12 Books
This month I read The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver. It’s the chronicle of a missionary
family’s time in the Congo in 1960, the year Congo declared independence from
Belgium. It’s a beautiful book, narrated by all four daughters and occasionally
their mother. A number of terrible things happen, but somehow the horror is
softened a bit as you experience it through a child’s or teenager’s eyes. In
that sense, it reminded me of Room.
I liked the first 400 pages much better than the last 150,
but I did really like the book overall.
12 Recipes
This month I tried a rather ambitious recipe: pasties. I
knew they were a lot of work, just from memories of my grandma and others telling me
so, but the recipe looked deceptively simple and I decided to go with it. I have a small kitchen, and also had to
improvise when I realized that I don’t own a rolling pin, so rolling out the
dough was a huge pain and time consuming. Otherwise, though, they weren’t so
bad, and turned out well.
12 Blog Posts
Click here to read about the things politicians
fail to understand.
12 Ways to Meet
People
I have no report yet, but on the 31st I’m going
to a book club meeting. I’ll have to write about it in September.
12 Small Steps
Forward in my Career
My work continues to take small steps forward and I’m happy
to report that new experiences have been naturally coming up without much extra
effort. This month, I led two meetings with outside groups we are working with
on two of my projects – something that tends to freak me out, so the practice
was valuable.
12 Fun Events in
Chicagoland
This month I went to Mackinac Island with my friend Shannon.
(Granted, that’s not in Chicagoland, but I’m still counting because the key to
this category is fun.)
Here are a few photos!
12 Crafts and
Creations
For years there has been a black shirt hanging in my closet
that is much too worn out to wear. It reminds me of my late friend
Stephen, so I have been reluctant to get rid of it. This month, I cut it up and
sewed it into a little teddy bear. The photos below that sewing is not my
forte. He’s lumpy and rough around the edges, but am still glad I did something
with the shirt.
12 Pretty Things for
My Apartment
While I was at Mackinac Island, I bought this pretty dream
hanger and put it up on the door to my bedroom.
12 Things that Help
Me Feel Good about My Appearance
My struggles with my appearance lately all center around my
weight, and I trying to get that in check. In the meantime, I wanted to do
something small just to change my attitude. I painted my toenails gold and put
acrylic rose-colored nails on my fingers. The fake nails are taking some
getting used to, but I like how they look.
12 Grown-Up Things
Mostly, for this category, I’m continuing to force myself to
do the boring-but-necessary that will make my apartment feel less like a place
someone just out of college would live in. This time, I cleared a whole bunch
of stuff out of my kitchen cabinets so stuff would stop falling on my head.
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