Executions

#59 Complete: Loved and Bid Farewell

Resolution: Love Where You Live

Despite the occasional mice and fist-sized spiders, Patrick and I’s first place together is pretty rad. Sadly though, we’ve been mad at it since the summer because we live on a beautiful, peaceful lake and we’ve worked too hard to appreciate it. We thought, “well, since we work so much, we should live somewhere relaxing”. True, somewhat.

Don’t get us wrong. We love the work we do. Like, LOVE it. But you know, it takes up a lot of time running a business. That means less swimming, fishing, and fancy parties.

So anyway, it might look like it’d be easy to “love where you live” when you live on the water, but there’s a sadness when you haven’t used it to it’s full potential.

The point is, we’re moving now. Saving for a destination wedding and planning an elaborate honeymoon means we’re gonna nomad it out for a little while to get everything in order. We’re anti-credit card, so while other couples might throw it on the plastic, we’re determined to pay cash. Luxury sacrifices for a lack of future debt sounds pretty good.

Coincidentally, our landlord was showing our apartment for the first time to people today, so we really got to thinking hard about how we won’t be living here much longer. All the cleaning, throwing-away, and donating we’ve been doing to empty the house out in preparation for eventual moving out finally hit us. We’re really gonna miss this place.

And thus, we love where we live.

#56 Complete: Went Hiking, Planned Soup Parties

Resolution: Stretch Your Legs and Go Hiking

Today should have been a little cheat-ey for us because we’ve taken to hiking like chubby kids to cotton candy (we’re chubby so we’re allowed to say that). However, on Valentines Day Patrick and I took a hike that was a bit.. erm.. optimistic. As “beginners”, we chose a pretty treacherous trail that lasted about 90 minutes too long (ok it was only 90 minutes in total) but felt more along the lines of 7 hours. It was only 3.5 miles (mostly uphill and climbing, wah, wah, wah) but felt like 7.

My point is that we were still a little broken up about that hike. Is there such a thing as post-traumatic stress from hiking? If there is, then I’m self-diagnosing. We’ve got that.

So since that day we’ve been taking the familiar trails. And we’ve been remembering water and protein bars too.

In honor of this resolution, we went for the gold again. No 30 minute trails this time. This time we hiked for two hours, 3.6 miles. Here’s a link to our GPS-tracked trip and photos along the way (which doesn’t seem to work in Chrome).

And if you’re a regular hiker maybe you think we’re a couple of wussies, but if you saw us rolling our tubby butts around the woods like a couple of champions you’d be impressed too.

So in Weetamoo Woods in Tiverton, RI, starting at Pardon Grey Reserve (which has the neatest little cemetary) we took off. The white trail, then the yellow trail, then the green trail, and the red trail, then the blue trail and back to the yellow trail and the white trail. We conquered that mutha*.

The best part is really that long the way we discovered new places we hadn’t found before. For example, on the yellow trail there’s this giant cliff of rocks with this awesome cavernous tree in the middle of it. We’re thinking of having a soup lunch there one afternoon. Perhaps planing a wine-bottle geocache in the trunk of the tree. All things to ponder.

Further in, there’s a place called “High Rock” in between the yellow, green, red and blue trails. This rock is like a city. It’s freaking huge, bigger than a house. So, again with the soup date.

In any case, winter hiking is awesome. I hope it stays cold longer honestly because there’s just something so divine about keeping cool while exercising for 120 minutes straight.

#39 Complete: Sent a Birthday Card to My Dad

Resolution: Send a Birthday Card

I admit, I cheated. I wanted to send a nice birthday card to my dad this year, so I planted this one here. However, the reason why I recommended TinyPrints in my original post is not because they pay me to recommend them or anything, but because I loooove sending custom cards, especially the ones with photos in them. So thankfully this resolution landed on the last day I’d be able to send one in order for it to get to my dad on his birthday, February 11th.

And below is the text message I received after he checked the mail and got my card. Followed by his next-day disappointment that he wasn’t getting the birthday gift he hoped for.

In any case, SORRY ABOUT THE POWERBALL, HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAD!

#30 Complete: Practiced Penmanship With a 6-Page Letter

Resolution: Work on Your Penmanship

I’m lucky to have, and to have had, some of the greatest grandparents there are. My gram on my mom’s side liked to take me on little adventures when I was younger, like taking skiing lessons, and if I recall correctly, even to a farm where they were milking cows! And my grandfather on my mom’s side? He’s the jolliest, funniest old guy you’ll ever meet, who lives every day like it’s his last. He’s a ball-buster and a haggler, and he believes in real butter and real suger over artificial crap. I’m so proud to call these two my full-blooded grandparents and I’m so lucky to still have them both in my life.

