Summer Bucket List Recap

It's September 21st. If I haven't done the things on my 2014 Summer Bucket List now I probably am not going to do them.

That's fine. My mind is already moving forward anyway.

Weather, let me know when I can start making my own pumpkin spiced syrup for my coffee okay? (I have a recipe waiting in the wings, which will hopefully be good enough to share on this blog).

So bucket list, how did we do?

1. Grow the healthiest batch of tomatoes: Well, that's a tricky one. Generally speaking I actually had a fairly good crop of tomatoes if you think quantity and not quality. I am very pleased with what I canned and made into pizza sauce. However, my tomatoes were far from healthy this summer as they were plagued with fungus and who knows what else. But I did learn a lot about gardening this summer. So I still feel very accomplished about this goal.

2. Try a new eggplant recipe. Oh man. This is another tricky one. I did try a new eggplant recipe from my Smitten Kitchen recipe book called "Eggplant and Three Chesse Calzone" Yeah, it was okay. I'm probably not going to make it again unless my garden ever decides to rain eggplants down on me like a plague. But the reason I say this one was tricky is because my eggplants also did terrible this year as did my peppers. Even though it was hot, we kept having cool off moments, which I loved but my heat-loving plants did not and thus barely produced anything. The only thing that really did good in my garden this year was my onions and my cantaloupe. At least I had that.

3. Find a delicious new popsicle recipe: Yeah, I definitely didn't do this. I had one pinned forever but never made it a priority. Maybe next time.

4. Make homemade ice cream with Levent: Yep. Check. But only one batch, which feels a little sad. It's just so much easier to buy ice cream on sale. We did, however, make cookie and cream ice cream back in June. Yum.
5. Make Lemonade from scratch: When I wrote this, I was thinking just regular lemonade and then I discovered, thanks to Joy the Baker of course, that there are a ton of different ways you can make lemonade, such as beet lemonade, blueberry and mint lemonade and peach cardamom lemonade.
Making lemonade might just be on the summer bucket lists indefinitely.  
6. Experiment with mojito Recipes: Well, we did this but only one time. For my birthday we made pineapple mojitos. I also had a lemon mojito this summer, but I did not make it myself. Just like lemonade, I never realize there could be so many fruity varieties.
7. Go to the McPherson water park with Levent more than once: Yep. We did this exactly twice.

8. Hang up twinkle lights outside and actually sit underneath them one evening: Well, my dad and Levent did this.  When my family was here we did sit underneath the lights and had our 4th feast together. Jill came over one evening too, which maybe counts more than that first time because it was actually dark outside. They are still up and I hope that I can actually get my butt outside some evenings to enjoy them.
9. Go to Costa Rica and not freak out: Yep. I went. Did I freak out? Yeah a little, but more so before the trip then actually doing the trip. It was a lovely trip mostly because I got to hang out with Jilly and Lucas.
10. Figure out how to make my home a comfortable place to be: Check. Thanks to the help of my parents, sister and Levent, my little house is put together and a comfortable place to hang out. I love living here. I am sitting in my writing corner right now.

11. Watch a lot of world Cup games: YEP! I love me some world cup.

All and all, I did a pretty good job on my list. I would make a fall one but I know it would only involved using pumpkin in the kitchen.

Cheers to you summer 2014. Thank you for your sunshine and your spirit.

Bucket.

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