My favorite hus-beast.
Twice a year I spend at least a few measly hours over-analyzing my life. Being born in July, I have the opportunity to indulge in self-examination every six months or so, which seems to me to be a comfortable minimum. On these ocassions, I think about my ratio of accomplishments to failures, count up my goals-achieved to goals-deferred, and compare where I am now to where I was three hundred sixty five days prior.
It's far from an uncommon practice. I'm sure everyone is doing it, at least a little. The next week will be undoubtedly filled with bloggers repenting for their pasts transgressions, and making oaths to change in the coming year. Gym memberships will be purchased. Trips to the salon will be made. Old socks and underwear will find their way into rubbish bins across the nation. Everyone will be reborn as improved versions of themselves.
Everyone but me. Sorry tradition, but I'm not planning on changing very much at all this year. After evaluating my accomplishments over the past twelve months I've decided that I'm on a pretty good path. I'm progressing at a healthy pace, and I'm moving in the right direction. So, no u-turns for me this year. Instead of resolutions, I'm going to set a small list of goals for 2013.
1. Publish an E-book (or two). All the cool bloggers are doing it, so I though, hey, why not me? It will be focused on vegetarian and vegan cooking, and will come out some time in 2013 if it kills me.
2. Teach a Skill-Share class. I'm continuing on with Chef Hangout, but this year I'm looking to stretch my legs a little, and branch out into new avenues.
3. Organize my mad-house kitchen. Somehow, I kept everything in perfect order when my kitchen was the size of a half-bathroom. Now that I have all this glorious space I've discovered some great ways to muck it all up. Thankfully, my folks treated me to a gift card for the Container Store this Christmas. Organization, here I come.
4. Take a chocolate-making class from Swiss masters. This one might seem a little out there, but only until you recollect that my parents live just outside Geneva, just a stone's throw from a fancy chocolate school. Having ex-pat parents totally rocks. I plan on visiting them for an extended trip just as soon as we can put all the details together. My goals within this goal? German Octoberfest, French Riveria, Italian Pasta, and cooking classes galore.
5. Make gardening my bi**. After several months of hard labor, many wrong-turns, poor timing, and canine plunders, my Autumn garden yielded just one vegetable harvest. My carrots were beautiful, plentiful even, but they were also kind of puny. Pair that with my struggling compost endeavors and it doesn't paint a very nice picture. Not this season, dammit. This season that little patch of dirt is going to pony up. I'm talking beans, lettuce, and f*cking tomatoes. I'm talking peppers, herbs, mo-f*cking squash… It's gonna be a little JBG back there.
6. Move this blog to MaryMakesDinner.com. Sounds easy, right? So why is it taking me so damn long? This is the year, folks. I'm really going to do it this time. In the mean time, I have actually updated my recipe page. So there's that.
7. Make music again. Mr. Starling and I have really come up short in this department. If I had my way I would trade at least half my time cooking with singing. I love this blog, but a girl's got to follow her heart, which means making more time for music.