#30 Learn to make excellent chicken enchiladas

Background: This one is a little bit unbelievable and serendipitous all at once. Yay! Once upon a time, a girl from Colorado moved far, far away to the East Coast to work at an Ivy School. There she met another girl also from the southwest, down New Mexico-way. They would reminiscence about wide blue skies, the smell of pinion and the glory of fresh green chilies. The girl from NM was kind enough to let the CO girl in on a little secret: her Mom's enchilada recipe. The CO girl was young and naive at the time and let the recipe and friendship swirl away with time and distance and life, in general. But when she made her 30 list, she so dearly wondered about *that* recipe and that NM girl. Not knowing how to find the girl (who she had googled with no luck) and not having written down the recipe, but remembering the success of those enchiladas and the sheer joy of that recipe, she put it on her list of things to do before 30 never imagining she would ever capture the joyfulness of the enchiladas that warranted a spot on the 30 list...

Status: A cryptic comment left on this very blog alluded to *that* recipe. How could someone out there KNOW about *that* recipe?? I hadn't talked about it or asked around for the recipe; *that* recipe existed someplace else, almost in another life for me....I wondered at the comment...at the reference to the Halloween party (remember the horchata?) but thought it could not be possible that someone would actually be offering me *that* recipe and it be the one I remembered, from the NM girl...So I responded to the comment; a little cautious and skeptical but mostly curious. The commenter posted a long comment. With...

wait for it....wait for it...

*that* recipe!

From the NM girl herself. She found her way to the 30 List through the magic of Google. Yay! Thanks Ellie!

Plan of Action (POA): Make going away enchiladas in a week or so for everyone! Yay! To do: invite people over, make enchiladas, eat enchiladas and write to Ellie about how good it was :)

#11 Publish 3 first-authored papers

Status: I submitted to another journal on Monday morning.....

POA: Wait. With fingers crossed.

#8 Paint a picture a year

Background: I love to paint. I hadn't been painting much for the last few years...but it seems that I have found my painting groove again....

Status: Here is a picture I painted over the weekend! I am off to a good start on this one...

POA: Invite people over to paint and bake cakes more often!

Know-How at Thirty

Someone wrote a list AND a book detailing thirty things one should know how to do by the time one reaches thirty. I don’t want to complicate my own list but for consideration here are 30 things one should know how to do by 30:
1. wrap a present
2. start a successful fire in a fireplace, at a campsite, and in a barbecue
3. finish a piece of furniture
4. get a raise
5. order wine at a restaurant without getting stiffed
6. parallel park in three breathtakingly beautiful movements
7. dance a “slow dance” without looking like an idiot
8. use a full place setting properly, including chopsticks and Asian soup spoons
9. clean your place in under 45 minutes, when friends, relatives, or prospective lovers are coming by unexpectedly, and soon
10. hold your liquor
11. cure a hangover
12. do the Heimlich Maneuver
13. use a compass
14. change a flat
15. jump start a car
16. open a champagne bottle
17. send a drink to someone’s table
18. cook one “signature meal”
19. whistle with your fingers
20. take good pictures
21. fold a fitted sheet
22. remove common stains
23. sew a button
24. carve turkey, lasagna, and birthday cake
25. hold a baby
26. change a diaper
27. keep a plant alive for more than a year
28. make dogs and cats love you
29. help someone (an older or ill person, a woman you’re trying to impress, your mother) out of a car
30. write superior thank you notes

Things I am capable of on this list: 1, 2,3, 6,8,9, 10,11,12,13, 14 (theoretically), 15 (although I still ask for help), 16 (someone told me it should sigh like a woman – that I cannot do, but I don't feel intimidated by the prospect of opening a bottle of champagne), I feel that #30 on my own list might qualify as good signature dish for 18, 20,21,22,23,24, 25 I do though not well,26 I can do, 27, 28 (in my mind anyway, dogs and cats love me) and 30.

I am not worried about 4 from this list. My Dad always told me to do what makes me happy and the money will follow. I don’t quite get 5 – what happens when you order wine and get stiffed? I can box step but that doesn’t really pass muster for 7. On 17: it has never occurred to me to send a drink to someone’s table. I am more of a breakfast-out person and somehow sending drinks to peoples’ tables at breakfast is weird...but you never know. I will never be able to do 19. I have tried many times. It just ain’t gonna happen for me. I can practice 25 this summer as KVL is having a baby in a matter of days! I don’t know a technique for 29 but it can’t be that hard to help someone out of car....is this list more for men?

#1 Finish my Phd

Background: The road to this point has been both divergent and direct. Right now, I am enjoying the journey.

Status: I have a committee selected and a reading list drafted.

Plan of Action (POA): Send out a draft of my reading list to two of my committee members by Wednesday. Send out a more comprehensive draft of reading list with proposal by June 15^th. To do that, I need to think about the kind of written component I would like for my qualifying exams... Read. Read every single day.

#19 Run the Bolder Boulder

Status: I was all set to register for the ING half marathon but I realized that I will be away that week participating in a training program in my field (important for #1 Finish my PhD).

Plan of Action (POA): Look into a different run for the fall. Start doing longer runs on the weekend anyway.

