27. Volunteer at Animal Acres

DONE

Isn't this place pretty? It's Animal Acres, a farm animal sanctuary. It provides a home for many animals that were treated like commodities rather than living creatures.

My hubby and I spent half of Saturday helping out here. We mucked out stalls, shoveled a lot of manure, layed down straw, and tried to help out. In return we were able to hangout with pigs, geese, chickens, goats, sheep, donkeys, and cows.

What struck me most was how distinct every animal's personality was! There was the goose, Buffy, who was the "watchgoose" and followed me around. Then were was Macy the pig, who would run up and find out what we were doing whenever we were in the pig area. Honky Tonk the donkey was very friendly and loved being petted, while Harley the donkey was more aloof.

Checkout this picture of a cute girl in her food:

I look forward to helping out here again. I think we're going to coordinate a trip with the Pathfinders (youth group) so they can practice volunteering and learn why we don't eat animals!

5. Eat all meals at a table without doing anything else for one week

DONE
Well, I blogged about this a little while ago, and this is officially done. I'm glad we broke the habit of eating and watching TV!

40. Pass all 3 subsections of the Math CSET Exam

DONE
Today I received confirmation that I passed the last of the Math CSET exams! Yay! For those of you who don't know, the CSET exams are California Subject Education Tests or something like that. They can be used to demonstrate subject matter competence for potential teachers.

For example, I want to be a high school math teacher. In order to do that, I must demonstrate that I know math well enough to teach it. This can be done through completion of a Bachelor's degree in math. Well, I don't have that. So the second way to show that I know math is to take the Math CSET exams and pass them, which I did.

The CSET exams are a pain because they're not just one test per subject. Well, some simple subjects just have one test. For most subjects, though, you must take between 2 and 4 tests on the subject. Each "subtest" focuses on a different area of the subject. In math, the first test covered algebra through precalculus, and number theory. The second test was on geometry and statistics. The third was calculus and the history of math. Each subtest took me a good 4+ hours to complete. Hence the reason I am so happy to be done with them!

5. Eat all meals at a table without doing anything else for one week

IN PROGRESS

Big news: We have eaten every meal at the kitchen table since Sunday! This is huge. We are awful about eating while watching some show on hulu or some movie from Netflix. Such is life without kids. Even though I KNOW eating while watching stuff is unhealthy, it's just so easy and relaxing! Plus I feel like I'm not wasting my life watching TV. The problem is that I eat for maybe 10 minutes, and think I just sit on my butt watching untold hours of stuff while being unproductive.

So for health and productivity reasons, I wanted to cut back on this eating and watching habit. I will consider this week a success, and this item accomplished, if I can make it through noon on Friday without falling back into the old routine. I'm not as upset by spending watching shows on the weekend because my hubby finds it very relaxing, and I need to give him a break. If we can cut down on it Sunday evening through Thursday on a weekly basis, that'd be really nice.

12. Transition Dog to Vegetarian Diet

IN PROGRESS.

When I adopted my dog Noah, it was without a lot of prior preparation. Getting a dog was something I'd obsessed about for a long time, but when it actually happened, I didn't have a lot of time to prepare. I wanted to feed him a vegetarian diet, but I hadn't researched it. Plus, I had no idea where to get vegetarian dog food. I didn't have the luxury of ordering online and waiting for delivery, so I went to Costco.

I bought a big bag of lamb & rice food, and some meat-based treats. Noah liked the food, and everything was fine. Still, I felt bad serving him this food for a few reasons. First, Noah resembles a lamb; he's all white and fluffy. I felt like I was making him a cannibal. Second, I worried about the unhealthy things that get into conventional dog food: all the poisons that were in the random meats made into the dog food, other additives, etc. Third, I felt like a hypocrite: I think eating meat is unhealthy for me, and I refuse to support the meat industry with my meals, but I was feeding my dog meat and explicitly buying it for him.

When the bag of dog food was running out, I did my research and found a vegetarian dog food. Interesting note: the dog food says vegetarian, but looking at the list of ingredients, it's vegan. I think the manufacturers chose "vegetarian" because it's more universally accepted. I, being a cultural anomaly, was excited to see that the food contained no animal profucts.

