I accidentally outed myself with a pingback on the ZingIT blog. Darnit social media!

There’s no turning back now.

*sheepishly welcomes visitors to her cove*

30. Host a dinner at my place
January 27, 2009. Dinner party for 6 at Casa Billie. I made chili (with Bells Lager Beer), green chili and Monterey Jack quesadillas and cornbread muffins. Serene and Jude brought a potato and fennel gratin that was absolutely delicious. Must make it myself!

It was a lively dinner with great conversation and good food. I am glad I did it! This wasn’t the first time I hosted dinner at my house. (Wow, it’s almost a year to the date!) But it certainly inspired me to do it some more. Perhaps once a month. I ought to schedule the next IT dinner here in March.

What went well:

• Set the dinnerware out on the table the night before. One less thing to worry about!
• Half an hour before the guests arrive, have beverages and a bucket of ice ready on a separate table.
• Fresh flowers on the table – ties the whole look together!
• Dishes went straight into the dishwasher.

What didn’t work well:

• One guest was vegetarian and the main dish (chili) had beef — oof! Ask food restrictions beforehand.
• I didn’t have coffee for after dinner. I can purchase/borrow a French press for next time.
• Need more tall drinking glasses. IKEA.
• Some way to put away guests’ shoes in the entryway. Stylish shoe cubbies?

36. Get all dressed up for dinner
K cleans up nice, that’s for sure! Hubba hubba.

68. Borrow books from the library
Accomplished February 1st. Got myself a library card. Technology makes this easy!

One of my favorite ways to spend Saturdays is hanging out in Barnes and Noble. I love picking up the books, admiring the cover art, smelling the freshly printed pages as I thumb through them. It’s a struggle not to walk out with half a dozen books to read. However, it’s not frugal to purchase books right then and there, as much as I really want to, member discount card notwithstanding. Instead, what I do is this:

1. Using Amazon Remembers, I take a picture of the book I’m looking at. It finds the corresponding product and saves it in my account. I can then choose to add it to my wish list later. If I really wanted to purchase the book, I could get it at 40% less online than in the store.
2. On my computer, when browsing a product in Amazon, Book Burro informs me when it’s available at my local library. I can then head to the library or place a hold on it online.

83. Do 30 consecutive push-ups
Ha! No sweat. I ought to be doing this instead.

88. Watch a musical/ballet
I first saw RENT as a repertory production when I was in high school. Bought the soundtrack, memorized most of the songs. Seeing it performed again last week, I realized a lot of the musical’s subplots had gone completely over my head. For instance, all the drug references were lost on me. Geez, I was so naive then.

96. Watch season 1 of Lost
Officially count me part of the throng of fans of That Show. How could I not? It starts with a crash, anarchy, learning what it means to exist without the safety of societal infrastructure, and deciding how to proceed. The first ten episodes sucked me in good. I’m still working through the past episodes and am currently in the middle of the third season.Now if only they’d stop playing the trailers for season 5 during the commercial breaks!

99. Attend a BAKE or cooking class
Got myself a cute Threadless shirt to commemorate the occasion. Playin’ in the Sprinkler! Haha sprinkler…

88 to go.

K and I attended the Performance Network annual fund-raising gala last weekend. It was fun getting all gussied up. I bid on a drycleaning gift certificate during the silent auction but was outbid at literally the last minute. Ah well! There was a lively cabaret performance during dinner followed by a live auction for larger items.

Back home, K brought out a birthday cake he baked himself. It was a splendid snowball sprinkles orange-flavored cake!

RENT! The Musical
Detroit Opera House
February 19, 2009

Yes, I took the BAKE! We Dig Donuts class again! I brought K along this time and we ended up making around 5 dozen donuts. Num num! I brought most of them to work where I forgot to take pictures before they were scarfed down.

The first batch was deliciously light and fluffy.

The second batch that we made from the take-home dough didn’t turn out the same. Because the dough was refrigerated, the donuts dropped the temperature of the oil when they fried. Precise frying temperature is crucial is making good donuts! In my case, the oil wasn’t hot enough, so the donuts came out greasier.

I couldn’t find my cookie cutters, so the donuts ended up looking like candy onion rings and Christmas trees with sprinkles.