Day 129: Done, Done and Done

May is absolutely flying by! I can't believe we're already halfway through it already.

And, of course, we have some progress on our list....

New Recipes:

2) Try 20 new recipes outside of new recipes listed below. Now 13/20.

Minestrone Soup

Based on this recipe.

I made this without the spinach and the red wine, and it was really good.  Since it appears to be Monsoon season here in Chicago, I thought this would be good for a cold, damp night.  I only added noodles to Gary's portion because I'm trying to limit my processed carbs.  Yum yum. 

Baked Sweet Potato Sticks

Based on this recipe.

I'm really not a sweet potato fan.  Or at least I wasn't until I tried this recipe.  OMG, so good!  Some important things to note, though: 

1. Slice the sweet potato as thin as you can manage. Don't do wedges. I quartered the potato, and then sliced each quarter thin. 
2. I only used one potato for the first time. It was gone by the end of the night! 
3. The thinner you slice the potatoes, the shorter your cooking time will be. I went the whole 40 minutes and some of my potatoes were a bit blackened. HOWEVER, I found the lightly charred flavor to be excellent. Don't discard those until you try them. 
4. I did paprika and salt. 
5. I would agree that they're even better at room temperature. 

16.        Grow a veggie or herbs on my balcony. 

*Sigh* Catastrophe.  Remember when I was worried that the planter would blow off and kill someone?  Wellllll... the planter didn't blow off.... the plant did.  We had some high winds and the tomato plant was ripped clean off by the stem.   The tomato plants are largely leafless - just stems sticking out and the leaves ripped off.  I don't know if I'll repace them or not.... 

30.        Put in new condo flooring. 

We have two estimates on the flooring already and two more to be gotton on Monday.  Stay tuned!

33.        Prepare Gary’s parent’s house for sale.

The ceilings are painted in the kitchen, hallway, living room and bathroom.  The walls have been painted in the living room, hallway, and bathroom.  The venetian blinds are up in the living room.  Next step: paint the bedrooms, put up blinds in the kitchen area, and figure out if we're going to do anything with the cabinets.  

44.        Pay off computer.

Done as of yesterday!

70.        Visit the Melting Pot at least once.

We brought my mom there for Mother's Day! So good! 

I learned something new about restaurants, though, that I don't particularly like.  Restaurants actually charge your credit card twice at two different times: first for the bill, and later, when they get to it, for the tip.  Since they might not process the tip until a day or two later, some restaurants, including the Melting Pot, will overcharge you on the initial charge by a certain percentage and adjust the charge later when they do the tip to make sure you're not ultimately overcharged.   They say they do this so that people checking their account balances between the time of the initial charge and the tip charge won't think that there's more money in their account than there actually is.  

First of all, it's not their responsibility to make sure I don't overdraft my account.  Second, by "protecting me" from overdrafting my account, they almost overdrafted my account.  (We left a cash tip.)  Ridiculous, if you ask me. 

Well that's all for now, folks.  Don't forget to check out my other blog: littlesuccess.blogspot.com.