June 22, 2020 – June 28, 2020
We are about half way through the year now. It’s also the one year anniversary of my bucket list post on this blog. Since then I have been so much more motivated to make progress on it. I am very happy with how much I’ve been able to check off.
Bucket List Items Accomplished
- Donate blood. This has been a huge goal for me since I have been quite anemic for a very long time. I have been very consistent about taking my iron supplement and have such a full and glad heart that I could finally do this.
- Visit a drive-in movie theatre. I got to see Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark with my Dad at a temporary drive-in set up at the local university. It was so much fun. They broadcast the audio over FM radio and we brought our own popcorn, pretzels, candy, and sodas.
- Eat century egg. I’m fairly certain I’ve had this before, but I ordered some century egg and lean pork congee from Wah Lai Yuen for my Friday lunch to try it again. It was delicious!
- Make mango sticky rice
- Send a stranger a postcard via Postcrossing
- Make kimchi buchimgae / kimchi jeon (pancakes)
Things I Enjoyed this Week
- My new personal challenge is to do 30 random acts of kindness over the next month. They don’t have to be everyday. I started on Friday.
- Donate blood
- Send a stranger a postcard via Postcrossing
- Leave good Google reviews for some of my favourite local spots
- My weekly step count is below
- Monday: 16,556 steps
- Tuesday: 5981 steps (this was a bad one!)
- Wednesday: 11,713 steps
- Thursday: 11,121 steps
- Friday: 13,182 steps
- Saturday: 11,870 steps
- Sunday: 13,162 steps
- Daily Average: 11,941 steps a day
- Weekly Total: 83,585 steps
- I also want to learn a new word everyday for the 30 days of June. The words of this week were grabbed from Wordsmith.org or Merriam Webster’s Word of the Day or in the wild from books or podcasts.
- Parochial – relating to a church parish, or limited and restricted such as to the borders of a parish
- Xanthic – yellow
- Antipodal – situated on the opposite side of the Earth, opposite
- McGuffin – an object or event in a work of fiction that is necessary to move the plot or motivate the characters, but is otherwise irrelevant
- Inimical – tending to harm, hostile, unfriendly
- Peripatetic – often traveling from place to place, or one who walks about
- Consigliere – an advisor to a crime boss
- My ongoing gratitude and photo project continues below.
Day 86: I am grateful for great English pub fare. This was my lovely lunch from the Crow and Gate Pub.
Day 87: I am grateful for hills.
Day 88: I am grateful for sparkling water.
Day 89: I am grateful for waterways.
Day 90: I am grateful for pastries. This was a delicious strawberry-rhubarb, pistachio, and creme fraiche danish from Fry’s Bakery. I got there right as they opened and it was still warm.
Day 91: I am grateful for postcards. I sent this one to a stranger in Germany. It was made out of a thinly cut sheet of cedar wood.
Day 92: I am grateful for abandoned buildings. I’m so glad I finally went and explored the Stone Butter Church near Duncan. See a couple more photos below.
- I watched no Oscar Best Picture Winners.
- I taught myself a few more constellations. Skymaps is a wonderful resource for monthly star charts. They list interesting celestial phenomena that will happen throughout the month, and which stars and constellations are visible. Wikipedia has good breakdowns of the features and mythology of each constellation. I want to learn more constellations as part of my bucket list. I also want to learn more about Greek mythology. It is a perfect match. Maybe one day I’ll know all 48 of Ptolemy’s traditional Greek/Western constellations, or maybe even all 88 of the currently recognized constellations.
- Draco – The dragon. In the northern latitudes, because of its proximity to the northern celestial pole, Draco is circumpolar and never sets. Draco may be based on Ladon, the dragon that Hercules slayed as one of his twelve labours. Hercules was tasked with stealing the golden apples that Ladon guarded. Draco may also represent one of the giants that battled the gods of Olympus. Minerva slayed it and threw it into the sky.
- Aquila – The eagle that carried Zeus’s thunderbolts.
- Cepheus – King of Aethiopia, husband to Cassiopeia, and father of Andromeda. Cepheus contains the Wizard Nebula, that looks like a medieval sorcerer.
Meal Prep and New Recipes Tried
I continued with my Japanese recipe streak this week. I also made a Thai dessert and a couple Korean dishes.
- Honey Sesame Shirataki Noodles from JustOneCookbook. These are chilled, so they made a refreshing lunch on a warm day.
- Mango Sticky Rice from Thai Table. I shrunk down the portions to just make one dessert and thickened the remaining sauce a little on the stove.
- Oyakodon (chicken and egg rice bowl) from Ordinary Kitchen on YouTube
- Chamchi Kimchi Jjigae (tuna kimchi stew) from Maangchi. I added cabbage since my mom gave me a fresh one and some green onions from her garden. They were so delicious in this. I used sundubu (soft tofu) since I had a tube in my fridge.
- Kimchi Buchimgae/ Kimchi Jeon (kimchi pancakes) from My Korean Kitchen. So easy and fast. A great way to use up kimchi.
Updates
- I broke my dairy free streak when I went for a fabulous lunch at the Crow and Gate Pub with my Mom and her partner. I had a cup of creamy dill pickle and potato soup and a bit of cheese with the scotch egg. I also brought Reese’s Pieces chocolates to the drive-in. Going to get back on track with being dairy-free though. With being lactose intolerant, it helps me feel so much better.
Mayfaring 
Postcrossing sounds like such a good idea! I might borrow that one. Congratulations on your one year bucket list anniversary!
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Thank you so much! Reading your posts inspires me to stick with doing more new things.
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That’s so nice, thank you!
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