Lana Del Ray songs.  I don't mean like learn to play them on the guitar or piano or prepare for karaoke or anything.  I just mean, listen to these songs until I learn the words and have a sense of what they mean.  LDR is my oldest's favorite artist, and he has chosen the five songs for me.

I did it.  I learned these songs and really fell in love with all of them, especially "California."  Don't take my Spotify Wrapped as proof that I did little else but listen to Lana Del Ray this past year.  I actually don't use Spotify all that often as I am usually listening to audiobooks.  The past few years, my top Spotify listen was a recording of The Rosary.  

 12.  Meet my Peloton minutes goal.  I'm not going to say what it is, but I will say that it is more than double what I achieved this year on the Peloton platform.  I do track my outdoor walks through Peloton, lest you think I am a cycling fool.  

My secret goal was 15,000 minutes.  That includes Peloton content/classes but also outdoor walks, stretching on my own, and cardio workouts on my own (this is how I count tennis).  I made it to 13,650 minutes.  I realized in November that 15K was going to be a stretch and decided that 14K would be a good goal.  But, then December happened, and I was busy being Mrs. Claus and attending fun Christmas events and then traveling and then resting and regrouping.  Considering I made it to 7K in 2023, I am very proud of almost doubling my exercise minutes in 2024.  I didn't track time spent playing golf (I almost always walk the course) and that was a good amount of activity.  I will try for 15K again in 2025.

13.   Unsubscribe to 20 emails.  I've already unsubscribed to 45, NTB, but I will keep going.

Nailed it.  Probably unsubscribed to 100 different senders, but my inbox is still at 37,132 unread messages so... 

15.  See three movies in the theater.  I love movies and buttered popcorn and giant Diet Cokes and reclining seats and being somewhere where I am not distracted by things I could/should do (fold laundry, empty dishwasher, stare mindlessly at phone).   

I was hoping three would turn into thirty, and I would become a movie-going maven.  Truth is, there probably weren't thirty movies I wanted to see in the theater.  I did enjoy the ones I saw though!  In January, a friend and I saw an afternoon showing of the rom-com Anyone But You.  A month or so later, I saw American Fiction during a school day by myself (well, me and handful of old people).  Last month, I saw Conclave with some female friends.  I enjoyed each movie and hope to make more time for going to the movies.  Popcorn with extra butter and a big old DC each time.  Bliss. 

16.  Clean out "playroom."  I attacked this sloped-ceiling secret room during quarantine and, guess what, it is full of everyone's sh$t again.  

This project is underway.  I hit it hard in November, but pressed pause when Christmas tasks started knocking on my door.  I've already cleared out and donated five big boxes of books.  I washed ten blankets and donated to Pilot Pete's homeless outreach in Chicago.  I am consolidating school supplies, identifying trash, and sorting, sorting, sorting.  One exciting thing that happened while I was in there is that I found my missing passport!  This room's chapter as a "playroom" has come to an official end, but I'd like to turn it into an organized storage space instead of the "family dumpster."   

17.  Try five new recipes.  I mean dinner recipes.  Send me any ideas but keep in mind I have one child who does not eat sandwiches, one who won't touch pasta, and one who hates salmon.

I made five new recipes but no slam dunks.  

24.  Track added sugar.  I am figuring out what this looks like for me.  I need some controls/accountability in place so I don't go on a sugar bender (as I just did in December), but I know from experience that if I try to cut out sugar, the feelings of deprivation don't lead to good choices or results.  Feeling my way here.  

I didn't do this all the time, but, SURPRISE SURPRISE, I do feel better when I limit added sugar. 

Up next ... the 24 in 24 tasks that are rolling over to my 25 in 25 list. 

I am hoping to share my progress here for my 0-3 readers. 

24 in 24 -- Ain't Gonna Happen and That's Okay

Inspired by Gretchen Rubin of The Happiness Project and other books, Instagram posts/challenges, and podcasts, I created a list of 24 things I wanted to do in 2024.  I don't want to say "I failed," but I also didn't succeed, at least in terms of completing all of these items.  The items below are cut and pasted from my original 24 in 24 post.  My babbling about how each task was not exactly a failure can be found below in green.  Circle back for future posts addressing the items I successfully completed and the ones that will be rolling over to 2025. 

1.  Take an online painting class.  I take wonderful in person art classes at Michael Symber Studios in Elmhurst, IL and I plan to continue with those!  However, I follow and have grown fond of quite a few artists on Instagram.  Several offer online painting courses, and I'd like to give one a try.  One front-runner is this watercolor house portrait class by Elizabeth Wade. 

