30x30 a little over a month to go...

Dang. I'm not sure if I did anything since my last post on this! But my sister brought up my 30x30 and I realized that I better get going.

Here we go:

I'm not doing so hot on this 30 x 30 thing! But I have 6 months to finish...

Here's what's left:

1) Run a half marathon - DONE!

 
2) Watch the Star Wars Trilogy - DONE!

3) Learn a foreign language - So I have decided on Spanish. I've bought a few books and just found out last night that my brother in law has Rosetta Stone and said I can borrow it when he's done!! I really need to learn Spanish because in the last few weeks I've had a few Spanish only speaking patients. I know a lot of the basics now with medical words. I've learned pain and eat, drink, etc. but I have a LONG way to go. But I'm working on it. As long as I'm working on it before I'm 30 I'm going to count it.

4) Have 2 of my 4 children - DONE!

5) Take up golf - This is going to be hard now that it's freezing, but we'll continue to work on it.

6) Write a short story - In progress...

7) Complete an indoor triathlon - DONE!

8) Watch Gone with the Wind - DONE! 

9) Watch the Godfather - DONE!

10) Play in a poker tournament at a casino - I talked to my brother in law last night about this one. We might go to a casino soon so hopefully I can knock this off my list. :)

11) Decorate the kids rooms - This will be done around Christmas! We decided to get the kids bunk beds for Christmas so when we pull everything out to do that, I'm going to paint and get some stuff for the walls.

12) Shoot a gun - DONE! I went to a shooting course with my neighbor Jeff. I wasn't any good at it. At all honestly. But I shot a gun and can cross it off my list. And I don't need to do it again. :) 

13) Go back to school - DONE!

14) Learn to drive a stick shift - Must do...

15) Learn to french braid hair - DONE!

16) Get into cooking - We are sticking to our budget and cooking at home so this is happening. Not done yet because we aren't consistent enough but it's beginning to become consistent. We'll call this "in progress".

17) Finish entertainment center - DONE!

18) Register to vote in St. Louis City - DONE!

19) Consistently dedicate one night a month to a date night - Tonight we're going on a double date with my sister...we'll count this for November...

20) Start a savings account - DONE! I've had a savings account with little money in it but now Nick's name is on the account and we're going to start having a portion of Nick's paycheck go to this. So it's starting small, but hey, it's starting. And I'm counting it.

21) Make my own recipe - yeah, I've been slacking on this. Will work on it...

22) Go back to Signature Room in Chicago - Maybe for my 30th??

23) Go on a family vacation with my whole family - This is still the case: We have this one planned!!! Unfortunately it's planned for a few months after I turn 30, but it's before I'm thirty one so I'm counting it.

24) Start college funds for the kids - Ok, yeah must do...

25) Consistently have a clean house -Just got done scrubbing the kitchen and doing all the dishes after breakfast. I'm definitely better at this. Just have to keep it up.

26) Get into exercising 3x a week - Thinking of canceling weight watchers and joining a gym. I'm so used to being up at night now that it's hard for me to ever get out. I don't want to go running at midnight outside and I have Gretchen with me every day at home. If I joined a gym I could use their babysitting or go at night if I join a 24 hour gym. So that's my plan.

27) Reach my goal weight -Weight watchers isn't working for me this time. I'm addicting to food and wasting $42.95 a month. So I'm canceling weight watchers. And like 26 said, I'm thinking of joining a gym. That will help. So will eating at home. So I think this one is doable.

28) Finish my brewery quest - 1/3 of the way there. 5 down, 10 to go. I can do it!!!!

29) Read the Lord of the Rings trilogy - This one might not be done before I turn 30 but if I get one down or at least am getting into it before 30, I'll count it...

30) Become a nurse!! - DONE DONE DONE!!!

13 done, 8 in progress and 9 to get started/done. We're getting closer. :) As always I'll keep you posted. 47 days to go!

Brewery #2 on my quest

I went to Schlafly bottleworks with my future sister in law this past week and it was awesome, like I knew it would be. We met after work so it was pretty late, but not so late that we still couldn't eat! We split their appetizer of soft pretzels with hefeweizen cheese sauce and we split a pizza (pepperoni and mushroom). It was delicious food!

But on to the more important part of the evening...the beer! :)

I liked pretty much all of these beers!

1) Pale Ale - This is a classic. Who doesn't like Schlafly Pale Ale?? It's a good beer that goes down smooth.

