#114 - Give to 100 Causes Update

$75 to NaNoWriMo....still owe them $25 more. Due to finances right now with my lovely work situation, that's all I can give, but I reached my readathon goal of $100, so I shall eventually give them another $25. For now, back to non-monetary ways of giving to charity :p

#42 - Read All of Stephen King's Books Update

Well I read Carrie yesterday for the readathon! Really good book and quite a fast read too! I think most people know the story of Carrie, made famous by the cult horror movie based on the novel. I have to say that the movie did a really good job of sticking with the book. But there was one thing that I noticed that the movie changed and I'm not surprised by it at all...it's typical of hollywood. In the book, Carrie is described as being pimply and overweight, though not unnattractive and even striking at times. Her mother is described as being overweight in the book too and King even describes the weight as being too much for her ankles at one point. You'd never know this watching the movies...the one from the 70's or the recent release. Carrie is a stick in both movies and her mom is skinny as well. Which made me really applaud Stephen King and love him even more. He gives us a character here who's far from perfect, certainly doesn't lead an ideal live, but even though she doesn't fit the beauty "norms", he still describes Carrie as being beautiful and striking and I can't tell you how much I loved that. I wish hollywood would embrace that too. Another note, I didn't know this before doing this project, but when I went to write out King's bibliography, I learned that this is his first novel that he published, published in 1974, followed by Salem's Lot in 1975 and The Shining in 1977...Boy did HE start his career off with a bang!

#39 - Bake 50 Different Pies Update

I grew up with this pie and I'll always have memories of my gram attached to it. Lemon meringue pie. One of my favorites. For almost every holiday for as long as I can remember, my gram has ALWAYS had a lemon meringue pie at her house....this is my mom's mom. Right before I moved into my apartment, I told my gram at Easter that I was going to have to get her recipe for lemon meringue pie from her one day. I said it laughing, thinking it was a secret recipe that she was going to take to the grave with her because it tastes SO. DAMN. GOOD. So I can't even BEGIN to tell you how hard I laughed when she nonchalantly went into her pantry and came out with a box of jello lemon pudding mix and said "here you go!" Yep....she uses the recipe right off the lemon pudding jello box. She makes her meringue a tiny bit differently, but I use the meringue recipe off of the pudding box too. Three egg white and 1/3 cup of sugar. And I use a frozen pie crust too. This is a pretty easy pie to make but it's SO DAMN GOOD! See that, all in caps twice in this post....I promise you it really is :p

#113 - Walk 50 Trails Update

I guess this is also an update for intentionally walking the circumference of the earth :p But I'm finding that I'm really enjoying going on daily walks. Today I went and walked the trail at the Mandeville Lakefront of Lake Ponchartrain. I went at noon when the sun was at it's peak, but with the cool breeze coming off of the lake, the temperature wasn't bad at all. I walked a total of 2.3 miles, not the whole trail. I'll work my way up to that. Here are some pictures of the view:

#117 - Take pictures of 30 Non-domestic Animals in their natural habitat

This squirrel was just too cute to pass up :p Squirrels were not what I had in mind when I came up with this goal, but what the hell. It's not a house pet :p I was taking pictures of some trees actually and I turned to my right to walk away and this little squirrel was just RIGHT THERE in front of me just staring at me like this. Too adorable. And he just stayed there frozen until I took his picture and walked away and then of course he jetted away too. Why are squirrels so damn cute??

#66 - Take Pictures of 50 Birds - Pekin Duck

And the last bird update of the day, the Pekin Duck...another domestic duck and perhaps the most well known duck of them all. These guys were SO adorable and so cute. They quacked away and waddled their tail feathers and followed me around while I took pictures but not in a mean aggressive way. It was almost like they were just curious. So adorable.

#66 - Take Pictures of 50 Birds - Cayuga Duck

This duck was SO SO beautiful!!! Apparently they're a domestic breed of duck that people raise for eggs frequently. His/her feathers were very iridescent with a green hue to them. He/she was very calm too.