Learning & Growth
I've been telling my mom that I want to learn Tagalog but have yet to put forth the effort. For Christmas, she put in my stocking a pocket Tagalog dictionary. So I'm going to try to learn a word each week. I guess the letter "A" is a good place to start.
abala - busy, to bother
Philanthrophy
In the week of December, I signed up for three shifts of gift wrapping for Happy Wheels at the nearest Barnes & Noble location. I wrap gifts well so volunteering a few hours of my time for a wonderful volunteer organization is the least I could do. It's the children who benefit from it so it was well worth my time!
Blog Post: Holiday Gift Wrapping For Happy Wheels!
Financial
Paying off both my FIA credit card and personal bank loan are both underway. I will be making payments above the minimum amount due in order to get them paid off within my 1,001 days. I've also started rebuilding my emergency fund and am no longer dipping into it. I've set up regular monthly transfers to my savings in order to be consistent with putting a certain amount away.
Food
This month I tried four new recipes.
1.) Twice Bake Potato Casserole - it was pretty good but I enjoy PJ's cheesy potato dish over this one. I guess I'll leave the potato casserole dishes up to him.
2.) Alice's Best EVER Chocolate Chip Cookies - I made these for my job's cookie exchange for Christmas. I had to lecture PJ to stay out of them that night so I'd have some to take to work! PJ absolutely loved these cookies and I did too! I'll be saving this recipe (my variation, of course) to use again!
3.) Peppermint Marshmallows - I made these for my Christmas gift jars that I handed out to my coworkers. It took me three tries to find the right recipe and get a good batch. But I should be an expert now! They came out pretty good, if I don't say so myself!
4.) Cheesecake pancakes - I had half a block of cream cheese that needed to be used so when I came across this recipe, I figured it was perfect. I made these yesterday morning with the assumption that I still had a bottle of strawberry syrup in the fridge. Needless to say, I did not...but the cheesecake pancakes were still good without syrup! (Stay tuned this Tuesday for the blog post of my version of this recipe.
Entertainment
I slowed down this month on reading. Holidays always makes life busy so I unfortunately didn't get much reading in as I wanted. Which means that I didn't met my 2011 Reading Challenge of 20 books. I did, however, meet my original challenge of 12 books, I just happen to increase it to 20 after I met the original goal. So, with all that being said, I only finished one book this month: Breathless by Dean Koontz
Funny how I mentioned last month that PJ and I hardly ever go to the movies. Well, we hit up the theater again this month...this time for PJ's choice. He liked the first Sherlock Holmes so much that he wanted to see the 2nd one in the theater instead of waiting for the DVD release. I didn't care much for either movie. In fact, I fell asleep during the 1st one the 1st three times I tried to watch it. I forced myself to finish watching the day before we went to the theaters for Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows. I cannot tell a lie...I was fighting sleep during the movie! And I never have a problem with staying awake in a theater!
I'm 61 days down and only 940 days to go!
It's also the last day of 2011.
I wish you all a very Happy, Blessed, and SAFE New Year's!!!
See you all in 2012!
I wish you all a very Happy, Blessed, and SAFE New Year's!!!
See you all in 2012!