2) Hefeweizen - One of my favorites by Schlafly. It would have been better if it were the raspberry hefeweizen but regular hefe will do. :)

3) Kolsch - This is a light beer and pretty good. Not as good as the summer lager or the hefe in my opinion but definitely still good.

4) Dry Hopped IPA - Not a fan. But I figured I wouldn't be. I just don't like IPAs very much. Don't get me wrong, I still drank it all! Let's not get crazy but not my favorite. I'll drink it in a sample, but not as a pint.

5) Summer Lager - This is a great beer to drink outside at a picnic during the summer. It's light and has flavor and literally screams "summer". I like this beer and it's one of our favorites to get from Schnucks to just have around the house.

6) Oatmeal Stout - So incredibly pleasantly surprised by this beer. LOVED it. It's definitely heavier but I knew it would be. So much flavor, so delicious. Loved it.


Overall I had a great time at the Bottleworks in Maplewood. Good beer, good food, great company. :) Will definitely go there again and keep buying their beer! This brewery gets an A!

Granite City Brewing Company

Well one brewery down, just 14 to go!!

Some wonderful friends joined me for my first brewery in my quest. Abbie, Jim, Michelle and Ashley joined me at Granite City Brewing Company in Creve Coeur. I thought it was great!

First things first, I did a beer sampler platter. Four of their signature beers AND four of their seasonal beers for $3.95. And they are 5 oz samples. Um, Yes please! Good price, good drinks. I liked it.

I'm going to break down the beers as I liked them in case anyone ever goes there or in case I go back and forget how great some of them were. :)

The beer sampler!

1) Northern Light Lager - a little too light for me. It was the closest thing to Bud Light and I didn't like that. I know a lot of my friends liked it but I'd rather have more craft beer flavor in my beer.

2) Duke of Wellington India Pale Ale - I'm not normally a fan of IPA's, but this one was pretty good. It was a little hoppy for me, but good flavor overall.

3) Brother Benedict's Bock - This was a pretty good beer! Again, not my absolute favorite, but better than I thought it was going to be. I got a little nervous of the color. (It's a little dark and I love wheats and white ales so I was nervous, but it was good).

4) A double IPA that I didn't get the name of... - I was expecting to hate this. I LOVED it. I thought it was really good. Not my favorite but top 3 for sure.

5) A blend between the Northern Light and the Brother Benedict's Bock - This was ok. More flavor than just the Northern Light but again, just ok in my opinion. Which was a shame, because I loved the Bock but the Northern Light just brought it down.

6) A seasonal unfiltered wheat - #1. I loved this. It had such great flavor. Almost citrus-y without any fruit added. I wish I knew the name, but they just told me it was a seasonal wheat. I see they have the Whag's American Wheat on their menu so maybe this isn't seasonal and they were confused?? Hopefully because I'd love to try it again!

7) A white ale - Again, I love a white ale. Blue Moon, Shock Top, White Rascal, love those beers. This was a good beer, but nothing compared to the Wheat.

8) A blend between the Duke of Wellington India Pale Ale and the Northern Light - This was decent. But since I didn't love the IPA and I didn't love the Northern Light, it was just ok in my book.

Overall, good beer sampler (can't beat that price!) and everyone else liked the food (I didn't eat since I started weight watchers and was using all my points on beer!). I give this brewery a B+.

Here are a few pics of the night:

 The menu at GC Brewery

 My sampler - what a deal right?!?!

Me enjoying a nice sample. :)

One down and 14 to go. Hopefully going to hit up Urban Chestnut in a few weeks. Can't wait!!

St. Louis Breweries - The NEW Quest!

Here's a list of breweries I found on google...

Urban Chestnut
Six Row
Morgan Street Brewery
Anheuser Busch
Buffalo Brewing C
Four Hands Brewing Co
Schlafly Bottleworks
Civil Life Brew
Kirkwood Station Brewing Co
Alpha Brewing Co
Perennial Artisan Ales
Granite City Food and Brewery
Ferguson Brewing Co
Trailhead Brewing Co
Square One Brewery


And here's the list of the TOP ST. LOUIS BREWERIES:

Anheuser Busch
Schlafly Bottleworks
Square One Brewery
Urban Chestnut Brewing
Morgan Street Brewery
Six Row Brewing
Buffalo Brewing


So that being said, I think this should definitely be my new list to conquer. 15 breweries on the first list and 7 of them listed as the top of St. Louis. Who's coming with me?!?! I bet each one offers a 'flight' and I can try a flight at each one. I'm game.

This above list, the list of 15, is my new quest. And I'm really excited about it actually!!

30 x 30 - 6 months to go...

