Justin reminded me that I hadn't yet shared my list of 29 things to do in my 29th year. A lot of them are the same because I'm pretty good at writing down goals and then completely ignoring them, but for some reason, I think this year is going to be different. For example, I only have three knitting projects on the needles. Three. There have been times when I've had 12. So clearly I'm in a place of finishing things, and maybe I'll get to the point where I work on one thing consistently.

And maybe monkeys will fly out of my butt.

But I have finished something, and in honor of Earth Day, I thought I'd share:

29 things to do while I'm 29

1. Finish the wedding quilt.
2. Ride bikes with Justin.
3. Sew the grey and pink fleece coat.
4. Design and knit my Weasley sweater.
5. Make Elizabeth Zimmerman's modified yoke/raglan/whatever sweater.
6. Finish my Bayerische socks.
7. Knit a sweater for Justin.
8. Knit 20% of my yarn stash, including any new additions.
9. Spin 30% of my fiber stash, including any new additions.
10. Read all of the Anne of Green Gables books.
11. Repaint the concession wall in the bedroom
12. Knit a sweater from my handspun yarn.
13. Finish the first draft of my story.
14. Complete the first cross stitch I ever started (8th grade?).
15. Complete and submit the first level of the Master Knitter's program.
16. Get new furniture for the family room.
17. Take a long weekend vacation with Justin.
18. Switch over to homemade cleaning solutions.
19. Celebrate Literacy Day (September 8).
20. Sew something out of knit fabric.
21. Paint the upstairs/downstairs hallway and stairwell.
22. Read at least 10 books I own but have not read. (Death Comes at the End)
23. Teach myself Trigonometry.
24. Knit all of the sock architectures in Cat Bordhi's New Pathways for Knitters.
25. Do something with all of these loose photos - scrapbook? Album?
26. Finish big orange blanket.
27.
28.
29.

We are now a mostly-vinegar-and-baking-soda household. I'm still using a green cleaner for the toilets, but everything else is cleaned with a baking soda paste (or Bon Ami) and then copious amounts of vinegar. I hate the smell of vinegar, but other that than, it's working really well. I especially love when I spray the baking soda on top of the vinegar and everything starts to fizzle. In that same vein, cleaning the drains is one of my favorite things to do. Dump a cup of baking soda down the drain, followed by a cup of vinegar. It's like a middle school science project volcano. Follow with hot (not boiling - you may have plastic pipes) water 15 minutes later and your drain is good to go. My favorite place to do this is in the basement on our floor drain because I'm all willy-nilly with the amount of ingredients and sometimes get a mini Mt. St. Helen. I never got to build a volcano in school.

I just wrote something kind of mopey and all, "I'm a loner, Dottie," but my blog apparently isn't going to put up with any of that crap and everything disappeared.

So I'm clearly meant to talk about something else. Let's talk goals. I figure I can take #19 off since I made my mom's fairy quilt and then my parents' monster quilt - that was definitely at least two art quilts' worth of work.

There are a lot of things still on this list and my birthday is in 14 days. I think I'll be able to knock a few off before then if I buckle down, but I'm also not going to force things. I have, however, been spending a lot of time working on my New Year's Resolution, which is to beat Super Mario Brothers 2 (for the original Nintendo) without warping. It's a heady challenge, but I'm up for it.

28 things to do while I'm 28

1. Finish the wedding quilt.

2. Finish the triangle quilt.

3. Ride bikes with Justin.

4. Sew the grey and pink fleece coat.

5. Design and knit my Weasley sweater.

6. Make Elizabeth Zimmerman's modified yoke/raglan/whatever sweater.

7. Sew another skirt. Maybe two.

8. Finish all 3 lingering UFOs

9. Knit a sweater for Justin.

10. Knit 20% of my yarn stash, including any new additions.

11. Spin 30% of my fiber stash, including any new additions.

12. Read all of the Anne of Green Gables books.

13. Take a cooking class.

14. Read the Chronicles of Narnia books.

15. Beat Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire on Gamecube.

16. Train Gracie to be a therapy dog.

17. Repaint the concession wall in the bedroom

18. Spin and knit a sweater.

19. Create a series (at least three pieces) of art quilts.

20. Finish the first draft of my story.

21. Complete the first cross stitch I ever started (8th grade?).

22. Complete and submit the first level of the Master Knitter's program.

23. Get new furniture for the family room.

23a. Do not kill Justin in the process of above.

