Crossing Things off the List

1. Leave 100% tip

I am cheap so I knew this one was going to be emotionally hard for me to do. Jason and I went to Olive Garden and I did not go into there thinking "I'm going to tip 100%". My plan was to wait until I had a good server that went over the top who deserved the extra tip. This server was nothing special. I heard her talking to another table saying she was sorry for the mix up and gave them an extra appetizer. You could tell she was struggling. I figured she was pretty new to her job or having a bad day. So instead of giving my 100% tip to someone who was fantastic at their job, I gave it to a girl to hopefully give her something to make her feel better. Kind of like a "don't give up". I'm hoping my intuition was right. Otherwise I just gave someone 100% tip for just being a bad worker lol.

2. Watch 5 Documentaries (3 of 5)

The Interrupters (2011): This is a documentary about the increased crime rate in Chicago. A film crew followed a crew called "CeaseFire" for about a year. The group involved a number of individuals that worked with the youth in their community to end violence. Most, if not all, the members in the group had a background themselves of being in a gang and being involved in criminal actions such as an armed robbery or murder. Those members would reflect on their background and regrets while talking with other individuals.

The Documentary did a good job on raising awareness on what was going on inside the community. After watching it, you can feel for the kids and understand why some of them would turn around fight or even kill someone else. Everything became apart of a cycle. First of all, they grew up with violence in their family, therefore it became a learned behavior. Their father or their mother would physically hurt someone else as a way of revenge and they did this in front of their kids. Eventually those kids grew up and had kids of their own that became apart of this cycle. Second, once your child, sibling, or friend got hurt or killed, the only thing that seemed right to these kids was to go back and hurt whoever hurt them. Make them feel their pain.

The documentary got long and repetitive. There didn't seem to be a point except for raising awareness and making the people who commit the crime relatable. You almost felt helpless. Like there was nothing that could be done to stop the cycle. The last 5 minutes showed a couple of the kids that were followed through out the documentary that had some hope for their future. They were getting jobs and turning their life around. As far as the rest of the film, it just seemed like a never ending circle with a problem that could never be solved.

3. Clean house every night for two weeks

I was hoping by doing this for two weeks it would turn into somewhat of a habit, but it didn't. I just powered through this one. The hardest part is when I work since I am gone from 6am to 8pm and then I usually just eat and go to bed. To clean my house after a 12 hour shift is exhausting. It was never that dirty since I was keeping up with it that night, but doing the dishes and touching up was enough. I consider myself a fairly clean person, but I couldn't wait for those two weeks to be over. Is that lazy?

4. Conquer my mom's Spanish Rice and Beans

My mom had a few unique recipes that she would make for us when we were going up. This one seemed was hard for me to have come out the same every time. Sometimes it would be fine and sometimes it would be a disaster. It seemed to turn out as a disaster more then it turned out fine. Yes, I say fine because it never seemed to turn out good. My sisters can both make it and they seem to have it down but when I ask them they don't seem to know how what I am doing wrong. It seems like whenever I made it the rice would still be uncooked and wet. I tried less water, I tried more water, and I tried cooking it longer and the results were never consistent. This meal takes about 10 minutes to prepare and then 1 hour to cook. So after waiting for your meal for an hour and it turns out like crap, it is pretty disappointing. My husband bought us a rice cooker a couple months ago since we have some meals that we eat with white rice. I figured I would give it a shot in making my moms Spanish rice recipe in the rice cooker. I wasn't very optimistic but I figured the worst thing that could happen is it comes out like crap which happens almost every time I make it anyway. It came out PERFECT! I was so amazed but I thought it was a fluke. After doing this 3 times it has come out the same every time! I wish I could have figured out how to make it in a pot because the rice cooker has limited space if I ever wanted to make some for a lot of people, but for now I can have Spanish rice without stressing if it will actually be good this time or not!

Pictured: Left is how it looks when I failed. Right is how it should look.

5. Go to an Arcade

I actually did this back on my birthday in June. Yes I am back blogging. This is one of few things that Jason will go out and actually enjoy doing. Everything else I just drag him along. We have our go to game "Deal or No Deal". I don't really know why we like it so much since we basically just pick a case and say "No Deal" until we open our case. We also played the basketball game, motorcycle racing, and a game of pool. Then of course we bought candy with all our tickets. We saved a little room and bought Sequoia a new toy. She didn't like that I wanted a picture before she could play. I forgot to take pictures while we were actually at the arcade so you just get sweet Sequoia.

Weekend Update

Friday

Friday night we finally went to Medieval Times Dinner and Tournament. We tried going on my Birthday, but there was a storm right before we went that made the power go out so we got a rain check. I was planning on then going on our anniversary, but when I called that day they said they didn't have any showings for that night (bad planning on my part). So instead of going on a special night we just picked a random day that worked for both of us and went for it. This place is a show with medieval times themed games and staged jousting and sword fighting. Then obviously the dinner part of it too.

