This has to be one of the loveliest things I've ever seen:

And then I spit them right out

Does any other child of the 90s remember the suggestive toy "Mr. Bucket?"  It was basically a motorized bucket on wheels that came with balls of different colors and each person would be assigned to a color, put the balls in Mr. Bucket's "mouth" and then Mr. Bucket would spit them out again.  I don't know the purpose of this game.  We were too old to actually play the game, but the commercials for it came on Nickelodeon all the time.  I still remember the lyrics, too: "Mr. Bucket, you put the balls in my mouth.  I'm Mr. Bucket, and then I spit them right out."  I really think that whoever writes lyrics to songs that advertise children's toys really get off on making them sexually suggestive.

This digression is all to say that today's challenge is to Create a Bucket List.  This is something that I've thought about recently, when trying to figure out where I want my life to go and what's important to me.  I'm going to try to make goals that are not career-driven because I think people of this culture invest too much of their identity in how they spend their 9-5s.  So, before I'm 30,

• I want to write a book.  Probably when I get my PhD, but who knows.
• I want to finish the short story I've been working on forever.
• I want to step foot on every continent, including Antarctica.
• I want to hold a conversation in Spanish with a native Spanish speaker.
• I want all of my household's produce and eggs to come from my own backyard.
• I want to see a sunset from each of the 7 Wonders.
• I want to do one thing a year that terrifies me.

What do you want to do before your next big milestone?

Crushes

The directions for Day Six made no sense to me, so I'm skipping it.  It's my blog and I can cheat if I want to.

I have been looking forward to Day Seven: Post pictures of 5 celebrity crushes since this sucker began.

1: Joseph Gordon-Levitt.  Just a little scruff, cleans up well, brooding, mysterious, and is rumored to be playing the villain in the next Batman movie.  If I had any idea the squirrelly kid in 3rd Rock would turn into this, I would've watched it much more.

2: Shia LaBeouf.  I know, I know but this magazine cover changed my life.  Drunk driving incidences aside, this is one attractive guy.  I might have a thing for teen TV stars-turned-attractive-20-somethings. 

Also: scruffy guys in suits.

3: Mark Walhberg.  He's talented, he's been in some of my favorite movies, and he doesn't take himself too seriously, which is good for a guy who started his career by dropping his pants on stage.

4: Leonardo DiCaprio.  He's had my heart since he told Rose that he'd never let go, and he's yet to release it.

5: Don Draper.  He's not real, I know.  But what's not to love about him?  I mean besides that he's an alcoholic, womanizer, and addicted to his job.

Suits? I'm noticing a trend.

Day Five!

Ok, better mood this morning.  Sometimes you have just have to fall asleep and hit the restart button.

So Ed and I have become amateur foodies since living together.  We definitely don't have the budget to eat out like we could in college but we still love great tasting food.  We can't afford high quality items, but we want food that tastes, you know, like food.  We're addicted to salt and fat (like most mammals), but since Ed's been training for long-distance runs and I found out about my high cholesterol, we're much more conscious about what we're putting in our bodies.  We're big meat eaters, but I've become more and more invested in food politics and won't eat meat that's been inhumanely treated and pumped with antibiotics, stimulants, or hormones.  All of these factors contribute largely to having to be really specific with weekly food planning, looking for lots of deals at the grocery store, and finding healthy, local food buying options.  Our biggest resource by far has been the best recipe website ever: www.cheaphealthygood.blogspot.com.  Go there, go there now.

So, my Day Five: Share your favorite recipe comes, of course, from this online Mecca of delicious, affordable, quick, healthy meals.  Each one can easily be prepared in under 30 minutes, tastes great and uses few ingredients.  This butternut squash risotto is no exception.  It has everything we're looking for in a recipe: it's quick, it uses only a few ingredients, you can use whatever squash is in season, and it makes LOTS of leftovers (something that is very desirable for us, since we eat all 3 meals at home).  My favorite part, though?  It proved to Ed that something vegetarian can be filling and nutritious.  Win for the ex-veggie!

I could seriously go on for hours about this website, so I'll leave you with just a few more recipes to whet your  Cheap Healthy Good appetite.
Pasta, turkey sausage, broccoli rabe.
Polenta, swiss chard, and pancetta. (The polenta can be tricky.)
Healthy tex-mex!

Go, eat well!

Suck

I'm in a terrible mood and taking it out on all the wrong people.

The "challenge" will resume tomorrow, god willing.

Say cheese

Day Four is "Show your teeth! Post a self-portrait."  Typically, self-portraits are statements about how the subject views herself as an object.  However, I started work today and have to make fajitas, so here is what I came up with:

Just a little snarky, you know me. Also, no teeth.

You know, when I look in the mirror I don't love my haircut, but I got a lot of compliments on it today and I think I'm kinda rocking it in this picture.  Dearest readers, to keep [the short 'do] or not to keep?

Day two/three

Ack, late already!  And when you read the topic of Day Two: Make a bulleted list of everything you did today, you'll see I had no good excuse.

• Woke up, read on the patio.
• Planned the weekly menu with Ed
• Grocery shopped
• 30 Rock'ed and Terminator'ed (two TV shows we watch on Instantly Watch) for way longer than we should've
• Ate dinner with Rachel at Chuys
• Hung out with Rachel

My days are so exciting!

Ok, on to Day Three: Share your favorite song lyric/quote, and we'll pretend that I was never late!
I have two, really, that are both in the works to becoming tattoos.  "Here I'm allowed everything all of the time" from Radiohead's Idioteque off Kid A.  Next, "Nolite te bastardes carborundorum" which is loosely translated as "Don't let the bastards get you down".  It appears in the latin form in Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, MY FAVORITE BOOK OF ALL TIME, and also conveniently appears in one of my favorite songs of all time, "Neopolitan Bridesmaid" by Tarkio.

And there, more information than you needed.