Short story here is that I am no longer excited about the idea of creating a watercolor portrait of my house.  I have continued taking classes and participating in guided studio time at Michael Symber Studios.  I have expanded my printmaking to include new methods and materials and have even secured my own printing press.  I am working on a Matisse-inspired interior painting during my studio time.  All in all, I am feeling creatively inspired and energized with the artistic pursuits I already have in place.

One of my first travel prints.  It's just okay, but I learned from the process.

3.  Start and finish travel prints for empty family room wall.  This is a project that I'll be taking on at Michael Symber Studios this winter.  

I did create prints inspired by scenes I encountered in Nantucket, Arizona, Laguna Beach, and downtown Chicago.  Maybe some of them will make it onto our family room wall, but I am no longer envisioning nine to twelve different travel prints.  However, creating a few travel prints has helped me develop as a printmaker and as an individual who looks at the world with the eyes of an artist.  So, I'm calling it in a win.   

4.  Do something with my @mileawhile photos.  I have an Instagram for tracking my walks and each walk includes a photo taken along the way.  I'd like to do something with these photos.  I'm picturing a big collage poster that I can display in the basement.  Message me if you've made a collage from Instagram photos.  

I couldn't find an easy way to upload photos from an Instagram grid onto some kind of poster-sized collage maker.  I'll circle back to the task if anyone can show me an easy way that doesn't involve digging through my iphone photos to find the photos I posted on Instagram.  I continue to take my walks and look for a beautiful spot to photograph the path before me.  The walking matters more than the recording. 

7.  Make the Greek Yogurt pizza dough... using the skinny pizza dough recipe from @mybizzykitchen. I won't tell you how many large containers of plain nonfat Greek yogurt I have purchased for this purpose and failed to follow through upon.   

I wasted a few more containers of Greek yogurt in early 2024, but I am just not going to make this pizza dough.  Yeast is an ingredient that makes me feel nervous and, let's face it, if I want pizza, I have never hesitated to treat myself to pizza with real pizza crust.  

8.  Make the Greek Yogurt jello thing.  I'm not even going to link it because it probably sounds so gross, but I need to try it.

This culinary confection isn't going to happen either.

11.  Eat at Riley's.  It's a bar/restaurant in my town.  I've been there once late night for a drink, but I'd like to eat there, finally, after a dozen years of living in Elmhurst, IL.

I found out Riley's is a Pepsi establishment.  I'd be happy to eat there if the opportunity arises or someone invites me or whatnot, but I don't go seeking out casual meals where I can't pair my food with a Diet Coke.  

14.  Visit the golf simulator five times.  Every winter I fear that I will totally forget how to play golf (do I even know how to play golf?).  Anyway, it does help me to pick up a club a few times between October and April.

I only visited the simulator one time and, guess what, I golfed no worse and maybe slightly better than in recent years.  For the second time, I won my Ladies' League "Most Improved Golfer" Award.  This award is measured by your handicap going down so in order to win it twice, you had to start with a really high handicap.  If I play my cards right, I could even win it again.  Plenty (and I do mean PLENTY) of strokes to go before I am in single digit territory.  

18.  Make Marcie's cookies.  My friend Marcie made some delicious peanut butter m & m chocolate chip cookies, and I am still thinking about them.   

I am still thinking of them, but I'd have to track down the recipe and that would take at least two minutes of searching through my text messages.  Plus, if I made them, I'd eat them until they were gone.  I have been trying not to tempt myself like that.  

19.  Make a new variety of puppy chow.  I love the puppy chow I always make (and gift), but I'd like to expand my repertoire.

You know what?  The puppy chow I always make is pretty darn good.  I gift it to others who seem to enjoy it (unless they are just being nice) so I'm going to just stick with it.  

My cardinal print held up in front of my cardinal Christmas tree, also a work of art.

 

 

 

 

 

20.  Complete the cardinal paint-by-number.  I'm obsessed with cardinals.  They're all over my house.  I have a cardinal paint-by-number kit.  Have had it for years, in fact.  I'm going to paint it this year if all the paints in the kit aren't crusty and dried out.  

That kit is still somewhere in our playroom/family dumpster.  When I unearth it, I will give it a whirl, but I am not going to sweat it, considering I created the cardinal print above (with which I am quite pleased).

23.  Develop a greens habit.  I am talking about the green powder you mix with water that is supposed to help your gut, etc.  I have already dabbled here this month and ended up with some bloating and distress.  Yikes.  Plus, the brand of greens I bought tastes HORRIBLE.  However, I am going to circle back on this soon and start with fewer ounces.  

I tried like two more times.  The greens still tasted absolutely horrible, gross texture and a weird artificial fruit flavor permeating the green liquid.  I felt more bloated than ever and life is too short for that.  I've got some other things in place to promote gut health.  Liquid greens are officially off the table and good riddance. 

Stay tuned for more 24 in 24 updates.