I read online that in order to get good seats you had to show up early as a "first come first serve". I think that was just a way to have you get there early to buy stuff from their gift shop and bar. There really wasn't a bad seat in the house. There was 6 different sections with different colors that represented the knight and their horse that you would cheer for. We were the yellow section (and of course we won).



101 things to do in 1001 days:  Go to a show/theatre performance.

Saturday

I have been looking forward to this day for about a year. When I first moved to Dallas I wanted to find some dog events that I could go do with Sequoia. Unfortunately I was not able to find any that sounded interesting except for this one, but it was a whole year away! Sequoia always loves her dog park visits but she especially loved cooling off in the pool. I wish this was more than just once a year but I guess until next year guys.




101 things to do in 1001 days:  Go to a dog event with Sequoia

Life in Dallas

Slide the City Dallas

The pictures are pretty self explanatory. There was a bridge that the city blocked off where they inserted a large slip-and-slide. When you got to the top of the hill, they handed you a bag with some keepsakes, which included the mouth guard. I figured I would get the most for my money and use it. Why not?
We only paid to go down the slide once, which good thing we did since a couple of the tubes popped. I wish there would have been more stuff we could have done there but it was still fun and worth it.

Pete's Piano Bar

I have actually gone here a couple times and both times were with my coworkers. I am not a big fan of going to bars to sit around in a loud area and try to hold a conversation. This bar, however, is an interactive bar which makes it more entertaining. There are two pianos at the front with tables in a half-circle around them. There doesn't seem to be a bad spot to sit in the whole bar. They play popular songs from all generations while mostly catering to the millennial generation. They also have Jello shots that are in a syringe which as nurses we HAD to get those. Plus it makes drinking more fun when you can pull up other drinks into the syringe, duh.

Katy Trail

I always like to find a good walking trail and now that there are no lakes its hard to do. When I googled "trails in Dallas" this is what I found. The drive was about 30 minutes, if it wasn't for that I would go here more often. This trail is where an old railroad use to run and instead of taking away the tracks and letting nature take its course, the city paved the trail to make it into a running/biking trail. It was a nice trail but there was construction going on in the buildings around it. Maybe I just walked the wrong way but it kind of took away from the tranquility of the walk. Of course I brought Sequoia along for the fun and at the end of our walk together there was a restaurant with a nice dog friendly patio where we had lunch. Jason insisted that we buy Sequoia her own lunch, so we got her a hot dog. He is such a sucker for her.




101 things to do in 1001 days: Do 3 things unique to Dallas

Exploring New Resturants

1. Waffle house 11/07/2015
It was something Jason and I have drove past all the time since it is right by our place. I have heard of it before but we do not have any in Minnesota (that I know of anyway). It was a cute little place that reminded me of old town diner. The food was good but nothing special.



2. Enzo NY Pizzeria 12/01/2015
My husband and I were feeling like Pizza, but wanted something different than the usual takeout. We found this online and thought we would try it out. The atmosphere was really nice. We found out that we drive past this area on the way to the gym. It is a cute little square of buildings with a grass area out front. Pizza was pizza which was good. I got Spinach Alfredo and Pepperoni and my husband got two Pepperoni. We like our basic foods/we are picky.


3. Peacon Lodge 7/02/2016
This was the restaurant I thought about when I made this "thing to do".  It is located in Deep Ellum  of Dallas so it consisted of a special trip. Apparently, this is the place to go for barbecue in the Dallas area. I asked multiple people at work where to go for some good barbecue and they all brought up this place. The line was about a 45 minute wait to order food but once you ordered it came out in about 5 minutes. While you were waiting in line there was news reports and stories of how this place came to be. There was a picture of Guy Fieri from the food network visiting this restaurant. I am on the picky side when it comes to food so I try not to set the bar too high but the food met and exceed my expectations. I went here with my sister and she liked it so much she brought her husband and brother-in-law back another time.



4. Kenny's Burger Joint 08/06/2016
This was another place that was brought up by one of my coworkers when I asked about good food in the area. He suggested this burger place that has lots of unique burgers. I think it is hard to go wrong with a burger, so I took him up on this offer. I went with my husband, my sister, and my brother-in-law. I got the black and blue burger that has cajun spices and blue cheese dressing on top. They also had some good parmesan fries on the side. There was a burger that had queso cheese on top but I got nervous ordering that one since the server said its so messy you had to eat it with a fork and knife. Who eats a burger with a fork and knife? Maybe next time...


5. Maggiano's Little Italy 8/29/2016
My hubby and I went here for our first Anniversary. I have heard about it from multiple people and noticed it was a big chain. I am always hesitant to go to any Italian restaurant besides Olive Garden because I love that place so much. I always get Fettuccine Alfredo when I have Italian, but I always compare to Olive Garden which it never compares. So this time I wanted to try something different. I tried the baked zitti and I wish I would have just gotten Fettichine :/ But you never know till you try. Who knows, it could have been the next best things. Then we ended the meal with a cheesecake that was AMAZING!





101 things to do in 1001 days: Go to 5 Restaurants I have never been to before.