100 things to do in 2011: month in review

hello again, friends! i come to you a month into the new year, still feeling pretty good about 2011. i've been keeping painstaking track of the items i've completed and made a dent in from my list of 100 things to do in 2011, so let's take a look, shall we?

12. finish the crossword every day for a month: COMPLETED.

i'm currently completing today's usa today puzzle, and am shocked that i actually knocked this one off in the first month. full disclosure...while i didn't have time to do a puzzle every single day, i made sure to make up for any missed ones in the following days. commitment!!

14. dine at 50 new restaurants: STARTED.

slightly disappointed at my pathetic showing of eateries in the first month, but i guess i was too busy focusing on my fast food avoidance (see below). however, i had an amazing breakfast at blue moon grill, a nommy pre-bowling cheeseburger at kings, and killed 1.5 birds with 1 stone at the beehive.

19. win a contest: COMPLETED.

i enter contests like it's my job, so i'm not incredibly shocked about this one. when white castle announced a twitter giveaway for telling them what you'd do if you were stuck in a white castle restaurant for 24 hours, i was all over it. clearly, i'd pretend i was the queen of white castle, decorate the restaurant in regal fashion, and sit on my throne and eat sliders all day. bam. the next week, i get a cardboard crave case filled with a white castle baseball cap (STYLIN'), a scented candle (literallysmellslikeburgerswtf), a coffee table book, a car magnet that reads "craver on board", a t-shirt and a bunch of other awesome junk. what makes it even more amazing is that i've only actually been to white castle once in my life.

25. try 5 new foods: STARTED.

can you believe i'd never tried veal? me neither. i think it had something to do with being told it was cow tongue when i was like 8, and never bothering/caring to actually find out if that was true. but i finally did it...in the form of a veal parm sub. MEH.

32. try one new recipe a month: STARTED.

i made an absolutely godawful crock pot meatloaf during a snowstorm. i was all excited to eat it after a horrible shoveling experience, and couldn't even get through a slice. lesson learned: meatloaves belong in the oven.

47. spend a day in newburyport: COMPLETEDISH.

okay, so basically what i meant by this is that i just wanted to go to newburyport because i'd never been. emily and i wandered around for a little bit and went into some cute shops while digesting our cupcakes from eat cake!, so that was sufficent for me. semantics...

75. go to a jazz brunch: COMPLETED.

i met up with an old roommate for brunch at the beehive in boston, a cute lil' bistro with live jazz on saturdays and sundays. we wolfed down delicious omelettes while some soft sax played in the background. just lovely, really!

81. whiten my teeth: COMPLETED.

i found a package of crest whitestrips that i'd abandoned and have been surprisingly diligent about remembering to use them. i'm almost done, but i can see a difference already!

94. go a month without fast food: COMPLETED.

ooooh, this was a doozy. towards the end of the month, i started having dreams about being stalked by 1/3 pound angus burgers and swimming in vats of ketchup with french fries. but folks, i did it. and you can too! but for real, if it wasn't for being ridiculously snowed in right now, i'd be parked at some mcdonald's with 5 bags in the passenger seat. :)