I'm not doing so hot on this 30 x 30 thing! But I have 6 months to finish...

Here's what's left:

1) Run a half marathon - DONE!

 
2) Watch the Star Wars Trilogy - DONE!

3) Learn a foreign language - bought a book...working on it. ;)

4) Have 2 of my 4 children - DONE!

5) Take up golf - This has been a weird summer to try this! Rain, rain, rain, 100 degrees...rain, rain, rain. Plus with the three kids, this is harder, but I have 6 months. We'll see!

6) Write a short story - In progress...

7) Complete an indoor triathlon - DONE!

8) Watch Gone with the Wind - DONE! And I loved it!!

9) Watch the Godfather - DONE!

10) Play in a poker tournament at a casino - still need to do this. I can do this anytime really...just need to practice a bit and go do it!

11) Decorate the kids rooms - Need to do this still. Again, an easy one, just have to do it.

12) Shoot a gun - DONE! I went to a shooting course with my neighbor Jeff. I wasn't any good at it. At all honestly. But I shot a gun and can cross it off my list. And I don't need to do it again. :) 

13) Go back to school - DONE!

14) Learn to drive a stick shift - Tonight was another reason why I need to do this. SOON

15) Learn to french braid hair - DONE-ish...needs a little work but does look like a french braid!

16) Get into cooking - With some extra time off now, this is in progress.

17) Finish entertainment center - DONE!

18) Register to vote in St. Louis City - DONE!

19) Consistently dedicated one night a month to a date night - Haven't done this yet but think July is a great month to start.

20) Start a savings account - Starting this as soon as I get my first paycheck as a nurse. :)

21) Make my own recipe - Still must do this...

22) Go back to Signature Room in Chicago - This is looking more and more like it won't happen, but maybe!!

23) Go on a family vacation with my whole family - We have this one planned!!! Unfortunately it's planned for a few months after I turn 30, but it's before I'm thirty one so I'm counting it.

24) Start college funds for the kids - Again, starting with the first big girl paycheck.

25) Consistently have a clean house - Getting MUCH better about this!! I'll call this in progress.

26) Get into exercising 3x a week - Am exercising, just not 3 times a week. Working on it.

27) Reach my goal weight -Been trying on my own but I just can't do it. I succumb to temptation too easily. Re-joining weight watchers and I KNOW that will help.

28) Try every beer on the list at Growlers - Growler's closed...so now I'm not sure what to do. I like the idea of drinking being on my list though. :) So I think I'm going to do a brewery list. I'll make that another post, but try to have a drink at each of the breweries in St. Louis. There are a LOT so this will be fun I think. Or make a "golf" pub crawl. Try to go to 9 bars in a day. Drink 1-2 drinks at each one. Make those the "holes". Maybe? No? I'm crazy? We'll figure something out.

29) Read the Lord of the Rings trilogy - Dang, still working on this.

30) Become a nurse!! - DONE DONE DONE!!!

Obviously this is going to be some work still, but I'm definitely working on it. I think I can, I think I can, I think I can. 

 

12 done and just 18 to go. 

 

Maybe I can change it to 30 things I do before my 31st birthday and I'm still 30? Maybe that will count?!? Something to think about...

Next up!

Since I've finished the last EASY thing on my list, I'm moving to a few harder ones. The next two things I want to accomplish on my list are read the Lord of the Rings trilogy and learn to drive a stick shift. I think those are both doable in the next few weeks. Or months. But things I can do before I graduate. And of course I'm going to start going to Growlers and work on that list. Supposedly they don't have all 131 beers anymore but they have like 75 and you can get a card for those. We shall see.

I can do it. It will be nice to be able to knock a few more off the list. I created this list when Dom was a baby and haven't been able to knock too much off the list yet. I can also probably work on my short story, exercising and starting a savings account/college funds for the kids, although I think maybe I should wait until I actually make some money. We'll see. :)

Bring it on!

The Quest...

As you know, I've been working on my quest to drink all 131 beers at Growler's Pub. It's a work in progress, but I'm doing fairly well in my opinion. I went to Growler's on Monday for lunch with a friend (Jimbo) and knocked a few more off my list. I was happy to get a few more beers crossed off but I was saddened to find out that they are getting ready to change the beers!

I guess I should've seen this coming. It's fall now and they'll change up some of the beer to more "in season" beers. But to me this was a shock and kind of a downer.

What if they get rid of some of my favorites?? What if they replace some that I haven't tried yet with something gross and horrible?? I will never have tried every single beer on the list and I'm not sure I'm ok with that. It kind of feels like cheating...

