30 by 30 update: 2 more months

time sure is flying.  hard to believe that a month ago, liz and i were running a marathon.  crazy.

so here's what i have gotten done in the past month:

1) i got my master's degree!  i graduated on april 28th, with much pomp and circumstance.  for all of you still confused about what i have been doing for the last two years, this is my degree: master's of art in counseling, specializing in student development counseling and administration.  no, i am not certified.  no, i do not want to be.

this pic is heather and me at the hooding ceremony.  oh, so fancy.  :)

2) my debt to my father is down to the last $200.  pretty exciting!  ($2500/$2700)

8) i knocked out the pinterest meals in one month!  and they were amazing.  the first two are on my monthly cooking segment.  i dominated this goal, though.  i made a total of eight things.  i am leaving comments on my pinterest board HERE if you want to keep track of the things i am cooking.  but i'll also link to the individual recipes below the pictures for you.  so here is what else i made:

thai coconut curry shrimp.  yum.  RECIPE.

garlic and mozzarella wontons.  amazing.  i baked them (425 for about 17 minutes) instead of frying them.  RECIPE.  

rosemary and goat cheese-stuffed mushrooms with bread crumbs.  these are delicious and rich.  RECIPE.

green coconut salmon (with cous cous, peas, french bread, and fresh mango).  liz said this was her favorite meal.  RECIPE.  

southwestern egg rolls with avocado ranch dipping sauce.  i should have baked them a bit longer.  and made the sauce zestier.  but still yummy.  RECIPE.  

tuscan chicken pizza.  we used a yellow pepper instead of a red one.  very good, and the pizza was delicious left over.  RECIPE.

11) as i said, the first two meals (spinach and artichoke baked pasta and eggplant sandwiches) were featured on my monthly cooking segment (18/20).  check them out HERE.

12) i planned a scavenger hunt for my sweet little wigger girls.  heather and keely helped execute the plans.  i think they had a pretty fun time.  i made them run all over marion and do ridiculous things.  but they got lots of treats along the way.  here are some pics:

the girls as they headed out on their adventure.

helping heather choose 'the right hat.'  not sure this was it...

delivering treats to our pal, fritz.

27) i am changing 'get another tattoo' to 'get another piercing,' because i haven't settled on my next tattoo design, and it is not something i want to rush just for the sake of the list.

29) i have read 74/100 books.  i need to get cracking on this.  this past month, i finished the simple life, the guernsey literary and potato peel pie society, and perelandra.

30 by 30: the late post with valid excuses

i have had a busy couple of weeks.  some of that craziness belongs to this update, and some belongs to may's.  so stay tuned for that.

here's what happened from march 22-april 21:

2) i paid off another hundred dollars...so around $300 left until my debt to dad is gone!

11) the monthly cooking blog featured the freshmen.  it's not hard to find due to my lack of blogging, but just in case, it's HERE.  that makes 17 out of 20.

16) i ran a marathon!  woohoo!  i actually ran about 26.7 miles.  missed a turn somewhere in mile 22, so that was a fun adventure.  my time was 4:57, so not nearly the marathon i was hoping to run, but i made a friend in last couple of miles who was really encouraging, saw my family and friends about 6 times throughout the day, and had a pretty joyful spirit the whole time, even while my body was rebelling against me.

i ran the first 7 miles with liz and steph and then had to do the next 19 on my own.  they ran great times.  this picture is at mile 15.  please notice the super cool fanny pack i am rocking (thanks, mom!).

i promise i was not nearly this smiley after my half marathon.  i'd say we look pretty decent for having busted our butts, though.

29) i only finished one book this past month...hopefully, getting grad school out of the way will increase my reading time.  :)  i read career information, career counseling, and career development.  that makes 71 out of 100.

the monthly cooking segment: yeah yeah yeah the freshmen

so even though they don't need me anymore, i still like to feed 'em.  however, i do not like to remember to take pictures of the finished products.

luckily, phil took a picture of me in the kitchen.  wearing my cute little apron.

those lucky freshmen got to eat pancakes, eggs, sausage, bacon, and fruit salad.  spoiled is what they are.

