#11. Apple Pie Bars

One of my duties at the bookstore where I work is to run the store's book club. At some point during my tenure I realized that cookies and books go really well together, so I've made it a tradition to bake for each meeting. It's usually a good icebreaker for new members, and it gives me an excuse to try out new recipes. Win/win! Since we're starting up again for the fall tomorrow, I thought these apple pie bars from Great Cookies would be a good seasonal option.

Unlike brownies, these bars have to be cooked and baked in layers, so it was a much more time-consuming process than I was anticipating. First I had to cook the six Granny Smith apples worth of slices that would make the filling, then bake the crust while the apples cooled. In the meantime I had to make the streusel topping. Finally, I put everything together and baked for another 25 minutes. But although it took a good chunk of my afternoon, they were actually pretty easy, and came out looking really great!

Now, a couple hours after coming out of the oven, they've chilled in the fridge and they were even easy to cut and get out of the pan. The lemon bars I made a couple of months ago that were a similar construction didn't come out nearly as well, so this is definitely progress!

Look how buttery and thick that crust is! Yum!



Foiled!

The list is made, and semi-finalized (I did make one change this week: I'm going to conquer my fear of donating blood!), so it's time to start thinking about actually doing some of these things. One of the first items I planned to work on was
#16. Watch the Ken Burns baseball documentary. But while it was in the first round of DVDs we added to our newly formed Netflix account last month, it's suddenly become unavailable. Completely unavailable, according to our queue. I don't really understand how that's possible. Anyway, if it doesn't reappear in the next few weeks, I'll have to sign up for a library card and get it that way. His addendum to the series, "The Tenth Inning," airs later this month, so the project's about to get a tiny bit (by which I mean four hours) bigger.

In the meantime, here's what I'm somewhat actively working on at the moment:

8. Knit a sweater - Well, I'm not actually working on making a sweater yet, but I am about to cast-on for a winter hat, my first project with double-pointed needles. I'm trying to increase my skill set before I go for the big project.

9. Start and maintain a blog - Um, obviously.

10. Run a marathon (or at least a half marathon) - Again, I'm not technically working on this now, because I'm training for neither a marathon nor a half marathon. I am, however, getting ready for my first 10K in a few weeks, and I'm enjoying boosting my mileage bit by bit. And buying new running gear, like new sneakers last weekend and a new winter running jacket hopefully soon.

11. Make all the recipes in Great Cookies - I've made several of them already. I might restart. Because, hey, that just means more cookies, right?

13. Start an IRA - I know it's not as hard as I let myself think it is, but I finally found a website that makes it sound not so terrifying. I'm hoping to get to it in the next few weeks.

Progress on five of the thirty isn't so bad!

A Work in Progress

So it turns out that creating a list of thirty things I want to do before I'm thirty is harder than anticipated. It took me a couple of months to come up with my first draft. Now that I have it posted (and hanging on the chalkboard above my desk), I'm not sure I've finished it to my liking. First of all, I have four substantial reading-related entries. I mean, I love reading, but at some point this is going to start feeling like homework. And then there's "Finish my Rubik's cube" or "Knit a sweater." With all the other things I have going on in my life, what if I just don't have the time to devote to mastering these skills within the next three years? After all, these don't fall in the "try something new" category, but are squarely in the "get really good at something new" category.

So Lesson #1 from this project is to be flexible. I'm not going to change my list right now. I legitimately want to do everything I've added, so why not keep them? But I'm going to let myself keep the list fluid. If something comes up that I decide is more important to me than something on the list, I'll swap it out. And I reserve the right to "dumb down" a goal if it proves to be too hard. I mean, they're my goals, right?

So now it's time to get down to business. Greg made a list too, and he's already done with two and making good headway on a third. I'm way behind...