18. Make nice dinner one time each month

I made dinner tonight. Actually I made it this morning and I ate it tonight. I used the crock pot. I don't know why, but I have been looking at this blog for awhile trying to find a good recipe and have become really intrigued by it. Ask Melissa, she will agree. This lady set a new years resolution last year to use her crock pot every day for a year. She's at 304 days and counting right now. I have looked over a lot of the things on her blog that she has made and thought, "Wow, it seems really easy to cook in the crock pot." After today's dinner, I realized, it is pretty easy!
I made a roast. Here is the link for the dinner I made. I didn't use the wine, because we didn't have it, I did some looking around and it said that it wasn't really necessary. Other than that I followed the recipe. I have to say it was pretty good. We had rolls and I mashed up some potatoes to go with it.
Melissa said that she loved the flavoring. She also said that I should do this one again. I thought it was pretty good. I think it cooked for a little too long.
Two meals down and just before the month was over. Like I tried to say in my last post, I should do it before I am pressed to do it quickly at the end of the month. Melissa said next week. I say, we'll see.

The Great Gatsby, a classic novel

I didn't want to post this for awhile. I was feeling so great about having a post that had so many comments, I wanted to leave it as the headliner. Unfortunately, I have to write more and bore everyone into not commenting ever again. If you want to continue giving suggestions for alternate goals, I am all ears. I loved the ideas so far.
I finally finished The Great Gatsby. I had to renew it from the library because I had it out too long (they consider it a high read book that high schoolers check out often, so they shorten the check-out time). I finished it in about four weeks. Not too bad.
The book was pretty good. I followed it pretty well and was able to know the general idea throughout (sometimes I struggle with older books, which is why I have this goal). If you want a summary of the book you can check it out on wikipedia. I looked their summary over and the stuff about the book checks out. You can trust the content on this one.
Overall, I liked the book. It is another classic book that I now know what is about. There are still plenty that I have no clue about that I will hopefully get to in the future.
What's up next? I am not yet sure. Probably a book about canoeing. I need to get some reading in before next spring when we have got the Walter V. Weis Memorial Canoe Trip. I'm sure I will keep you posted as to what I am reading.

I need suggestions

What should goal number 25 be? I need help. I don't know what to put. I have been reading over my goals and trying to figure out another one that I could do. I want it to be something that would only take one time to do. I don't want another goal that I have to keep track of it to make sure I am maintaining it. I want a one and done goal. I also want it to be something fun to do. I think I have a good mix of goals, and I want a task that I can put in there that I will look forward to doing and blogging about. Suggestions? Post a comment.

9 more miles down

Today was my first day that I ran a path that brought me to hills. I came to the conclusion that hills are a lot harder to run than flat areas. I thought I did pretty well considering it was new to me. The route I ran brought me about a half mile from my house, then, a one mile loop, 8 times. I finished the loop with the half mile trip back to home to complete 9 miles for the trip. The loop I ran had some pretty aggressive hills both up and down. I think it was good practice for me to get and it went well. With the hills I decided to put in planned walks in at the tops of each of the hills. Each walk consisted of only about ten steps for me to get enough water into me, then it was back to running again. It was a good plan.
Last night when I was getting ready to go, I got some spanish tutorials onto the ipod. I was looking forward to getting some new words into my spanish vocabulary. Unfortunately, I spent too much time getting the arm band on over my sweat shirt and not enough time remembering to bring headphones. Yep, I was the dork carrying the ipod around, but not able to use it. I did say "buenos dias" to a few people that I ran by. I figured that was some practical experience with the language. Hopefully next time I will remember the headphones.
I got to flag down a police car as well. As I was running, I came across a manhole that wasn't covered. I was in a groove running and didn't want to stop to figure out if I could lift the cover. I also didn't want to have a "Baby Jessica" incident, so I kept a lookout for someone who would be able to get it covered. I got about three laps in before I saw a police car drive by (two of the roads I was running on were pretty busy so I expected to see one sooner or later). It was a girl cop. I told her where it was and she said she would take care of it. I got to the place where it was about 4 minutes later and saw her driving off. I figured she wasn't able to locate it, but nope, she was able to find it and cover it up in that 4 minutes. Kind of embarrassing, but at least I didn't have to do it.
Overall, it was a good run. I was happy with my progress and thought I could have done a few more miles. I got home feeling good and think I might tweak my running plan to put more miles in in order to get me closer to ready for the marathon. Only 6 weeks left. I am pretty sure I will be ready for it when it comes. Matt, I probably won't need that piggy-back ride.