30 by 30 update: that awkward moment when march is july

hello, blogging family that i shamelessly ignore.  it's me, your negligent and sleepy friend, holly.  here are some updates for your reading pleasure.

1) in five weeks, i will be a master of students.

2) $2300/$2700.  turns out, all my dad needed to do to retire was get me to pay back this money.  :)

3) you know what?  i went to epcot over spring break and visited many countries.  so i'm going to call this a win for now.  boom.

8) i am officially changing this one from 'get something published' to 'make five food items from pinterest (check out my food board HERE).

11) i've been cooking my little heart out.  i've done 16/20.  HERE'S my most recent monthly cooking segment.

16) the marathon is in ONE MONTH!  eek.  it's in carmel.  you are super welcome to come and cheer if you want.  i'll need all the encouragement and prayers i can get.

29) i have read 70/100 books.  here are the most recent ones: a technique for producing ideas, wolverine, out of the silent planet, let go, and a diary of private prayer.

oh, hey, i turn 30 in 4 months.  no big deal.

30 by 30: the one where she gets punched in the eye

nothing very exciting to report for this month's update.  five months left...quite a bit to do still.

2) i have paid $2200/2700.  not bad.  almost done.  (yahoo...i'll get done just in time to start paying student loans again!)

11) uh...15/20.  i neglected to post a monthly cooking segment, so i am going to show you three things i cooked in the last month:

eggplant parmesan.  mmmmmm.  

garlic chicken, cous cous, sauteed zucchini and squash.

post-run meal: salmon, asparagus, cous cous...monster rehab...woot!

29) i have read 65/100.  the new ones are disney cash hacks, slave to child, simply christian, the purpose-guided student, and the unlikely disciple.  mostly good stuff.  

and...that's all i can give you right now.  i am sick.  deuces.

30 by 30 update: the homestretch

i know i'm a couple of days behind.  whatevs.  my blog.  which is not to say i don't love all three of you who sporadically read my nonsense.

i have officially less than six months left of this little 30 by 30 experiment.  here's what you need to know:

1) i am about 3 months from finishing my master's degree.  that is insane to me.

2) i have paid back $2100 of my $2700 debt to my pops.  i'm sure he'll be glad when i cross this one off.

11) i cooked a lot last semester, but i am cooking wayyyyyyyy more this semester.  for some of the deliciousness, check HERE. that makes 14 out of 20 monthly cooking blogs.

13) i do not actually own a pet yet (although we think the mice in our vents are playing with toy cars), but i DID do some research.  turns out, owning seahorses and starfish are not for new pet owners.  and probably especially not for new pet owners who have trouble remembering to water their plants.  (don't sweat it...they both appear to still be alive.)

16) i am changing 'finish my book' to 'run a marathon.' april 21st, carmel, indiana.  see ya there.

19) i bought my bass guitar and am slowly learning it, so i am calling this a win.

29) i had a busy reading month.  i have finished 60 out of 100 books now.  here's what i finished in the past month: serenity: better days and other stories, serenity: those left behind, dr. horrible's sing-along blog: the book, sun stand still, 4 months to a 4-hour marathon, imaginary Jesus, why i teach, the long dark tea-time of the soul, the Bible, one thousand gifts, brief guide for writers, gods behaving badly, and after you believe.

dude, runners like to EAT

turns out...when you start working out on a regular basis and putting in some good mileage (our run at the end of week two was nine miles), you are hungry.  all. the. time.

so i decided it would be fun to start planning menus so liz and i could eat good food to fuel our bodies.  here are my most recent meals:

friday night, we had some salmon on angel hair pasta with pesto.  add some garlic bread and sauteed veggies (courtesy of the fabulous--and newly-engaged!--kelsie), and you have a delightful pre-long run meal.

sunday night, i made chicken for the first time in at least seven years.  super easy recipe (thank you, elizabeth heil!).  so here we have baked feta chicken on buttered egg noodles with sauteed asparagus.  it was also great as a leftover.

tonight, i fixed crunchy tilapia, potatoes, and green beans.  also had some raspberries for color.  another yummy meal.

thus far, liz has not rejected anything i have fixed her.  we are trying lots of new recipes, so let me know if you have something you really love.