24. Construct some sort of anti-squirrel contraption in the vegetable garden.

25. Take a long weekend vacation with Justin.

26. Learn Tunision crochet

27. Learn to embroider

28. Re-open my Etsy store

The thing about goals is that some of them never come to fruition. I'm okay with the fact that the majority of my goals for my 28th year (technically, 29, but numbers are confusing that way) won't get done, and I'm even okay with having the same things on this list year after year after year, still not getting completed. That's why they're goals. I look at this list as a "do what you can when you want" sort of thing.

And this weekend, I wanted to embroider.

I haven't finished my little project, but embroidery turned out to be easy-peasy-lemon-squeezy, probably because of my long-standing relationship with cross-stitch. And, man, is it ever fast.

I have a really good start on many of my other items. Consider this a "two months to go!" update.

28 things to do while I'm 28

1. Finish the wedding quilt. - Not going to happen this year. Still have 1/3 of the squares to make.

2. Finish the triangle quilt.

3. Ride bikes with Justin. - Justin's bike is still broken.

4. Sew the grey and pink fleece coat. - Thinking about it...

5. Design and knit my Weasley sweater.

6. Make Elizabeth Zimmerman's modified yoke/raglan/whatever sweater. - in progress!

7. Sew another skirt. Maybe two.

8. Finish all 3 lingering UFOs - down to just one UFO, the Bayerische socks. That one's a doozy.

9. Knit a sweater for Justin. - yeah, I don't know about that one

10. Knit 20% of my yarn stash, including any new additions. - I am at -2.3% of my stash knit, meaning that I have 2.3% MORE yarn than when I started counting. This is actually a miraculous number, as I was once at 20% over my original stash.

11. Spin 30% of my fiber stash, including any new additions.

12. Read all of the Anne of Green Gables books.

13. Take a cooking class.

14. Read the Chronicles of Narnia books. - halfway done

15. Beat Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire on Gamecube.

16. Train Gracie to be a therapy dog. - I don't know if Gracie wants to be a therapy dog. They didn't like her toe fur and said her ears were too curly. The vet and I think they are dumb.

17. Repaint the concession wall in the bedroom

18. Spin and knit a sweater. - yarn all spun

19. Create a series (at least three pieces) of art quilts.

20. Finish the first draft of my story.

21. Complete the first cross stitch I ever started (8th grade?). - really, really close. Just back-stitching now, and that's more than halfway done.

22. Complete and submit the first level of the Master Knitter's program. - have not even started

23. Get new furniture for the family room. - We can't find anything we like and don't feel like spending money. So we'll just complain some more.

23a. Do not kill Justin in the process of above. - still alive!

24. Construct some sort of anti-squirrel contraption in the vegetable garden.

25. Take a long weekend vacation with Justin.

26. Learn Tunision crochet

27. Learn to embroider

28. Re-open my etsy store

I finally cashed in my birthday present (hi, January) from my parents - a cooking class at the Culinary Center of Kansas City. I decided on an Italian class, featuring 10 sauces and a handmade pasta. It was wonderful. It was an all day affair, and we ate all. day. long. Our teacher is the Chef de Cuisine at Lidia's, so all of the recipes we got were essentially Lidia's recipes. I still have some of the spinach fettucini I made (by hand - no machines, lots and lots of kneading), and yesterday Elizabeth came over and we made the marinara. It is, simply put, to die for. We're using it in pasta alla Norma tonight for dinner. I can't wait.

28 things to do while I'm 28

1. Finish the wedding quilt.

2. Finish the triangle quilt.

3. Ride bikes with Justin.

4. Sew the grey and pink fleece coat.

5. Design and knit my Weasley sweater.

6. Make Elizabeth Zimmerman's modified yoke/raglan/whatever sweater.

7. Sew another skirt. Maybe two. 2/28/09

8. Finish all 3 lingering UFOs 9. Knit a sweater for Justin.

10. Knit 20% of my yarn stash, including any new additions.

11. Spin 30% of my fiber stash, including any new additions.

12. Read all of the Anne of Green Gables books.

13. Take a cooking class. 8/12/09

14. Read the Chronicles of Narnia books.

15. Beat Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire on Gamecube.

16. Train Gracie to be a therapy dog.

17. Repaint the concession wall in the bedroom

18. Spin and knit a sweater.

19. Create a series (at least three pieces) of art quilts.

20. Finish the first draft of my story.

21. Complete the first cross stitch I ever started (8th grade?).

22. Complete and submit the first level of the Master Knitter's program.

23. Get new furniture for the family room.

23a. Do not kill Justin in the process of above.

24. Construct some sort of anti-squirrel contraption in the vegetable garden.

25. Take a long weekend vacation with Justin.

26. Learn Tunision crochet

27. Learn to embroider

28. Re-open my Etsy store