But I have no say in it so I guess I just have to get over it and look at the bright side. Even when my quest is over, there will always be a new beer to try at Growlers...

But before they change, so I have a record of it, I'm going to list the numbers and beers that I've tried so far. I won't have to re-drink any numbers, but they will be different beers, so if I've already drank a #10 and the new #10 sounds amazing, I'll be drinking it without it counting towards my quest. And let's be real, I won't do that. No point in buying it if it won't count towards the quest!

So here are the beers I've drank already on my quest:

# (number as listed at Growlers) - Name of beer, Point of Origin (type of beer)

1 - Churchills Draught Treat (I think it was a Summer Ale at the time I drank it - this one changes pretty frequently - Pale Ale)
2 - Hardcore Crisp Cider, MA (Cider)
6 - Avery White Rascal, CO (Wheat)
8 - Sam Adams Seasonal, MA (Another Summer Ale I believe - Pale Ale)
9 - Magic Hat #9, VT (Pale Ale)
14 - Grand Teton Howling Wolf, ID (Wheat)
19 - Schlafly Hefeweisen, St. Louis, MO (Wheat)
23 - Left Hand 400 lb Monkey, CO (India Pale Ale or IPA)
26 - Hofbrau Hefe-Weiss, Germany (Wheat)
29 - Affligen Blonde, Belguim (Blond or Golden Ale)
35 - Pabst Blue Ribbon, WI (Lager)
41 - Flying Dog "Doggie Style" Pale Ale, CO (Pale Ale)
50 - Abita Purple Haze, LA (Wheat)
52 - Pyramid Apricot Ale, CA (Wheat)
57 - Breckenridge Vanilla, CO (Porter)
59 - Founders Dirty Bastard, MI (Scotch Ale)
66 - Dundee Original Honey Brown Lager, NY (Lager)
75 - Sierra Nevada Kellervweis, CA (Wheat)
79 - Big Sky Trout Slayer, MT (Wheat)
82 - O'Dell's Easy Street Wheat, CO (Wheat)
84 - Samuel Adams Boston Lager, MA (Vienna)
85 - Samuel Adams Cheery Wheat, MA (Wheat)
90 - Point Cascade Pale Ale, WI (Pale Ale)
93 - Arcadia Sky High Rye, MI (Pale Ale)
100 - Woodpecker English Cider, England (Cider)
101 - Boddington Pub Ale 16 oz. Can, England (Bitter Ale)
102 - Young's Double Chocolate Stout, 16.9 oz, England (Sweet Stout)
103 - Spaten Optimator, Germany (Dopplebock)
106 - Warsteiner Dunkel, Germany (Dark)
110 - Fischer Biere Blonde, France (Blond)
111 - Estrella Damm Daura, Spain (Lager)
112 - Tona Cerveza, Nicaragua (Lager)
116 - Lindeman's Framboise, Belguim (Lambic)
117 - Hoegaarden 11.2 oz, Belguim (Wheat)
122 - O'Hara's Irish Red 11.2 oz, Ireland (Irish Red Ale)
124 - Pilsner Urquell, Czech Republic (Pilsner)
125 - Peroni, Italy (Lager)
126 - Red Stripe, Jamaica (Lager)
127 - Corona, Mexico (Lager)
128 - Chakra, India (Lager)

Breakdown of types of beer is:
Pale Ale - 6
India Pale Ale - 1
Irish Red Ale - 1
Scotch Ale - 1
Blond - 2
Bitter Ale - 1
Wheat - 11
Lager - 8
Cider - 2
Dopplebeck - 1
Dark - 1
Porter - 1
Pilsner - 1
Vienna - 1
Sweet Stout - 1
Lambic - 1

Breakdown of Countries:
US - 22
Germany - 3
Belguim - 3
France - 1
Czech Republic - 1
Nicaragua - 1
Mexico - 1
India - 1
England - 3
Jamaica - 1
Italy - 1
Spain - 1
Ireland - 1

That's 40 if I've added correctly, out of 131. So I'm making my way there. When you hit 50 you get a "beer tasters" t-shirt, so I'm close to that! :)

If you happen to go to Growler's, I have my name on a name plate there. It's on the right side when you walk in and on the overhead soffet on the left side of that part of the room. My name plate says "KONES" (which is a play off of my last name for those who don't really know me) and Jimbo picked it out for me. :)

One day I'd love to write about each beer and how good each one is and what I rank each one, but for now, here are the names and types of beer each on is. Happy reading! I hope I don't make you too thirsty (like I am!).