Last month, Danni over at oh, hello friend launched a "twelve by 2012" project- twelve goals she wanted to complete by the end of this year. She's invited others to take part, and I thought it would be fun to do it. Here's the original post, and the end-of-October check-in!


1. Go on a weekend roadtrip. We went to the Gentry Wilderness Safari earlier this month, which (although not too terribly far away and only a one-day trip) was a lot of fun.
2. Find every day ways to take better care of our immune systems. We've still been working on eating more balanced meals (more veggies!) and exercising.
3. Organize the closets in our house. Three out of four closets are clean and sparkly! Our camping stuff is (finally) upstairs! Our vacuum cleaner actually has a home! Just one more to go.
4. Do at least three creative (non-paid) photoshoots. Yes! We did one! With the lovely and amazing Christy! And then we did another one with Emily. Win!
5. Get our state sales taxes sorted out. We sent off all the paperwork and had several back-and-forths with the state finance people. We got our back taxes bill and the check goes in the mail tomorrow, and we successfully registered for the tax filing system and filed and paid for the month of October. (Everything is a month off, so we'll do November next month.)
6. Read at least fifteen books.
Last month, I read:
Vanish by Tess Gerritsen
Two or Three Things I Know For Sure by Dorothy Allison
The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd
This month:
Tipping the Velvet by Sarah Waters
The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin
The Monsters Inside by Stephen Cole
Little Bee by Chris Cleave
Awkward: What to do when life makes you cringe by Sam Scholfield
Storm Front and Fool Moon by Jim Butcher
Heartless by Gail Carriger
7. Go through my clothes and pare down what I own to what I need. One trash bag of clothes down, and certainly more to go!
8. Make significant headway on paying off our credit cards. 59% down in the six weeks since I first posted my goals list. Great, great progress. We've been throwing as much as we can toward that debt until Lindi's student loan payments kick in mid-December.
9. Write ten letters to send the snail mail way. Last month, I wrote four letters. This month I wrote letters to Leah, Kaytee, Robin, Angela and my mother.
10. Start walking again. Still a fail on this one, because it is chilly and it gets dark so early now. However, we did get a kinect, and we've been dancing with it all the time, which is way more fun than being freezing in the dark outside after I get home from work.
11. Switch banks from Bank of America to a regional bank. Last month, we opened new checking accounts (personal and business, woo!) at a local bank, and switched our savings over to ING, which is an online bank. This month, we closed down our old accounts and changed the payment information on all of our bills, which took FOREVER. Success!
12. Bake three new kinds of bread. I made pumpkin coconut bread and completely forgot to take photos. Ah well. It was delicious, though! 


Thirty-one more days until the final check-in! I think things are going pretty well. 

Aren't these adorable? Laura over at Bugs and Fishes has a tutorial about how to make these cute little felt ornaments!

This is the week- the month, really- that everyone is posting about things they are grateful for in honor of the Thanksgiving holiday, and so I've been a little more contemplative than normal. I was thinking about how often we focus on the negative aspects of our life, how often we have something small happen like spilling coffee on ourselves or hitting all the red lights on the way to work or getting snapped at by someone unexpectedly- and how to many of us, that makes it a bad day. We are plunged into a sour, snarky mood. But you know what? So many of us rarely have truly bad days. I know this is true for me- sure, sometimes I'm running late or I wake up with a headache or we bicker about something silly like the laundry, but that's hardly a drop in the bucket. In so many ways, my life is phenomenal. It is brilliant and stunning and breathtaking. I can run, and sing, and read, and travel. I have time to do the things I love. I have a job that pays the bills even in this terribly economy. I was lucky enough to find the person I want to spend the rest of my life with this early in my life. I have a wonderful, sprawling family- those related to me by blood and by marriage, and the family I've built myself by choice over the years. I am relatively healthy and able to do most of the things I want to do, and that is an amazing thing.

I am so thankful for all of this. And those bad days? Most of them, in the end, are really not that bad at all.

Lindi's music recommendations for the week: 1. The Mountain Goats - No Children


2.  Duffy - Mercy


4. Ingrid Michaelson - December Baby

I just love these photos of Leslie and Andy! They brought an adorable chair and their sonogram for baby Drew and two sweet little pairs of shoes. The day we took photos was windy and a tad bit chilly, but it was gorgeous out!

This has got to be one of the most adorable little boys ever. Just look at those eyes!

This is just fancied-up dirt and worms. The grown up version. (That makes it sound alcoholic. It's not! Although it is served in martini glasses instead of a bucket, and we left out the gummy worms.)

