#88 - Experience 50 Different Fruits Update

The second fruit to "experience" was a peacharine! Yep, a cross of a peach and a nectarine. It looks just like a peach from the outside and sadly I forgot to take a picture of it from the outside :( I let it get really ripe before eating it because I like super sweet fruit. I peeled the skin off and cut it in half and this is what it looked like:

Didn't have the orange color of a peach! The fruit was much more on the whiter side and the pit was really big. It smelled delicious! I took out the pit and I'm drying it along with some seeds from the passion fruit the other day because you never know what I'll want to try growing some time in the future :p I chopped it up into some tiny pieces and here's what I got:

The verdict? Meh. Not too great and not something I'd buy again. I've found that hybridizing fruit normally doesn't result in anything too spectacular. A fruit normally tastes best when you let it just be itself. This fruit had a really bland taste to it actually and was somewhat mealy. Every now and then I'd have a bite that was good and juicy and perfectly ripe, but overall, not fantastic. But I didn't want to throw it all away, so I thought to myself...hmmm...how can I make this more palatable and delicious...and I turned it into this :p

I know that's not the most appetizing picture in the world, but let me tell you just how good that tasted! What you see up there is the peacharine mixed with a spoonful of nutella and a handfull of honey granola with dried mixed berries. Oh yes...now THAT was good :p If anyone can make something healthy UNhealthy, it's me :p I think you can add nutella and granola to anything and make it good :p

Excited to see what other fruits await me!

#61 - Read 1,000 Short Stories Update

The second short story for this goal also came from Aimee Bender's collection, The Color Master, and the story is "Americca." It was another story that I absolutely loved, but then again, I don't think there was a story that I disliked in this collection. With this story, the whole concept of "magical realism" really clicked for me. I understand what the concept is....using fantasy elements in a seemingly real, natural environment to illustrate a point, but I don't think I ever really appreciated the style until reading Aimee Bender. She truly is a master of it. Her story "Tiger Mending" is when it first really struck me and when it did strike me, it hit me like an Amtrak train.

The thing with Aimee Bender's stories, and with magical realism in general, I'm learning, is that the "why?" doesn't matter. It doesn't matter why the weird/magical/fantastical elements happen. You don't always get the answer to that question. You just have to accept that in the world of this story, it IS happening. But it's happening to illustrate a bigger point.

In "Americca," items are showing up in the home of a family that struggles to get by. They wake up one morning and there are gourmet soups in their pantry that they would never buy for themselves. Trinkets appear on their nightstands that they would never splurge on. They end up donating the nicest thanksgiving basket to school for the homeless shelter when normally, they might be on the receiving end of one of those baskets.

But we see how this mysterious arrival of riches affects the family. We see them adjust to how life is now. At first it's disturbing that these things are showing up and then it's almost as if they expect them. When this stops happening for ahwile, the family finds themselves missing it. One of the daughters wants a hat that she sees and the mother of the family spends her hard earned money on this hat for her daughter even though the hat is too big. And the daughter cherishes the hat and wears it proudly despite the fact that it's too big. But when she gets home, the gift giving thing has seemingly come back and there's a hat that fits waiting for her. She's made fun of for wearing the hat that's too big and as predicted wears the hat that fits.

Bender paints a picture of American greed here. We don't need to know why the things are magically showing up in people's houses. What the focus is on instead is how people go from appreciating the small pleasures in life to those things suddenly not being good enough when greed becomes a factor...when we get a taste of a different side of life and I know that I've certainly been guilty of that myself.

I'm frustrated right now because I just can't quite put into words exactly what Bender did with this story, but she did it SO WELL. Highly recommended.

------------------------------

The last story in Bender's book, and my third story for this goal was "The Devourings," and this story returns Bender to fairy tale retellings. This is the story of a human girl who falls in love with an ogre because she finds herself to be ugly. However, she truly does love the ogre and the ogre truly does love her. However, ogres eat humans. The ogre and his wife have children together and they are ogre children. One night a group of humans come by the house wearing crowns and the human cannot turn them away. They go to sleep in the bed with the ogre children but switch their crowns with the caps of the ogre children. The ogre father comes home drunk and smells humans and eats his own children thinking that they are the humans when he sees the crowns. This is all in the first couple of pages of the story.

