56. Read from 8 - 10, then go to bed

OK, so this one's dumb. I think my reason behind it was to not get sucked into a good book and read until 3am. However, I have 4 young children. I don't have the luxury of sipping tea and reading a good book during the day. Reading into the night is how I get my books read and I will have to embrace that for now.

The question remains...what to do to #56. I'm not keeping it as is. I'm pretty sure I don't even have 1 whole week of nothing to do in the evenings.

It must be changed to something in the same vein or that makes sense. So, I'm changing it to...drumroll please....going to bed at 10 for 7 days straight. This will be difficult. I clean the house in the evenings. I meet with my 2 dear friends to pray for one another in the evenings. I go to book club in the evenings. I do a million things in the evenings that I can't do during the day. I frequently go to bed past 10...way past 10.

Not sure when I'll start...can't be this week. I have bridge on Friday night. We stay up late. Very late. Next week is Ingrid Michaelson concert. So, it can't happen then. The following week I'll need the evenings to get ready for our vacation and get our house ready for the renovation that will happen while we're away. The week after that, we'll be on vacation. The week we get back from vacation, I'll be putting my house back together from the renovations.

Life. Is. Too. Busy.

43. Spend all morning yard saling by myself

I love a good yard sale. I get things dirt cheap that I would otherwise probably never buy. And I love being by myself since I'm an introvert.

So, my sweet and loving husband gave me the morning off of life today to go to breakfast by myself. Zada Jane's + a good book + no one I know = a great morning. Afterwards, I decided to go yard saling. I got some great finds - cross stitch frames for the Pinterest idea I saw that I love (but am totally not paying full price on). I got a bed for my kid's American Girl dolls. I got a Vera Bradley sleep overnight bag for my girls. And a Van Gogh art book. All for $10. Amazing. I might make this a monthly routine - thanks Matt!!

18. Attend a major sporting event with Matt

Background: I dislike sports. Forget the fact that I played Varsity soccer in high school. I dislike sports. Unless it's horse related or the Olympics. Matt loves sports. So, I put this on my list so we could do something together that he enjoys. Because he's done his fair share of wine festivals, rom com movies, and shopping with me. 

Bobcats V Celtics. Celtics won, which is great since Matt's from Massachusetts. And now I can check this off. And while we had a great time together, I think Matt would probably rather do to a sporting event with a dude who can carry on a conversation about the event.

69. Do my Christmas shopping at Flea Markets

I put this on my list so I'd get more creative in gift giving. And to get out of the gift card mindset for a year. I love gift cards. And I'm fine with giving them if that's really what would make that person feel loved. I just want to make sure that's the reason I give gift cards...not out of being lazy.

And I love flea markets. Such fun. So, I went to The Potato Sack Flea Market a few months ago with a sweet friend. I bought for a couple of my family members, but not every one.

The Potato Sack is coming again to Charlotte this weekend (well, Thurs-Sat) so I've made plans to go again. This time, without my baby and on Thursday. My friend and I brought our little ones (super fun, but not easy!) and we went on the last day of the sale. There was still a ton of great things, but I'm guessing a lot of the better things were sold on the 1st day of the sale.

In any case. I'm checking this off now because I've already bought some things and will be buying the rest in 2 days. I won't be able to post pictures since my family may be reading this.

81. Make cookies from childhood

I love family recipes. I love the history behind them and the fuzzy feeling of fond memories you get when you make the recipes.

Like so many families in America, my family is broken. I have a mother, a father, a step-mother, and an ex-step father. I consider all of them my parents. That's 4 different legacies of food.

What I remember from my dad growing up was bags of frozen mixed veggies that we doused with butter in order to eat. It seemed like we ate that, tv dinners in front of Nick-at-Night (one of my all time favorite memories), or Pizza Hut.

My step-dad was a good cook, very gourmet. Of course, being a teenager filled with angst, I didn't appreciate it. I even resented it. I wanted cream of something soup casseroles and take out.

My step-mom is a cook. She is creative in the kitchen. I have memories of her chicken casserole, green beans boiled to death, and her chocolate log roll. I'm thankful she came along and married my dad...for so many reasons. But, the fact that he didn't have to eat tv dinners is on that list of reasons.

My mom cooked ok. Before she met her 2nd husband, she was a single working mom...very busy. So, I don't remember much of the meals from that time. I was also very young. I do have pretty sweet memories of her making me breakfast. Sausage and pancakes (pre-vegetarian days of course). After my mom got remarried, my step-dad did most of the cooking and mom did all the fun cooking. I have fond memories of this strawberry pecan jello. She was the one who introduced me to Granny Smith apples with Munster cheese together. In fact, she has been the most instrumental in exposing me to different foods throughout the years...even today.

When I was a little girl, she made these cookie things. I think they were actually a kind of candy, not really a cookie. All I remember is peanut butter rolled up in some kind of a powdered sugar mixture. I LOVED them. My mom made them and when I was reorganizing her recipes years ago, I came across the recipe, so I copied it.

Fast forward too many years to actually say out loud, and I have 4 little people in my house. I'd love for them to have the same fuzzy feeling over some family recipes. Which is why I put this on my list.

I wanted to make them again to see if I still like them and something I want to pass on to my kids.

No. It's not. I either made them horribly wrong or I liked some pretty horrible things as a kid. Either way, I'll be asking my mom to make them again next time she's in town.

Because like so many family recipes, I can just never make it as good as my mom, step-mom, dad, ex-step-dad.

10. Write letters to my girls, 2012

Morgan, 7

Ava, 5

Kennedy, almost 3 

Emmaline, almost 1

Here are my sweet little girls. Love, love, love them. I want them to know what they were like as young kids and I don't trust my memory.

I've written 2 per year since I started this list and sometimes it's been hard. And sometimes I've repeated in my 2nd letter what I'd said in my 1st.

Anyway, I just wrote my 1st letter of the year to them. I've decided to do something a little different for the last letter. I'm going to have this blog printed and bound for each of my daughters.

So I'm not checking this off yet so I will remember to do it (see 1st paragraph - I don't trust my memory!).

63. Redo upstairs hall pictures

I finally did it. I don't have a before picture of my hall. It wasn't terrible, just not beautiful. There were outdated pictures hung and some of Morgan's framed art...from when she was a baby. That's how long I've needed to beautify my hall. My 2 youngest kids didn't even have pictures up.

So, when I acquired a large, old wooden window, I knew exactly where it would go. So now I walk down my hall, glance at my sweet little girl faces, and smile.