30 by 30 update: joy of the season

my life update.  just for you.

let's see...

1) i have one class and one internship left until they let me walk across the stage and get my master's degree.  holy moses.

2) i've paid off $2000 of my debt to dean chester.  still on pace.  

6) i went on a fabulous tea date with my housemates.  you can see lots of pictures and read all about it HERE.  it was really fun, and i will gladly go on dates with other people when they wander through marion.  

7) it is sort of hard to explain the 'something theatrical' that i went to...honors students are in a world lit class, and they perform trilogy plays at the end of the semester.  i went because a bunch of my freshmen were in them.  i sat with honors professors and laughed my head off.  there were togas, melodramatic tripping onto the stage, pregnancy with several different sized balls, british accents, and mocking of the professors.  all in all, a very lovely time.  and it was free.  bonus!

11) i made another meal.  not my finest, but it didn't appear to kill anyone.  you can see most of it HERE.  so now i have made 13 out of 20.

15) i kicked the crap out of chicken.  and i continue to do so.  cause all i do is win.  you can see the big event HERE.

29)  i only finished two books this month.  i'm at 47 out of 100.  i read God's big picture and everyday absurdities.  

and...that's it.

tea house!

so as a fun little christmas treat (and something to cross off my 30 by 30 list), my wigger house girls and i went to this super cute tea house in marion called aunt sue's tea room.  

it was sooooo fun!  we all chose to order the queen's tea, which included:

our own pots of tea in little cozies.  mine was sencha kyoto cherry rose.  very light.  we all ordered different kinds, so we passed them around and got to try four flavors.  (watch for the changing colors in my cup in these pictures!)

my housemates are adorable. 

choice of soup or salad and a main dish.  i had minestrone and egg salad.  very tasty.

 here's liz, sipping tea like a lady.  

the next courses came on a cute tiered tray.  there was fresh fruit and finger sandwiches...so yummy.

and scones!  with clotted cream and a lemon custard.  i could eat scones for days.

 finally, we had some little sweet treats.  kind of a brownie with powdered sugar, peanut butter fudge, and a tiny spice cupcake with frosting.  

we had a wonderful time.  i want to take everyone there.  :)   

the monthly cooking segment: bean and lily's meal of champions

so bean and lily came to visit.  many exciting things happened on this visit, but i'm sure their favorite part was the meal.  ha.  not really.  lily got a pink slicky, ben acted like a dinosaur, and the pie was soup.  so more interesting things happened.

but anyway.

i fixed them a meal.  it's out of my super cool wisconsin cookbook.  it involves macaroni, cream of mushroom soup, tomato soup, cheese, hamburger, and french fried onions.  it's easy and delicious.  there was also garlic bread, peas, salad, and a sugar cream pie.  it turned out mostly fine, though lily tried to choke herself by sucking up the peas.  but she didn't.  so it was fine.

also, we performed baby shark for everyone.

holly vs the chicken

you may have thought the chicken killed me, considering the fact i did not blog about it. but it didn't. i think i may have actually killed it. the jury is still out.

what i CAN tell you is that i did not experience my 'traditional' symptoms from eating chicken. so it was at least a minor victory. and i have eaten chicken since then without any symptoms like that.

unfortunately, all last week, i was in the throes of great stomach pain. my best guesses were an ulcer, a tapeworm, a tumor, and stress. and since the pain has all but vanished since i turned my last assignment in, i'm going to guess stress had some part to play. stupid psychosomatic symptoms.

so...assuming i feel better for several days in a row, i will try it again and see what happens.

until then...for your viewing pleasure:

pre-chicken...so excited!

enjoying some delicious wings! (i got 6 thai curry and 6 mango habanero, if you're curious)

post-chicken...still alive! and very messy...

30 by 30 update: a semi-productive month, surprisingly

8 months to go. pow.

here's what i got done this month:

#2: i have paid off $1900 of my debt to my dad. booyah.