After this, the human wife leaves the ogre and sets off on her own journey to spend time alone. She finds her heart returning to her husband and her husband finds his thoughts returning to her. There's also a cake that replinishes itself and a blanket that hides the wife and the ogre eats the woman's uncle and I have to say, I don't completely understand this story, but I still loved it. That's what Bender does. For me, it was a good old fashioned fairy tale on the limits of the heart and the nature of things and things being what they are. And maybe that's exactly what this story is about. Ogres eat humans...humans feel loss when they lose loved ones....magical cakes will always replinish themselves.....life goes on.

Would I recommend this collection to everyone I know? Absolutely!!!! Will everyone love it? Hmmm....Put it this way...Tiger Mending is one of my favorite stories  I've ever read and many people who have read that story say "what the FUCK?" What kind of ending is that???? If you read this book, remind yourself that these stories are not about getting answers to the fantastical elements. They're not even about the fantastical elements. The fantastical elements are there as a catalyst to tell a bigger story. And that makes all the difference I think.

New Goal With The First Update!

So I discovered a new goal. I love fresh fruit. I always have...nothings more delicious than a fresh piece of fruit that's still juicy and delicious. But there are so many fruits that I still haven't even tasted! And then there are fruits that I've never truly tasted. The original goal was to try 50 new fruits. Then I thought...well maybe there aren't 50 fruits out there that I haven't tried :p I started thinking of all of the weird fruits I see at Whole Foods and thought surely there are 50 but I'm still not sure. But then I thought, there are different varieties of apples that I haven't tried, etc. Still...don't know if there are 50.

However, there are certainly plenty of fruits that I've had in one form or another, but haven't truly appreciate. Like raspberries. I'm sure I've eaten them on a cake or in something, but I've never sat down and intentionally eaten fresh raspberries. Same with figs...growing up in New Orleans, everyone has a fig tree, so I know what figs taste like..hell fig newtons! But I can't recall actually ever sitting down and EATING a fig....really appreciating it. Grapefruit. I say I hate it, but I don't ever recall actually eating grapefruit :p I have no memory of actually trying it.

So what I'm officially calling the goal is "Experience 50 different fruits". And that's what I'll do. Whether I've had it before or not, this goal will be about really experiencing and appreciating the fruit that I eat.

The first fruit that I tried is something that I really have NOT had before. I wanted to start with something that was a bit of a "different" fruit. Something I've never had before and didn't think I'd ever eat. And Whole Foods is good about carrying these strange fruits so I thought I'd try a weird froot! Here's a passion fruit!

The first thing I noticed about passion fruit is that it's super light! Seriously, it feels like it has absolutely nothing inside of it. It's about the weight of a ping pong ball. And the skin is dried and wrinkled and I read that that's how you tell it's ripe. It should be dimpled. You can smell from the outside that it smells like grapefruit. The way to eat it is to cut it in half. When you do that, it looks like this:

Doesn't look all that great, huh? It's a gooey mess of pulp, juice and seeds all inside of a leathery skin. I'm actually trying to dry the skins right now though I don't know how successful that will be because they're so cool looking and they look like they'd make neat little pinch bowls :p I'm guessing this won't be too successful of a thing :p Once you slice them, you spoon out the fruit and strain it through a sieve or mesh strainer to get the fruit and juice from the seeds:

There really isn't much fruit at all in a passion "fruit". It's more passion "juice". All the websites I went on said that passion "fruit" is best served over ice cream or in a drink, so it's really something you get juice from and maybe some pulp. This isn't a fruit that you eat, it's more something you either drink or use in a recipe. It's also not something I'll have often because they are EXPENSIVE and you get about a tablespoon of juice/pulp. It costs $2.99 for one fruit. Now that's whole foods so they may be cheaper elsewhere but probably not much. 

