Ye gods! An update!

I haven't been doing so hot with my New Year's Resolution to waste less. Just tonight I threw away a bunch of cilantro that I let go bad, and the hour and a half I spent on Facebook today can hardly be called time well spent...


BUT, I'm pleased to report I'm already off to a running start on my 101 Things. I've already done #17 for January (Make at least 4 new recipes every month from my Martha Stewart Living and Everyday cooking magazines). I made a Mexican chicken soup, spaghetti squash with meat sauce, apple-oatmeal scones (food porn picture by me), and caramel-coconut thumbprints (picture not by me). (Here's the recipe. You're welcome.)

I can cross #25 - Go to a yoga class off my list. I did that Monday, and I'm hooked - it's a relaxing way to start the week (and hopefully will help me with #64 - Make a new friend). Likewise, I'm working on #18 - Lose 10 pounds, despite all the Martha Stewart cookies, by upping my cardio at the Y and writing down everything I consume this week. Which, unfortunately, has lead me to realize that I need to quit drinking beer. Not for any moral reasons, mind you, but because it has so many damn calories. I had two Imperial Stouts while watching the playoffs Sunday and then found out they had 300(!!!!) calories apiece! Only bourbon from now on (ha ha).


I'm almost 3/50 on #28 - Read 50 new books. I just finished The Tiger's Wife, which was a gift from my future sister-in-law. Most of it is magical realism in the former Yugoslavia, though it switches to a modern day story in an unnamed Balkan country. I found it fascinating because the culture is both familiar and exotic, Western and Eastern, Christian and Muslim people living side by side in tension long before the war erupted. I also recently finished listening to The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest on CD (yes, I'm still counting it), and now I feel unbelievably sad that there are no more Stieg Larsson sequels to read. And because I'm a history geek... I am almost done with The Buddha in the Attic, which I asked for at Christmas after hearing about it on NPR. It's the story of Japanese "picture brides" who crossed the Pacific in the early part of the 20th century to marry men they had never met, only to scratch out a meager living doing menial jobs and then get sent to internment camps after Pearl Harbor. I have no idea what I'll read next. Ideas?