New Year's Resolutions

I hope you've all had happy holidays and a happy New Year's Eve, everyone! I've been home for the holidays over the last couple of weeks, which unfortunately means that I've not been able to do much cooking. I was lucky enough to get some fun kitchen things for Christmas, though, and I'm really excited to try making some new things! I've had a fun time here with my family and boyfriend though, so I think it's shaping up to be a pretty good year :).

Keeping in the holiday spirit, I've put in some serious thought towards New Year's Resolutions this year, and I thought I'd put them out there to keep me focused. Here are so me things I'd like to focus on in 2010.




Food-centric resolutions:

1) Eat a balanced vegetarian dinner at least twice a week. I feel like I'm already eating a lot of veggies and whole wheat, and I know I can have an enjoyable meal without meat. On the other hand, many of my vegetarian meals are admittedly rush meals or end-of-the-shopping-week meals. I suppose I'm having a bit of my own Omnivore's Dillema in terms of the conditions of factory-raised meat lately; I don't have any desire to give up eating meat for various reasons, but I also don't want to be a part of undue suffering. One of my compromises in this regard is to actively try harder to work with "meat substitutes" (protein sources like tofu, beans, legumes, "wheat-meat", etc.) until I look forward to them for their own sake. In that vein....

2) Buy grass-fed beef and free-range chicken primarily. Yes it's more expensive than buying factory meat, but as I said earlier, my conscience is worth it. And since I'm evolving to be more of a serious foodie it seems, I want to see if the buzz is true about the better taste.

3) Bake home-made bread at least once a week. Sweet, savory, quick, yeast, whatever. I will make at least one loaf of bread (or the equivalent in muffins/scones/whatever from scratch) per week.


Creative goals:

4) Write at least a full page per week creatively that is not for an assignment. By far the worst part of college is the illusion that you have all this time and all these opportunities to do things, but then gradually finding out that at the end of the day you're too wiped from work to do even what you went to college to do! I love writing and I have an awful lot to say, but I need to put a greater effort forward to actually putting words to paper (or, black pixels to screen, I guess).

5) Take more pictures. I got a shiny new camera for Christmas that should take some nice pictures if I go out and do that. And I will. This blog will be expanded in order to accommodate some of my artistic works, both writing and photography, that seem fit to share. Of course this means I should have more posts and more pictures (without apologies, this time!) of the meals I'm making! I'm reviving my drawing tablet too, so I hope to have some fun stuff to share.

6) Go outside! Hopefully I can even bring a bike back to school with me. The cold makes it difficult to get out and go on long walks or hang around outside for too long. I really miss the journeys, though.

Final thoughts:

6) Relax. I'm high strung. I know I am. I also know that probably like 85% of stress I deal with are as a result of worrying about things I don't need to be worrying about, concerning myself with possible problems in the future, and generally being illogical. I feel like I've been a lot better at living in the moment within the last few months and a lot better too at the very least at speaking up when I'm worried about something identifiable. In 2010 I'm going to be even more mindful of what really matters.


These are my resolutions for the new year. Feel free to share yours in the comments!