The verdict on the taste? It would probably be good drizzled over vanilla ice cream or in a drink but by itself it was too tart for me. But I wanted to taste it by itself. It has a citrus-y flavor to me...sort of orange meets pineapple and add the sourness of a lemon. But not AS sour as a lemon. I couldn't have eaten more than one because of the tartness of it, but I think mixed with something sweet, the tartness really would've been perfect.

But it was neat to have experienced this :D Next up: a peacharine! Yep, a mix between a peach and a nectarine :D

#81 Make Charli Mine Update

So I'm kind of cheating and just using this as an excuse to post a picture of cute little Charli, who you can partially see here is not so little! She's about to pop with babies in the next couple of days. She came by today while I was outside and it started raining to get out of the rain. I thought for sure she was going to stay last night. I actually thought she was going to have her babies last night. She was pacing all over the apartment and was SUPER affectionate. I showed her "her box" again that I've had ready for her which is a GIANT amazon box with an old pillow in it and a bunch of old tshirts in it that I was going to use for rags....basically the box she can have babies in. She normally jumps out of it, but she stayed in it for a little while last night. But she left last night as she usually does. She's back here tonight though. Maybe she'll have the babies tonight. What I'm thinking right now is to let her have the babies here and then once they've grown a little bit, bring the babies to a shelter and have her spayed there while I'm there. Then hopefully she'll stay here. And if she doesn't, then I'll let her go...I'm sure though at this point that even if she doesn't stay as a house cat, she'd come visit all the time like she does now :) She's a nightly visitor at this point. We have a little bit of a bond :p She's sleeping next to me right now. And it's AMAZING how much better my allergies have gotten! I held her so much last night and she slept on my chest for a little while last night because she was so clingy..I think she's scared about having these babies...and my allergies were just fine! I didn't even have to take medicine. That's awesome!

#71 Get Donuts From 25 Different Donut Shops Update

I am a certified donut-a-holic and when this number for the list came to my mind, I got all excited :p I wanted to make the goal "get donuts from 100 different donut shops" but I had to limit myself to 25 :p Though once we hit 25, we may have to raise the number. Donuts truly may be my favorite food! But it's so hard to find a good bakery! I'm not a huge fan of the big chains. Though truly I don't think a bad donut exists. Krispy Kreme, Dunkin Donuts, Tim Hortons...all chains I've been to that have donuts that are OK, but they're not blow you away amazing. It's these local bakeries that have the amazing donuts. Though I'm sure you'll see all of those chains appearing on the list too :p

Rocko's is a place I found when googling donut shops on the northshore. It's about 20 minutes away from my apartment, but today I was in need of some "feel good food" so I decided to make the drive. They sell donuts and chicken fingers! I got the chicken fingers too and those weren't so good. I didn't even finish my meal. But the donuts...oh they were good! And I can totally see myself driving 20 minutes again to get their donuts!

I got three glazed donuts and an apple fritter. I would've gotten a better variety but I'm guessing you have to get there early if you want a variety. Not much left aside from powdered donuts and cake donuts which aren't bad but they're not my favorites. The glazed donuts are PERFECT! Soft and fluffy with a delicious glaze on the outside and OMG the apple fritters. *cries* Let's just say it's a good thing they're 20 minutes away!! I don't need to be eating those every day and I would be if they were closer :p They're HUGE and just...SO GOOD!

So #1 on the list sets the bar high for the next 24! Excited to see what deliciousness lies ahead :p

#80 Collect All of the Penguin Imprints Update

So I actually had this series finished before I started this project, but since I only had one other imprint completed before, I figured I'd go ahead and post a picture so I have pictures of them all! This is Penguin's Manga Biographies and from what I gather there are no more that they plan to publish, though that's a shame because they're really cool! I've actually only read one, the Gandhi biograhy, but it was fantastic!! This is such a great way to teach history and if I were ever a teacher I'd use these as teaching tools in a heartbeat!!! I can't wait to read Che Guevara and the Dalai Lama's biographies as well! As always with Penguin, the covers are really fantastic too!

