Well, we're now well into October, and I haven't updated my love list since the beginning of March. I think a quarterly update is a bit overdue!

Grow a garden on our porch
I started tomatoes, zucchini, peppers and spinach from seed. The tomatoe sprouts were looking great until I left for the Netherlands for a week and my roommate didn't water them as I requested. The zucchini and peppers fared a bit better, but got snatched by some raccoons before I could harvest them. The spinach never sprouted at all, and the wildflower seeds I planted just looked like weeds. Needless to say, this was a less than successful experiment, but hasn't deterred me from wanting to try again next year. Although I probably won't start from seed. And I'll be in an upper level apartment where there will be fewer pests, but less space and probably less sun.

Read more novels
I think that I've done a pretty good job of this. My Aunt has kept me well supplied with books, as she is a voracious reader. My dad also passed along his BlackBerry playbook (since he is now an iSnob), which has the Kobo Reader app on it. Since all books out of copyright seem to be free to download, I started reading Sense and Sensibility. I also have Fifty Shades of Grey to read, only because I have to know for myself just how horrible it is. After reading this review at GoodReads, as suggested by Eco Yogini, I'm strangely intrigued. And scared.

Learn (and practice) to cook well
I have discovered this year that I actually enjoy cooking - I just don't like deciding what to eat! R and I have already agreed that if we ever live together he'll decide what we're eating and I'll make it. He said it with a sparkle in his eye, though, so I suspect I'm going to have to learn how to cook lots of complicated Dutch meals...

Learn to speak Dutch
I think that self-teaching a language is not very good at all. At the end of my last trip to the Netherlands, however, my Dutch was getting a teeny, tiny bit better. But not much. That being said, my Dutch I class at the U of T started last night! While the first night was a little bit unorganized, it was interesting to hear why the 9 other people in the course were there, and I think it will be very useful to have a designated 2.5 hours to learn, and have homework. I was a bit of a keener in school (not surprising to those who know me!), so the fact that there's homework to complete, and tests to write, means I'll spend at least some time doing that outside of class! And R promised he'd help me practice, which is good because there are 2 couples and a father/son combo in the class, who have each other to practice with!

Get rid of the junk in my bedroom and the garage
I spent this past weekend organizing and purging from the garage. I took a trunk load of stuff to the Value Village, have some board games that friends have expressed an interest in taking, and have some eWaste that the City will recycle for me. I now have to figure out how to get my hands on one of the eWaste bags, because the City website is not very helpful. Once I figure it out, I will put up a post!

Simplify my wardrobe
In addition to the trunk full of stuff I took too Value Village from the garage, I also took 3 bags of clothes that don't fit within my wardrobe anymore. I went thrifting with my cousin Ali this week and got some great basics and a beautiful pencil skirt, but each item fits within the framework I have set-out for my wardrobe.

Finally get my Professional Engineer designation
Fail. Epic fail. Nothing done but refute a whole bunch of nagging by my dad. And my mom. And my sister. And R. And my sister's boyfriend... You get the idea, I'm putting this off.

Pay off my debt
By the end of this month my MasterCard will be paid off, and never used again! That means that the money I was putting on it can now go to my VISA to get it paid off! I'm very excited to be heading in the right direction. Mint has added some features, so I can now see my debt over time. Look at it go down!

(For some reason one of my accounts isn't showing up in the summary for January and February - this really is a downward trend)

Track the waste that I produce each week/month
Once again, an Epic Fail. I found it quite difficult to track with a roommate who would likely contaminate my results, not out of spite, but just because she wouldn't pay attention. I move into my own apartment in December, so the waste tracking will begin again in earnest in January, when I can have a dedicated garbage and recycling container for just me.

With the new year fast approaching, I'm also starting to think about what I'd love to do next year. Being organized is certainly on the list, as is running a half marathon, but I think there will be a lot of repeats from this year.

This weekend I took the very first step in having my own garden.

Yesterday morning I went to the City of Toronto Commissioners Transfer Station and picked up two totes of leaf compost. Compost improves the quality of soil by improving its structure and texture and enabling it to better retain nutrients, moisture, and air. And best of all, it was free! Yay!



