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.