#80 Collect All Of The Penguin Imprints Update

The only imprint I had all of prior to this update was the Penguin Manga Biographies line. They only did three of those sadly, but I do have them all! Today, I got the sixth book in the Penguin Civics Classics line which completes that line so I now have two imprints completed! As with all of the Penguin imprints I'm in LOVE with their covers!!! I'm actually really looking forward to reading these too which is funny because I HATED civics and history in high school. I'm especially looking forward to reading the Supreme Court Decisions book.

#61 Read 1,000 Short Stories Update

#1 "A State of Variance" by Aimee Bender, read on 9/18/13. I SO wish I would've started this project when I started the collection that this story is from, The Color Master. I love Aimee Bender so much. Seriously, after reading The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake and this, my second collection of her short stories, I'm totally in love with her.

This story is about a mother and her son, both born with features that are perfectly symmetrical. Sounds like it may be quite boring right? Well it's not :p Bender shows with this story what value we place on appearance. There has been lots of research showing that people distrust people with symmetrical features. I've actually read some of it during my studies getting my degrees. Basically, the more perfect a person looks, the less likely they are to be trusted. Even though the mother and son may not be perfect looking beauty wise in this story, their features are perfectly symmetrical and therefore they live lives that are solitary...people are afraid to get too close to them.

When the son in the story tries to injure himself or have someone else injure him, even his injuries heal symmetrically. It's not until he can "trick" this trait of his that he can find true love finally. As is always the case with Bender, there's an aspect of magical realism to the story as well and it was just beautiful!!

I only have two stories left in this collection and I don't want it to end :(

#60 Sell 100 Etsy Orders Update

I'm starting all of my project recording starting now, but I did want to go backwards on this goal and record all of the Etsy orders I've sold!! I'm actually keeping a paper journal of all of these goals too, so the books I've read on the "read all of so and so's book" lists are already crossed off. But the Etsy orders I'll go ahead and keep record of here :) So here are the first Etsy orders that have come in!

1. 20 postcards to Kelly R. in Nova Scotia, Canada
2. 6 postcards to Mary D. in Maggie Valley, NC
3. 10 postcards to Debi S. in Pensfield, NY
4. 10 postcards to Ante P. in Djakovo, Croatia
5. 5 postcards to Abby M in Indianapolis, IN
6. 2 postcards to Eric V. in Berkeley, CA

I just love this goal so much :D I'm so shocked still and am convinced I always will be every time someone actually buys something of mine :p

A New Place

So this blog is inspired by my dear friend Debi. This project really...this blog is just a place to record my progress on this project. I don't even want to use the word progress really because I see this as something with no end and no start. It's why I used the URL "intentionally Chris"...because what I love so much about this idea is that it's about living each day of your life intentionally. Celebrating life really! Debi is doing something similar...creating a list of all of the things that she'd like to do with Rich someday...big things, little things, easily doable things, not so easily doable things but amazing things. And the list is infinite. That's what I'm doing too. A million inspirations....literally, millions of things to find in life to smile about. Things to make living more purposeful, more intentional, more meaningful or sometimes just more fun :) So I have the tab up top where I'll keep "the list" which I'll continually add to and hopefully cross stuff off of eventually and then I'll post randomly when I do some things! Some of these goals will have lots of mini posts...like "read 1000 short stories" :p I may read 5 in a night and post about them all. But this blog is for me and I'm likely typing to myself and will be the only one reading this (hello Chris!) so I won't worry about boring anyone. My space :D I tried something similar to this...the 50x50 project, and it just never worked.....I didn't stick to it...and I think it was because I felt like I gave myself something that I HAD to do...yes 50 is still 17.5 years away for me (yes, I'm giving myself that half a year :p), but still..it's a deadline, and I don't do well with deadlines :p This is open...there's no failing, only succeeding. So here we go!