This morning I bought some potting soil, little peat pots and tomato, zucchini, green bean and cucumber as well as some everlasting pea lathyrus and wildflower seeds. While I would have rather made the potting soil and harvested the vegetable seeds myself, I didn't want to bite off more than I could chew to start. Imagine my disappointment when I found the tomato seeds were double packaged...

The seeds were small, but it still seemed silly.

Because I had no real idea what I was doing, I generally followed the directions on the little pots. I started by mixing the potting soil and compost in about a 50/50 mix and filled the little pots. I then 'watered' them to the point the sides of the pots were wet.

Dry and filled

I then put 3 or 4 seeds in each pot, covered them with more soil/compost mixture and watered them thoroughly.

These are four of the everlasting pea seeds (if you can find them)

Covered with soil

Watered thoroughly

I have them all stored in the lid of a rubbermaid on top of my book shelf for now. They're supposed to stay warm until they germinate. Then I'll have to find  them a spot in the sun so they can grow until I put them into the ground.


I'm probably about a month behind on this process, but better late than never. Keep your fingers crossed! (and stay tuned)

February was really busy. At work my projects tripled. R visited for 11 glorious days. Which meant no blogging for me. No one wants to read a month worth of entries that say "I went to work, came home and went to bed."

But now it's March, there is a new addition to our team starting on Monday, and I am determined to get back to it!
Grow a garden on our porch
Our garden is still frozen solid, so this won't be happening for at least another month or two.

Read more novels
In February I read The Girl who Kicked the Hornet's Nest (of the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo trilogy), Water for Elephants, and the Pelee Project.
Learn (and practice) to cook well

Learn to speak Dutch
No real updates since my January update. I decided to sign up for a class, but the only one I could find is at the U of T and doesn't start until September. So I'm still researching.

Get rid of the junk in my bedroom and the garageI sent all of my remaining shoes and bags to the goodwill, and have started another pile to take soon.

Simplify my wardrobeAs I noted above, I've started another collection of clothes to take to goodwill or to sew into new things. I've got a lot of things that I noted this month that I rarely wear, which means more downsizing!

Finally get my Professional Engineer designationWork has been far to busy to do anything about this. As important as it is, billable work takes precedence!

Pay off my debtThe last two are pretty big fails for me this month. With R here, I spent more money than I usually do. We had a beautiful trip to Ottawa, and I feel like it was worth it. but now I'm back on a strict spending diet!

Track the waste that I produce each week/month
I don't know what happened with this. I was really good in January, and then I just stopped! I'm going to work at getting back into this again, because if I don't measure how much waste I produce, how am I ever going to reduce/eliminate it.  I did make my first homemade toothpaste today. I haven't tried it yet, but I'll post about it as soon as I know it's not terrible!

Seeing as it's now the 2nd of February, I figure it's time to take my first look back at my love list from the beginning of the year.

Read more novels
So far this year I've read The Girl who Played with Fire (of the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo trilogy), Catching Fire (of the Hunger Games trilogy), and Sleeping Naked is Green. I've already started The Girl who kicked the Hornets Nest and am in line to read Mocking Jay to finish up my trilogies. My Aunt and I have done some book trading, so I also have three or four novels from her to read.

Learn (and practice) to cook well  
I made my mom's 'speckle' meat loaf, so called because there are lots and lots of carrots in it.  While it was a step in the right direction, I haven't done much else!

Learn to speak Dutch
I am now on lesson 30, the last one, of Pimsleur's Dutch. I`ve learned how to say `I love the Netherlands`(Ik hou van Nederland), and I want to stay in the Netherlands (Ik wil blijven in Nederland), neither of which my family will be too happy to hear, I suspect! I also learned `Nee, het is te duur`, which means No, it`s too expensive, an important thing to know in Dutch according to R

Get rid of the junk in my bedroom and the garage
I went through two boxes in my garage, and labelled them as garage sale. My parents are planning on having one in the spring, so I thought i might partake. Anything that doesn't get sold will go to a reuse store or on freecycle. Nothing I own is nice enough to put on consignment!

Simplify my wardrobe
Rather than reducing my wardrobe in January, I added... But I added thoughtfully and with purpose. I bought two v-neck sweaters whose arms go to my elbows (just like I like them), one black and one purple, and one light blue button down shirt with the same type of arms. If it had been cheaper, I would have bought the light purple one as well. I also got some new underwear to replace some old stuff that needs to be replaced. February will be for eliminating the parts of my wardrobe that I don`t need.