Anyway, this is super easy and delicious. I never really ate dirt and worms when I was growing up (ours was more of a homemade cookies and organic fruit leather sort of household). Actually, I can't remember ever having this until I was in high school, so it's not a childhood memory thing for me-- but it is for Lindi, and it was certainly yummy!

I was so happy that the rain held off long enough this weekend to shoot this adorable couple! They even brought their puppy, Oscar-- more photos of that later.

Here are some more photos from Emily's session! It was cold and unbelievably windy, but the photos still turned out so well.

  

This weekend, we took part in a online craft sale/auction. It was like a craft fair, but without the cute booths and at lightning speed. Almost everything we put in the sale sold more or less instantly (literally within 30 seconds to a minute after the moderator posted them), which was crazy and fun and a little breathtaking.

We do have just a few things left over, though, and I wanted to offer them at the Cute Stuff Sale prices (that is, 25-30% off) before I list them in our Etsy shop. All prices include domestic shipping. (For questions about international shipping, just ask.) If you're interested in one of the pieces, just email me at bettencourtchase {at} gmail {dot} com, and I can send you a Paypal invoice and ship it to you right away!

These special sale prices will be valid until the end of the week (11/26) when I'll list them for normal prices in our shop. Hooray!

'Stories' glass magnifying lens necklace with a vintage international stamp and vintage book text on a 20" chain. Original price: $18. Special price: $12.   Sold!

Small glass bottle necklace with text from a vintage copy of Brewer's Phrase and Fable on a 20" chain. Original price: $18. Special price: $12.

Cornflower blue dahlia earrings. Original price: $11. Special price: $8.

'Fierce' glass magnifying lens necklace with red polka dot paper and vintage book text on a 20" chain. Original price: $18. Special price: $12.

Speaking of Emily, here's a sneak peek at the photos we did of her last week! I'll post more later this week.

Lindi's music recommendations for the week: All three of these songs are local (or local-ish) folk bands that we like. We went to the Roots Festival (a local art and music festival) a few months ago, and have been on a bit of a folk kick since. 


1. Elephant Revival - Go On 


2. 3 Penny Acre - Coalmine Moonshine


3. Cletus Got Shot - Kentucky

Today is my little sister's twenty-first birthday. WHAT??! That is just too old for her to be. How silly.

Our family moved a lot when we were younger, so Emily and I were often each other's only friend in a new place. We didn't always get along perfectly, of course, but she is one of my best friends. She almost moved far, far away to go to college, and I'm grateful that she ended up here at the same university I went to so I get to see her all the time.

These old photos are are still some of my favorites. I think she was only 18 when we took them.

And here's one from the photoshoot we did more recently. (I'll post more photos from it next week!) Emily has a closet full of gorgeous vintage clothing that she's collected over the years. I've always thought she looked more like she was from a different country than from here-- France, perhaps? If not that, then at least a different decade. (I would vote the 50s or 60s.)


Emily is a visual arts major, and she does some really amazing work. (She just started a website, Instand Studio, in time for her first public art show last month!)

The Piper. Copic marker and ink on paper, 2011.

Self portrait. (This is all the more impressive because it is GIGANTIC. I think it's about 3'x4'. Seriously.) 2008.

This is a 50s paper doll she designed. SO adorable. Copic marker on marker paper, 2010.

Ingredients:
4 whole potabello mushroom caps
2 cups cherry tomatoes
1/2 medium yellow onion
1 bell pepper
2 cloves garlic, minced (about 2 teaspoons)
3 tablespoons olive oil
1-2 cups shredded mozarella
Dried basil and pepper to sprinkle on top

1. Preheat the oven to 400.
2. Chop the onion and bell pepper and add to a bowl with the tomatoes. De-stem the mushrooms and place caps to the side, then chop the stems and add to the other veggies. Add in the garlic and olive oil and toss until the vegetables are well coated.
3. Spread the vegetables on a baking sheet and roast for about 20 minutes, or until the tomatoes start to burst.
4. On a new oiled baking sheet, place the musroom caps on the baking sheet, top down. Fill with roasted veggies and top generously with mozarella and a dash of pepper and basil. Bake for 15-20 minutes or until the cheese is nice and melted.
5. EAT THEM ALL. How can you not? They are delicious. (Okay, perhaps share. This would make a fantastic appetizer, and we ate it as a main course. You can also add sausage in to the filling if you would like a more protein-rich, meaty stuffed mushroom.)

We did this shoot with Christy a few weeks ago, and it was so much fun! She's about to move to New York City, so it was wonderful to get to do this before she leaves. (Also? She has the best clothes EVER, and she plays the ukulele. Geez.) She's such a beautiful person, inside and out, and we both wish her all the best in the big city!