Life List Progress!

I was just looking over my (incomplete) Life List 101, and happily realized I have made a tiny bit of progress on it. It  might not be much, but something's something.

• I have potty trained Mathilda. Yes that was on my Life List. Felt like it would never happen.
• I am now about 75% in the habit of washing my face every night. I'll admit, I still have lazy nights, but I'm doing so much better that I declare it counts as progress.
• I have learned how to crochet a little bit. I haven't done it in ages, so I may have forgotten what I learned - but I'm hoping it's one of those things that comes back to you.
• I believe I'm on two years in a row of enjoying my birthday. 
• We banned the children from watching television for a month last summer. However, we made many exceptions (movie nights, etc.) so I know we can do better. They will be thrilled to know they are in for a repeat this summer!                                                  
• I'm planning a big cross-country road trip with the kids for this summer. Maybe you've noticed that I've mentioned it once or twice?

I'd say I'm doing pretty good. I haven't looked at this list in a good long while, I think I need to refer to it more often. There's one more thing that I'm working on right now, which is that I'm sort of trying out being a vegetarian. Ironically, it was always me saying, "we should be vegetarians, we should be vegetarians," and Chris saying, "no." But then a month or two ago he decided to do it. And I've sort of been following suit. I say sort of because I have still been having a little bit of meat here and there. Today I had some turkey bacon, last week I had a burrito with a little bit of chicken on it. And I want to clearly state that I'm not heading vegan at all. So that means dairy products are still in my diet (and Chris's too). At this point I have no plans of removing the dairy.

Obviously this means I've had some major dietary changes, although I didn't eat all that much eat to begin with. I don't even really miss it at this point. I've been pretty much sticking to one smoothie a day, which gets me at least 3 servings of fruits/veggies in one drink. I've written about my smoothies before, but since then I've tried some different things.

• I'm no longer using the Agave syrup, because it's full of calories and the smoothies are plenty sweet without it. 
• I rarely put milk or any other liquid in them now. 
• Sometimes I use yogurt - Greek or regular, flavored or plain - but not always. 
• I still like frozen berries, but sometimes I mix it up and use fresh.  
• I often add an orange
• I recently started using frozen pineapple (I bought them fresh, cut them up in little chunks, & froze them) and that adds a lot of flavor
• Sometimes I add fresh spinach and/or cucumber
• I usually add 4 ice cubes
• I still usually add a banana

Because I've been trying different things, they're hit or miss. It's kind of tricky getting the right amount of spinach or cucumber. If I get it wrong, the smoothies end up tasting a bit on the sludgy side.Usually they are really, really good though. I've found that it works best (in my Magic Bullet) if I add half of everything - 2 ice cubes, half an orange, half a banana, etc. - mix it up, then add the rest and continue mixing it up. I should maybe try to up it to two a day to make sure I'm getting enough of my fruits and veggies. But I do also try to eat lots of leafy green salads, apples, and whatever other veggies we might have with dinner or whatever.

We've also been eating a lot of beans - something we never ate before. And we often eat meat substitutes, as I've written about before. Some of them are great, some of them are just okay. I've been shocking myself with my willingness to try new foods. And I've been liking most of them. I'm going to try to eat more eggs for protein. Basically I have a long way to go in getting my diet really balanced the way it should be, but I think it's going okay so far. I'm not sure how far I'm going to go with the vegetarianism, but so far so good. Like I said, I don't really miss eating meat at this point. And it might be fine with me to continue having a little big of chicken or whatever a few times a month. I don't feel any more hungry than usual. My skin, however, is in fairly wretched condition. I'm not sure what's going on, but I've read that sometimes people break out for a short time when they take meat out of their diets simply because of the detoxification process. Or it could just be a coincidence.

So anyway, just thought I'd give you all a little update. I think I need to start thinking about the next 50 or so things to add to my Life List!

Do you have a Life List? Have you made a lot of progress on it?