30 by 30 Report: Month 2

"There is only one thing that makes a dream impossible to achieve: the fear of failure.”  ~ Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist

Just in case anyone missed the 30 by 30 list, click here to check it out.  Two months down and I'd say things are going pretty well!

#1:  Cook 10 new recipes.  (4/10 completed)

First up this month, I made zucchini cakes.  My sweet cousin put a picture of zucchini cakes on facebook.  Now I love me some zucchini, so I knew I had to try them.  Y'ALL.  Seriously, these are amazing.  So easy (no explosions, no fires, no problems), so delicious, and not horribly unhealthy.  Here's a link to the recipe.  Trust me, you must try these.

Second, I made some crock pot turkey meatloaf from a recipe I found on Christin's blog.  Now, I'm a beef girl, so I would normally substitute hamburger for turkey here, but I was trying something new so I went with it.  I don't care for mushrooms, so I substituted green bell pepper instead.  I thought it was pretty good.  Not something I want to eat every week, but a recipe I'll add to my book.

#7:  Read 24 more books.  (4/24 completed)

I knocked two more books off of this list with the two Advent readings I chose this year.  You read earlier about the main lesson I learned in my Advent reflection this year.  Tomorrow, I'll get up a recap of the two books I read.

#8:  Send my friends little gifts once a month (2/12 completed)

I totally got this idea off of pinterest, modified it slightly, and incorporated it into some of my Christmas gifts.  It was really fun, super easy, and people loved it.  The original idea was to get nail polish and make a cute little tag that said "for your mistle-toes."  Well, I'm a fuzzy sock lover--I mean for real--if fuzzy socks don't make it better, you might as well give up.  So I added fuzzy socks to the mix and ended up with this.

I just bought socks, nail polish, string to tie it all together, and these cute little wooden gift tags from Hob Lob that I painted red and green.  I thought it turned out pretty well!

#22:  Send money anonymously to someone at Christmas.

This was one of the items I was the most excited about checking off the list when I wrote it.  I'm a sucker for Christmas.  Those Angel trees where you take a tag and buy the person gifts?  They see me coming.  I took like 5 tags at church last week and I've still got to go by the Wal-Mart that does one for people in the nursing home.  Last year I went on the last day and was so upset thinking that if I didn't take all the remaining tags those people would have no Christmas, that I was in tears in the store and bought them out of sweat suits (apparently that's a popular request at the nursing home!).  Anyway, I digress.  Every year I like to give some money to a family that I know needs it.  I've had my family selected since July and I love knowing that they just got a random gift card in the mail that will help make Christmas a little more fun.

#29:  Bring home a bouquet of flowers once a month (2/12 completed).