Cheers to 2012! (And accomplishing a goal!)

Unfortunately I'm not one who is too good at keeping resolutions.

But I'm proud to say I actually accomplished one of my goals. My original goal was to read 25 books this year and as of 11:30am, I have read 26 books!

Here's my list:

1- The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake

2- The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

3- Wonderstruck

4- Fame

5- Twelve Clean Pages

6- The Reading Promise

7- Decision Points

8- True Believer 

9- 50 Shades of Grey

10- Shine

11- Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter

12- The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

13- Faith

14- The Other Woman

15- Into the Darkest Corner

16- Food, Girls and Other Things I Can't Have

17- When She Woke

18- The Book Thief

19- Before I Go To Sleep

20- Little Bee

21- I'd Know You Anywhere

22- What the Dead Know

23- Gone Girl

24- Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter

25- Ape House

26- Dark Places

http://vgoode.blogspot.com/p/2012-reads.html

Dark Places is by Gillian Flynn, the same author who wrote Gone Girl. And let me tell you, Dark Places was way better! (I don't want to ruin it for anyone who hasn't read it so I'll just leave it at that.)

2013 is about to have a lot going on (hello, wedding!) but I'm going to go ahead and make the 25 book goal again! First up is Sharp Objects - once again by Gillian Flynn. (Obviously I'm on a kick.) So here we go!

Jewelry Board Holder

When I was moving back in March I got an old cork board from my dad. It had been in his office and there were paper "stains" from where things hung for years. I had grand plans to re-craft it and use it as a jewelry board holder. 

I moved. I never updated the board and just hung it so my jewelry had a place to go. Then in September Morgan came over... and some other girls. They all said it was time to update the board. And with Pinterest being so prevalent, there was no reason I couldn't come up with some crafty ideas to update it.

This past Saturday I took all the jewelry off and went over to my parents house so I could use the space and my dad's gigantic paint tarp. But it was raining. And it kept raining. So I just left it all there and went back over Sunday afternoon when it stopped raining. I set up shop in the garage and had at it.

The board before the spray paint

Rust-Oleum "Grape" was used for the metal edges

Don't wanna inhale all the spray paint fumes! :)

I decided after spraying the board to add the "V" since we had a Metallic Silver spray can laying around and the gold just looked boring and brown. And everything is better monogrammed, amIright? I cut the "V" out of a grocery sack. A stencil would've been way better but alas....

After peeling all of the paper off - The cork absorbed the paint just fine. I used Rust Oleum Metallic Gold. The darker spots are where I did some touch ups... this is where I should've done the "slow and steady" spraying instead of just pointing and spraying the touch up spots. They stayed a little darker but I figured once the jewelry was hanging, you wouldn't be able to tell so much. Live and learn, folks.

All my jewelry hanging back up in the bathroom! 

Overall I'm pleased. And for my second craft project with spray paint (my first being the bike), I think it turned out just fine! I still have a lot of the Grape color left... what should I spray next?!

The Book Thief

I finished an amazing book today. It's called The Book Thief by Marcus Zukas. Jonathan and I went over to his twin's house to watch the Cowboy game and my thought was, "Fantastic... I can finish my book!" (Don't get me wrong - I am a Cowboy's fan but we were going over there two hours early.) 

As I was on the last few chapters I left the room to finish the book because it was starting to get awkward when I was crying in the living room and on the verge of weeping.

So instead of trying to give you a review of this book, I'll leave it to my mom since she's already written a review.

....As I was thinking about this book and why I became so emotional at the end I came to a conclusion. When I was in Peace Corps I traveled to Munich, Germany alone and took a day trip to Dachau Concentration Camp. That was emotional to say the least. I wandered the camp with my iPod and spent a lot of time reflecting about the human race and the power that we can be entrusted with. 

After I left the camp I headed back to Munich and wrote in my journal for a long time. I always intended on sharing those thoughts and maybe one day I will. I've never shared my journal entries from when I was traveling/backpacking. (I spent a lot of time writing when I was traveling through Bosnia and Croatia as well.) Perhaps one day I'll get up the courage to share those thoughts.

Either way, go to my mom's blog and read about The Book Thief. Then read it yourself.

http://vickicgoode.blogspot.com/2011/04/book-thief-by-markus-zusak.html

PS. Jonathan just finished Unbroken. Another great book - you should read that one too! :) 

Pinterest fail. Again.

I used to think I had talent in the kitchen.

I'm starting to think otherwise.

The culprit: Chocolate Chip Cream Cheese "Breakfast Cookies"

Let me start with this is not a food that should be eaten for breakfast. It's more like a mid-afternoon pastry but to each his own. It's not like I've never eaten a cupcake for breakfast before. No judging on my part.

I had the majority of the ingredients for this sweet treat and I thought I'd give it a go. I don't really bake because I live by myself and that would be a very bad decision on my part. But I figured this was simple enough and I could bring whatever leftovers to work. The recipe was easy enough... the only things I was missing (and didn't plan on going to buy) was vanilla, cling wrap and parchment paper. I had foil and foil is a multipurpose tool.

Here's what the original pin looked like:

Oh my gosh. So cute, right? That can't be hard.

Here is what mine looked like:

Look at those corner pieces. WHAT? I guess my foil didn't wrap tight enough? And maybe I should've put more chocolate chips? And maybe I should put more effort into my food picture taking? 

I let them cool for a few minutes because I thought, "Well, they're not pretty but I bet they're delicious." 

FAIL.

Even Jonathan took a bite, then put it back down. It wasn't bad but it wasn't that good. This is when I thought maybe the vanilla really did count. But I gave up, realized I didn't need to eat them anyway and left them with the intention of tossing them.

BUT THEN. This morning as I was getting my lunch together for work, I decided to just take a bite. They were completely cooled... since they'd been sitting out for eight hours. And ya know what? It tasted way better. So I put them in ziploc bag and kept them instead. (Which I guess it made it a breakfast cookie for me. Oops.)

So I'd consider this a Pinterest semi-fail. How do those people's food always turn out so pretty?! 

Either way, the recipe is HERE.

Good luck.

Buy Me! Buy Me!

I just posted my COACH Signature Carly Handbag (Black) on eBay! It's in perfect condition and comes with the brown fabric protective pouch! It's from a smoke free/pet free home. Seriously, the condition is like new! I've started the bid at $45 so check it out... pass it on! (US Shipping Only!)

LOOK AT IT! BUY IT! CLICK HERE!