#11 Publish 3 first-authored papers

Status: The manuscript I submitted about a week ago was rejected without review. Bummer. They have a high submission rate and accept only 15-20% of submissions. Well, if it was easy, I wouldn't need three years (although, this paper has been in the works for two years post-MSc so this remains an ambitious goal).

Plan of Action (POA): Submit to another journal. Tomorrow, I will start to reformat the manuscript.

#19 Run the Bolder Boulder

Background: I ran cross country in high school. I was by far, the slowest member of the team - or at least in the bottom three. Though I was terrible time-wise, I did enjoy the actual act of running. I started running again last summer and am doing so fairly consistently now. I wanted to run in the Bolder Boulder because I like the name and I grew up hearing about it (being in Colorado and going to school in Boulder and all). It never occurred to me to participate in such a race of this sort. Or any race at all. But I have discovered this might be something I would like to do. I would like to try at least. And Boulder is such a lovely city.

Status: I mentioned this goal to my roommate who has run marathons and half marathons. She has suggested I run the ING Edmonton half marathon in August. I am reading up on this (she lent me Galloway’s Marathon – you can do it!) and considering it...which I never thought I would do. It certainly would be good training for the Bolder Boulder next May.

Plan of Action (POA): Assess my motivation. Do some reading and research. Try a longer run next weekend.

#11 Publish 3 first-authored papers

Background: Publishing is what academics do. I am training to be an academic. Publish papers I must...over the last two years I have been generating a manuscript for publication based on my master's thesis. I have had the good fortune of working with excellent coauthors. I am not sure if 3 papers is too ambitious, lazy or just right. I want these three papers to be gems. But that might be expecting too much. But then, if I don’t expect each to be a gem, I won’t be as likely to produce gems, either.

Status: I submitted the aforementioned manuscript from my master's thesis to a journal last Wednesday....

Plan of Action (POA): Wait to hear about said manuscript. Continue thinking of, and designing experiments for PhD work which one would hope, will translate into papers for publication. Keep reading the APA manual. Strive to make every word tell as Strunk and White suggest.

#28 Find the ten best breakfast places in Edmonton

Background: Breakfast is the best meal to eat out. It’s usually edible even if not brilliant cuisine, can be nuanced which makes the possibilities for good creative fare endless, is affordable and feels like a luxury. I have found some mighty fine breakfast places on my journey. Favorites include Dot’s Diner in Boulder, The Yankee Doodle in New Haven, Demitasse in Victoria and The Antik Café in Ankara. Road-trip wise the best breakfast I ever had was in a café in Farmington, New Mexico. I can picture the restaurant in my head and taste the green chili sauce but cannot, for the life of me, remember the name of the place…maybe I can convince SV to drive south first on our way back to Edmonton this summer…

I love a good cup of coffee, clean silverware, friendly servers, food that elicits “so good!”s and a relaxed atmosphere. I have been in Edmonton about 8 months and I will be here for at least two more years so this is a feasible undertaking.

Status: So far, I have enjoyed a number of contenders in town including Sugar Bowl, Barb & Ernie’s and brunch at Murietta’s. I want to be systematic about this however, so any place is fair game from here on out.

Plan of Action (POA): Recruit people to go to breakfast with me and solicit suggestions for candidates for the list.

#2 Climb Longs Peak

Background: I am from Colorado and spent my first 20 years there. I have hiked a fair bit but have never climbed any of the fourteeners. Growing up, my Dad and I always said we would do Longs Peak together one day. He sent me an email a few months ago mentioning the idea again…and it stuck. I am determined to make this climb this summer, if possible. I don’t think my Dad is up for it anymore (getting old is a bitch he tells me) but I am soliciting adventurers among my friends in Colorado.

Why would I want to climb a mountain? Honestly, this sort of thing didn’t appeal to me until the last few years. I used to rebel against being too outdoorsy in a REI-wearing, paddle-sporting, Powerbar-eating way as a statement against all the people clamoring for a certain lifestyle in Colorado who, I felt, invaded the state, drove up housing prices and made being a tea-drinking, vigilantly-recycling, fresh-mountain-air-loving type trendy instead of just plain sensible.

I am over that now, though. Bring on the fancy outdoor clothes and the overpriced organic oats and let’s climb us a mountain! Wait! I have been to the top of a fourteener – in a car. The summit of Mt. Evans is accessible by car in case anyone wants the thrill of the view but not the climb… I find the climb is what I long for at this juncture in my life.

Status: I have emailed some friends about this idea and so far, I have one taker – assuming he is in town the same time I am. I have looked at some websites like this and this and I am in “training.” I walk twice a day, run three times a week and do yoga three times a week. I figure that should be good for Longs Peak. The plan is to go in late June of THIS year, i.e., in a little over a month. Also, I invested in a new pair of hiking boots about a month ago. The price almost deterred me but when the salesman asked how long I had my last pair (10 years) I was convinced it was a good investment.

Plan of Action (POA): Keep “training.” Read up on the climb itself. Remind my climbing buddy once a week of how worth it waking up at 1am will be when we summit the mountain later that day.

The 30List

This list was inspired by a link posted on The Happiness Project. I love making lists and things which impose structure so I thought the exercise a good one. I found this surprisingly easy. One of my main goals was to list things that were attainable while still being items that would help me to grow and expand as a human. I admit #29 is a little far fetched; the list needed some bars set high.

My hope is to chronicle here, my journey through The 30List.