Dear Adventure Avenue,

This year I made five goals that I hope to accomplish by 2022. Some of these goals are curiosity based, while others are geared towards self growth or preservation. You can read more about them in this post.

Goals

Track how much I actually make per month/per year using money making apps. Checkout this post to get the referral codes and links so you can follow along on this adventure.  

Checkout 51: starting $14.04 Current earnings $22.37+$19.79= $42.16. I was able to get a check once I reached (and then surpassed) $20. I recommend cashing out as soon as you reach the $20 benchmark on this app.

Shopkick: starting 11 kicks ($1 = 250 kicks) Current earnings  2,238 kicks.

Swagbucks: starting 45 swagbucks ($1 = 100 swagbucks) Current earnings 410 swagbucks

Ibotta: starting $4.30 Current earnings $61.13. June was a great Ibotta month for me!

Fetch Rewards: starting 3,215 points ($1 = 1,000 points) Current earnings 9,085 points.

July was a great month for Fetch Rewards and Shopkick!

2. Read 12 books throughout the year. That’s a book a month.

So far this year I have read 11 books:

• Star Wars: Thrawn by Timothy Zahn
• Welcome to the Farm: How-to Wisdom from the The Elliott Homestead by Shaye Elliott
• Star Wars: Thrawn Alliances by Timothy Zahn
• Star Wars: Thrawn Treason by Timothy Zahn
• America’s Women: 400 years of Dolls, Drudges, Helpmates, and Heroines by Gail Collins
•  Seasons at the Farm by Shaye Elliott
• When Everything Changed: The Amazing Journey of American Women from 1960 to the Present by Gail Collins
• Long Live the Queen: 23 Rules for Living from Britain’s Longest Reigning Monarch by Bryan Kozlowski
• Shockaholic by Carrie Fisher
• Lessons from Madame Chic by Jennifer L. Scott
• The Lazy Genius Way by Kendra Adachi
• Star Wars: Lord of the Sith 
• The Dilbert Principle by Scott Adams
• The Stylist by Rosie Nixon
• I loved (and highly recommend) all these books!

I created a “What I’m Reading” page if you want to see some books that I have read or am planning to read.

3. Create a Star Wars inspired quilt square once a month to create a Star Wars quilt in December or January of next year. 

So far I’ve made: 

• A Sequel Trilogy square with Rey and BB-8
• A Mandalorian square with Grogu!
• An Anakin and Padme square
• A Darth Vader Imperial square
• A Rogue One square
• A Princess Leia and Rebel Alliance square
• A droids square featuring R2-D2 and C-3PO
• A Jedi Order square
• A Ships square featuring a TIE fighter and the Millennium Falcon

I wasn’t able to make any new squares this month.

4. Make 12 new recipes. 

So far I’ve made:

• Leeks with butter and breadcrumbs (First time I ever had leeks and they were delicious!)
• Poulet au Tomates – click here for the recipe.
• Fried Endorian Tip Yip from my Star Wars Galaxy’s Edge Cookbook.
• Cornbread from a recipe from The Elliott Homestead
• Madeleines from my Downton Abbey Cookbook (Though they turned out to be more like mini lemon cakes)
• Lemon Mint Sorbet (Recipe coming soon)
• Blondies with M&Ms
• Blueberry Muffins

I forgot to add these last two in June.

5. Take one Mental Health Monday a week. 

I watched some Downton Abbey episodes this month. Did you know there is going to be a second movie? I’m very excited about it!

Sincerely,

A