#5: i took a weekend trip by myself. it happened october 21-23. you can read about it HERE.

#11: i have been cooking tons and tons since i moved into the wigger house, and that has included several dinners for my super cool freshmen. THIS was one of them. my tally is 12/20.

#16: i have gotten a TON of reading done in the past month! i am now at 45/100 books. here's what i read/finished reading this past month:

the fire that ignites

dirk gently's holistic detective agency

crazy love

scholarship and Christian faith

the furious longing of God

the abbreviated psalter of the venerable bede

read, think, pray, live

is everyone hanging out without me? (and other concerns)

compassion

counseling research

assessment procedures

a parent's guide to the Christian college

#28: liz and i ran the flannels and flapjacks 5k at our church. you can see our ridiculous outfits HERE.

there's the update. november has been much kinder to my soul than october. i can't believe it is almost thanksgiving...and almost christmas...and almost my last semester of grad school. insane.

the monthly cooking segment: feeding the freshmen

my internship this semester is with the honors college freshmen. they are cool, and i like them. so aside from stuff that they have to do with me (i know, coffee dates can be such a drag, right?), i gave them some stuff they could choose to do if they wanted.

so i invited them to dinner. and sixteen of them came. plus emily and olivia, the two peer facilitators.

needless to say, i had to fix a crapton of food. two lasagnas (one with meat; one without), six loaves of garlic bread, salad, easy cheesy lemon bars, and toll house cake. i think they left satisfied.

flannels and flapjacks

check old #28 off the list...i ran a race with liz. and i was less in shape for this business than for the warrior dash.

this was a 5k at college wesleyan church...we ran 3.1 miles in our flannel shirts...and then they fed us pancakes. not bad. ok, i thought it was rough. old injuries were flaring up all over the place. but liz was a rockstar and encouraged me to not be a little baby about it.

so we made it through, didn't get hit by any cars, and will be sore for days. boy, getting old is fun.

30 by 30: still alive, surprisingly...

i know i have been a terrible blogger for a while. and i apologize if you are experiencing feelings of abandonment. as promised, i made some changes to my list. i am including those changes on this update list.

2) another hundo. officially $1800 out of $2700.

4) i posted about the warrior dash last month, but here's the 'after pic' with my friend, nate:

6) CHANGE: have a tea room date with my housemates!

7) CHANGE: attend something theatrical...

11) once again, i did not post the picture for my monthly cooking blog, so here it is:

bleu cheese pita pizzas. let me just tell you, they were super easy and super delicious. let me know if you'd like the recipe.

also, since moving into the wigger house, i have been cooking nonstop. it's really fun to fix a big meal and know i don't have to eat it all by myself.

12) CHANGE: plan a scavenger hunt for my housemates. (they seem excited about this one.)

24) i did this in august, but here's the skinny dipping proof picture:

you do not even have to tell me how awesome those tan lines on my arms look. i know.

26) CHANGE: play guitar in a public place. (no, mj, not the farmer's market)

28) CHANGE: run a race with liz.

29) i forgot to say i read a book last month: another fine myth. and this month, i read ish, the dot, 31 days to finding your blogging mojo, the prayer matrix, and pray. so i am up to 33 out of 100. grad school has severely slowed my reading pace.

30 by 30 update: wild weekend adventures

it was a whirlwind of a weekend. i definitely am feeling the effects of it right now...my normal wednesday night of reflection is taking place in my bed instead of starbucks because my head decided we shouldn't go out in public tonight.

here's a little list update for you:

i wrote a fatty check to my dad for $850, so my debt is down to $1000. smackin it in the face. booyah.

i officially became a warrior. my friend, nate, and i ran the warrior dash on saturday. he has some pictures that i will post whenever he gives them to me. but you can also see a couple cool ones of me by going here: http://www.warriordashphotos.com/?SiteID=2 choose 2011 wd twin lakes, wisconsin--saturday. then enter 60345 for the bib number. you can see me jumping over fire and crawling through mud.