Now to be honest Noah is not a full-fledged veggie dog yet: he still eats treats with meat in them. After all, we did get a Costco-size container of them. While I don't like him eating meat, I also can't support the wastefulness of just throwing the treats away. Giving them to another dog wouldn't address the fact that I don't think dogs shouldn't be eating meat. So I just suck it up and give them to my dog.

To make mealtime more enjoyable for Noah, and to make sure he's getting all the good nutrients he needs, I try to mix in healthy stuff. Ground flaxseed provides Omega 3's. Wheatgerm or Oatbran is another good option. I've also mixed the food with some apple cider vinegar. Noah eats it, but the smell is a bit much. Molasses is a more popular liquid, both for taste and smell. In the morning, if I have the time, I make Noah breakfast by mixing his food with some oatmeal, flaxseed, and molasses. I know he's spoiled!

We also give the dog scraps of human food when we'd otherwise just throw it away. I feel that "whole foods" provide more nutrition (and fiber!) to him. The only trouble with this is that he likes to take his food out of his dish and eat it over the carpet, making a mess in the process. Sometimes he even tries to hid bits of food in all sorts of fun places, like under sofa cushions, in the bed, or even under me while I'm sitting down! Oh silly dog.

41. Start working as a substitute teacher

In Progress.

This is proving to be difficult. I had hoped to get hired on as a sub in a couple school districts. I made these wonderful application packets with copies of all of necessary the paperwork (teaching has so many requirements!) and I went to the district offices and submitted them. I haven't heard back from a single district.

I've also called districts to find out about whether or not they're hiring subs, and no one answers the phone, and then no one responds to my voicemail! It's driving me crazy.

I'm looking forward to teaching, but not to dealing with this BS bureacracy.

34. Release a Beach Trip Book

DONE! Check out www.SeeItsMeBooks.com and enjoy the wonder that is our third book!

30: Accumulate a decent "nice work clothes" collection

I going to consider this one DONE because I now have quite the choice when getting ready in the morning! I was inspired by some friends to visit Goodwill before visiting retail places. Going to Goodwill weirds me out, but I was able to get 2 skirts for a grand total of $13! That made the trip worth it.

Then I hit up T.J. Maxx and found a bunch of tops. Going to places like this (ex. Ross, Marshall's) is a little weird, but the deals are so good! I spent $80 and retail the items would have cost about $200. Again, it's such a good deal that it's totally worth it.

In a related vein, I'm so proud of myself for finally being in a place where I know my own style. I am finally saying goodbye to all those years of awkward outfits that people said looked good on me, but weren't me. I'm also finally learning how to say NO to something that's a great deal, but isn't flattering.

What works for me includes feminine cuts, solid colors, simple patterns, layers, sheer fabrics, and classic cuts. I'm going to be honest: I'm not cutting edge or bold. But I am proud that I'm also not frumpy or old lady. No sweater sets for me!

AMAZING Chocolate Chip Cookies

A couple weeks ago I made these amazing chocolate chip cookies. They're vegan, and delicious! Novel Eats is a great recipe blog, especially because most of the recipes are really simple. This is one of those simple recipes. The only substitution I made is replacing the oil with applesauce (1 to 1 ratio), and I did triple the recipe to make sure I had enough cookie goodness (well, really I was giving a lot of them away).

One more note: I didn't have molasses in the house until recently, and it is amazing. The dog loves it mixed in with his food, too! It's supposed to have some healthy nutrients in it.

Confession

I fixate on the distant future and what it may hold instead of focusing on the present. It's an awful tendency. For example, my most recent fixation is a move to Northern Virginia that I would like to have happen in two or three years. I spend time looking at house listings, reading the Washington Post, looking at maps of the area, Wikipediaing the cities, and overall planning my future life. Instead, I should be working on my classwork, working on my business, or doing any number of other urgent tasks. Why oh why do I waste my time?!
This habit is nothing new; I've been doing it for years. In college I was able to control it a little bit because life was so chaotic that nothing went as planned, so I planned less. Now planning is good, but the insane obsessive long-term planning I do is NOT good. I realize this, and I am trying to stop. One day at a time.