Finally get my Professional Engineer designation
Work has been chaotic, which is why I've been a delinquent here, and a delinquent with my PEO application.

Pay off my debt
About a year ago I started tracking my spending with Mint. It's a pretty easy to use system, and there are cool graphs, like the following:


As you can see, my net income has been in the positive for the past 4 months! Which means, slowly but surely my debt is being paid off. When it gets closer, I`ll share the page of the net worth. It`s too depressing to share at the moment. The giant dip into the red was from when I went to Peru. A trip very much worth it!

Run 10 miles
Seeing as I'm already signed up to do one third (10km) of the Around the Bay Race as part of Team Spatula Runners, I might as well add it to my love list! I've been trying to run 3 times a week, and it hasn't been terrible. I'm going to have to start increasing my distances soon, seeing as the race is in March.

I also signed up to do the Tough Mudder with my Wipeout Canada family in August. I didn't quite realize what I was getting myself into when I signed up, but needless to say I will have to get my butt in gear to prepare for it. 10 miles?! Yes I can!


Track the waste that I produce each week/month
In January,  I generated 702 g of landfill and 1,202 g of recycling.Weight wise, that's about as much as a 2L bottle of pop. Volume wise, it's probably much bigger.

Now I've got a target. There's still lots to do, but I've made a lot of changes to help facilitate that. And you're going to hear all about them, whether you want to or not!
I ended up tired of weighing my waste every day, which is why there`s a giant weigh in at the end of the month. This is how I'm going to operate going forward.

On a related note, I share garbage bins with my roommate and our upstairs neighbours. It drives me bonkers that they seem to fill up 2 'medium' sized bins, while we only use a small kitchen catcher in a two week period. I'm half tempted to label them as 'upper' and 'lower' to see if anything changes, though it's probably too passive aggressive. Maybe I'll suggest to my landlord that he replace one of the 'medium' bins with a 'small' bin for us!

On Sunday, friends of mine hosted their 3rd annual New Years Day party, which this year was preceded by all you can eat sushi. I used disposable chopsticks, and forgot to ask for no straw. I also ate an excessive amount of individually wrapped chocolates. I'm not sure to do about my compulsive need to eat chocolate, but I do know that next time I plan to eat sushi, I will bring my own re-useable chopsticks. I have some that friends of mine gave as wedding favours!

Monday I recycled a paper bag from a coffee shop breakfast, a cat food can and a subway transfer which I took accidentally. The cat food cans will be a reoccurring item, because I'm pretty sure I can't find a zero waste replacement. I'm content with the cans for now rather than the plastic bags that the dry food comes in. I feel as though the process and end uses for aluminum cans are more of a recycling process, whereas the process and end uses for plastics are more of a downcycling process. But that is another post for another day.


For the record, I will not be sharing every bit of waste I produce all year, just the things that I've learned how to eliminate!

2012 has some big shoes to fill. The past year was filled with some pretty amazing stuff:

• Wipeout Canada Beauties vs. Geeks aired. I was cut from the episode, but it was still a great experience.
• I met a pretty fantastic Dutch man, a perfect match for me, thanks to a pick-up line from "How I met your Mother'.
• I ran my first 10K with my Wipeout Toronto family.
• I spent 2 weeks in Peru and hiked the Inka trail to Machu Picchu.
• I moved in to an awesome new apartment with a wicked new housemate.
• I spent 2 weeks in the Netherlands working and traveling with my Dutch man.

Not a bad year, if you ask me.

I'm not a huge fan of new year's resolutions, so I made a love list, as suggested on be more with less:

• Grow a garden on our porch
• Read more novels
• Learn (and practice) to cook well 
• Learn to speak Dutch
• Get rid of the junk in my bedroom and the garage
• Simplify my wardrobe
• Finally get my Professional Engineer designation (late addition) 
• Pay off my debt
• Track the waste that I produce each week/month

I like this love list idea. There are lots of studies that show that writing down goals increases the likelihood that I will actually do them. I also believe that it's easier to make small changes to my habits over time, rather than making a bunch all at once. Plus, I intend to blog about the waste tracking, so you can keep me honest.

Happy New Year!