26 in 26...What I did (and didn't) do this past year

 I made a list on my birthday one year ago of things I wanted to accomplish in the coming year. Here is the finished product of what I did and didn't do! For most of the items that were finished, you can follow the link to the post for that item.


1. Make Foccacia bread  Done!

2. Go Snowshoeing with my love (There's a story here...) Sadly this didn't happen- I missed the boat during the snow season, which in my defense was quite short last winter.

3. Make homemade salsa. I wish I could say I did this one. I have a few garden tomatoes that are perfectly ripe and begging for this to happen, but.... I just didn't do it. 

4. Grow my own herbs Done! Worked great in a planter on the deck!


5. Draw. Anything. (Something I used to really enjoy and constantly swear I'll start up again) Done!! I doodled a few times... don't think there will be a blog with pictures though ;)

6. Create a Numbers spreadsheet for our budget (Get out of the paper & pen dark ages) Nope. Every single month I continued with my very comfortable method of writing it all done. Old habits dies hard I guess.

7. Go skating at the rink near our house - Again... very sad, but I missed the boat on this one :(

8. Get new tattoo  Done!!

9. Perfect my lasagna (Always too dry or too soupy!)  Done!

10. Paint our entire home (ALL rooms!) Our Bedroom Re-do more than makes up for the fact that the bathrooms still aren't painted ;)

11. Make Turducken. You heard me.  Done!!

12. Jump off 30 ft diving board at Kinsmen Swimming Pool  Attempted!!! But no.... not done


13. Make homemade granola bars (stop buying granola bars)

14. Make a Gardening log book Done!! And by done, I mean I wrote in red letters I HATE GARDENING on the front page. Still counts, right? (See this post to hear the whole story!)

15. Make a photo book with all our wedding pictures. From what I have heard form everyone, these photo books can take FOREVER to make... so I think I might stick with the traditional photo album for this one.

16. Make beef jerky Done!


17. Make an entire turkey dinner

18. Make the outline for my book. (Yes, I want to write a book. That's a whole other blog post) Done! I even wrote the prologue!!


19. Begin getting up earlier (Currently: 7:45. Goal: 7:00) I'm giving myself a Done! on this one, because I did do this for a while. Now it varies between 7:20-7:45. This may be a lifetime struggle.

20. Go to a driving range and a hit a golf ball (for the first time) Nope :(

21. Donate blood again (re: stop getting tattoos every 6 months)

22. Go on an actual picnic in a park Done!!

23. Go horseback riding (It's been SO long!)  Done!


24. Rent a tandem bike with my hubby! (I originally thought this wasn't possible, but turns out it is! We'll just have to go to Calgary for it!) Funny story... we got all the way to the rental place and decided not to because we had no way to transport the bike and didn't want to pay for the day's rental just to ride it around the parking lot.

25. Knit a scarf (or something equally easy)

26. Make goat cheese from scratch


So in conclusion, I scratched off 17 out of 26 things. Not only is that a passing grade, but with 65% if this were a high school 20 level course I would have just squeaked by into the 30 level. (Oh, deja vu!)

I feel pretty good about it though - most of these things wouldn't have been attempted (Such as the scarf, and the turducken) if it weren't for the added incentive of the list. I certainly could have finished more things if I had really tried, but there were some choices made when it came to "Am I just doing this so I can check it off the list? Wouldn't I rather do ____ instead" in which case I often chose not to do said thing.

As of today I do not have a list for this next year. For the most part, I had a lot of trouble thinking of 27 things. I've thought about changing the list to only cooking and baking orientated tasks, in which case I will likely be a lot more motivated. We'll see! Thanks to everyone that followed along this year to see my progress. I certainly hope you don't feel let down with my results. no, scratch that - don't feel let down. I'm not disappointed, so why would you be? ;)

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Thanks for stopping by :)

~M