On my father’s side, I’ve been just as lucky. Unfortunately, my grandfather passed when I was in highschool and my gram soon after.

For today’s resolution, I wrote a 6-page letter to my gram, who was the rock of our giant MacArthur family. Living nearby, all of my fondest childhood memories took place at her house, on her porch, and in her backyard. She always had a bowl of fruit out for “snacking”, always make me drink my milk (until we discovered I was lactose intolerant), made the best bread and butter sandwiches, and when I wanted to make pirate-esque letters and bury them in the basement, she showed me that using matches to burn the edges was not only unsafe, it was unrealistic. We used tea to stain the paper instead. She was a loving, selfless lady who took care of everyone and I miss her every day.

So that’s why I thought a letter was appropriate. I mean, she’s missed so much in these few years. I had to tell her that I’m engaged, and about my adventures across the country, and all about my crazy career, and most importantly that I miss her, and love her and that I’ll see her in another life and to thank her for making me feel loved.

So I did, and my penmanship looks like it was written by six different people throughout the course of the letter, so I’m not entirely sure which is mine. But I’m glad that I chose to be more elaborate with this one.

#27 COMPLETE: Hello Little Orange Man Turtle

Resolution: Play With Your Food

We badly wanted to cut some masterpieces into a few bananas, but all of ours were tied up in the freezer—already completely  brown. So I took to the bag of oranges that we’ve quickly been going through. The result? We came up with some sort of inside-out turtle. Leave it to your imagination.

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#26 COMPLETE: Sauerkraut, Chicken and Rootbeer Wings

As you can see, I burned the chicken. I have this strange fear of undercooking chicken which is why I usually ask Patrick to handle the meats. But considering how easy bagged & prepared chicken is to make, I got lazy. So yeah, as you can see, I burned it!

You’d think for people who assign these tasks, we’d be more prepared but the honest truth is that we’re trying not to cheat. So with that in mind, we haven’t gone grocery shopping in a while and to make matters harder, we’re trying to lose weight, so there are no  “quick meals” around either. So, going with what’s our cabinets and fridge, (and we do have a lot of strange ingredients in our cabinets “just incase”), here’s what we put together:

1. Hot Dogs w/ Saurkraut

Patrick loves Sauerkraut, and we have a giant jar of it, so why not make a meal with it, right? Here’s the quick and easy recipe:

• 1 (16 ounce) can sauerkraut, drained and rinsed
• 1/4 cup sweet pickle relish
• 2 tablespoons brown sugar
• 1 tablespoon prepared mustard
• 1/2 teaspoon caraway seed

2. Baked Chicken

This is what we call cheating, but it’s better than peanut butter and jelly sandwiches or boxed macaroni and cheese, because it means I get to share our new favorite grocery store item with you.

Basically the Perdue Oven-Ready Seasoned Roasters are awesome if you need a quick, inexpensive meal. For about $9 bucks, you get a whole chicken that’s been brined, marinated and seasoned. You throw it in the oven for a couple hours, take it out and it’s done. And it’s delicious. And Perdue’s chickens are raised cage-free and all that good stuff.

 

3. Root Beer Chicken Wings

Yes, yes, a thousand times yes. We took a foodtrip to D. Palmieri’s Bakery last week and tried rootbeer wings for the first time. So we were PUMPED to find out we had everything we needed to re-create them right at home. These came out delicious! A serious high-five goes to the grated ginger (which yes, I had on-hand) because it really kicked it up a notch and made it a little spicy. These wings were very addicting and those mini-cans of rootbeer we had in the fridge finally came in handy!

• 4 cups water
• 3 pounds chicken drumettes (we used wings too)
• 3/4 cup soy sauce
• 1 cup orange juice
• 2 cups barbecue sauce
• 1 can root beer
• 1/4 cup fresh ginger, minced
• 1 tablespoon crushed red pepper
• 2 tablespoons sesame seeds

Read more: http://www.azcentral.com/style/hfe/recipes/articles/0103wings0103rec1.html#ixzz1ktLI6Vhw

And, you know, just because you can, doesn’t mean you should. Technically we have all the ingredients to make Brown Rice and Black Bean Salad, but you probably won’t find it in our kitchen anytime soon.