24. Drink no pop for two straight months

I am surprised I made it through this on the first shot. There were many times that I found myself craving a can of pop. Is that pathetic? Tonight was the first time in two months that I was able to take a drink and I crumbled at the first instant.
When I was driving home, I passed Pizza Hut and decided then and there that we were going to eat from there and I was going to have a delicious can of Cherry Coke to go along with the pizza. I did, and it was delicious. I'm probably not going to have a streak of two months again for a long time. I know it was probably really good for my body, but I don't know if I could give it up forever. I am a Coke fan and will be for a long time.
What do you think of Hannah's face? I love her "smiles". If you look close, you can see the scratch on the left of her forehead from her fall yesterday. It has healed up a ton in the past 24 hours. I am so thankful!

4.5 more miles down!

I got up this morning and ran. It was 40º outside. It felt nice. When I started running, I didn't really have my route planned out. I was supposed to run 4 miles and I was running through my head all of the different ways I could go this morning. Finally after a few blocks of running, I figured out where I would go. It was really dark outside. I looked up in the sky and was amazed to see a sky full of stars. I didn't realize that at 6:00 in the morning you could still see them as bright as you might in the middle of the night. During this time, I couldn't stop thinking about my brother's encounter with the wolf/coyote. What would I do if something came out at me? I couldn't see too far ahead of me. There were a few people out walking that I saw only when I was about 20 feet away from them. I also saw another runner. It is only the second week into my run and I saw one. Last time I was training for a marathon it was probably about 14 weeks in before I saw anyone out running. He was crossing a road that was ahead of me so I didn't get to say "hi" or anything, but it was nice to see someone else out there running.
During my run, I thought about my need to begin working on my Spanish. Goal number 29 for me is to learn Spanish well enough to have a conversation with my neighbors across the street. I don't want to just be able to have a quick conversation, I want this to be my chance to really get a handle on the language. I have a teaching assistant at my school that I am sure that I could begin conversing with her. I have plenty of podcasts downloaded that I can put on while running. I have plenty of books that I have purchased over the years. Now I just need to put all of those things into circulation to be able to actually learn the language. Today while running I was trying to think of all of the verbs that I already knew, I didn't get too far. I'm hoping that my knowledge will increase as this time goes on.

Driving Miss Daisy

Matt, you want a boring post? Get ready for this one. I watched Driving Miss Daisy yesterday. Yep, another movie down. I was expecting the worst as far as a boring movie and not being able to understand it, but honestly, I liked the movie.
***Spoiler Alert***
Miss Daisy is a widowed Jewish woman who is getting older and is not able to drive herself around anymore. She is very stubborn and thinks that even though she is getting older, she doesn't need any help.
Hoke is a black man who has been a driver for a few prominent people in his life. He is such a nice and genuine guy. He really wants to help and is hired on by Miss Daisy's son to be her driver.
They form a connection between them and Miss Daisy slowly warms up to Hoke. They eventually find that their differences in race bring them together as they both are from groups that have been persecuted. They finish the movie in being very close friends all the way to the end.
I think I enjoyed the movie also because it was only about 95 minutes. It seemed like the last couple of films were really long and it was refreshing to watch a movie without too much of a time commitment attached to it.