i fixed a meal right at the beginning of the month, but in the chaos of school starting and me moving, i never posted a blog about it. here it is: steak with bleu cheese crumbles, sauteed asparagus and shrimp, hawaiian bread, and watermelon. yup. it was sooooo good.

i am in the middle of a ton of books for school, but haven't finished any of them yet. i will keep you posted.

the other big thing you should know is that i am going to be rolling out some changes to the list in the next month. hey, it's my list...i can do what i want, right? as i mentioned, i moved...into a house with three super cool women from grad school (i'll do a post on them some other time)...and i want to shift my list so it resonates with where i am at right now...with this community of mine. so expect five or six things to get changed or removed completely from the list.

deuces.

30 by 30 update: let the crazy commence

once again, i have been a negligent blogger. i won't make excuses, but i will apologize. some of you missed my shenanigans. then again, some of you were part of my shenanigans. so whatever.

i am pleased to say i crossed a few things off my list since my birthday...

11) considering the amount of running around i did in the past month, it is kind of crazy i actually made a meal. but here it is.

18) i went rock climbing with my friend matt in colorado! woot! ok, i guess what we technically did was bouldering, but i wore the climbing shoes, and it made my arms ache for days, so i am counting it. i wish i had a picture of the cool stuff we were doing, but all i have to prove i went is this picture (and i am sad to say you can't even really tell how scary red my fingers were):

24) i went skinny dipping. i do not currently have the proof (no, there are NOT naked pictures to prove this) because miranda took the picture. but i have jennifer's whole bridal party to testify that i went skinny dipping at okoboji.

29) i finished three more books (snow crash, forgotten God, and scouting the divine) to bring my total up to 27. this one is actually proving more challenging than expected, just because i have had to do so much reading for school.

30 by 30 update: one more year

well, friends, it is my birthday. 29 whopping years old today. which means i have one year to complete my list. which means i need to get my butt in gear.

but here's what i got done the past month:

1) my last paper for my summer classes isn't due till tomorrow, but i [amazingly] did it early so i could enjoy my birthday. i have two [crazy busy] semesters left, and then i will be a master of students. or something like that.

11) the monthly cooking segment. i'm on pace with this one. which is logical, since i tend to eat at least once a month.

16) the book is certainly not finished, but here's the latest chapter if you didn't see it.

29) not surprisingly, as i finished up my classes, i also finished up several books: where you work matters, how colleges work, college of the overwhelmed, the idea of a Christian college, the Bible, and emotionally healthy spirituality. 6! so i am up to 24 out of 100.

so there you go. spending another birthday in a random place with random people. it's how i roll. :)

30 by 30 update: avoid the tornadoes, and you'll be all right...

so. i should have posted yesterday. i had really good intentions. but frisbee ended up taking much longer than expected because we waited out a storm in our cars. don't you worry...we won. oh...that wasn't what you were worried about? also, no one got hit by lightning.

i don't have much of an update regarding my 30 by 30 list...i thought i would get a lot done this summer, but i am busy as crap. so we'll see.

1. i am still taking classes for another month. should be wrapping them up around my birthday. just two semesters left after that.

9. miranda and i DID actually go on a road trip to indiana...and we had several crazy adventures, documented here and here. but as she pointed out, we don't really want that chaos to be our documented road trip. so this one is both technically done and not at all done. are you following?

11. this was my monthly cooking segment, and looking at the picture again is making me hungry.

14. i got a different car! i traded bj novak for ron swanson. aside from the blowout picture, i don't have any of him. miranda has the official picture. so that's forthcoming.

29. i am almost done with a handful of books, but i have this huge pile sitting on my dresser reminding me every day of how little fun reading i get to do anymore.

it is officially less than 13 months until this list is supposed to be finished. yikes! (and if you have somebody with whom you would like to set me up for a blind date, you can help me out for number 25).

the monthly cooking segment: farmer's market!

howie came up to visit. we did some really fun things in madison, including going to the farmer's market. we decided to make a meal with some stuff we bought there: two different kinds of ravioli and asparagus. yes, it was awesome.