Weekly Update: Delicious Resolutions

I realized that I haven't blogged in a while so, I thought I'd do so now. I'm having a relatively productive day, so why the heck not, right?

1) Be Myself: Generally going ok. I've got a great group of friends who really help love me for who I am, so it makes it easier to want to keep doing it. :)

2) CCs: Well, a couple of purchases, but on a positive note, I've been bringing my food to work, so I've been spending less.

3) Back in Shape

: The game is kicking my butt this week. I feel like I'm doing things the way I'm supposed to, but not with the results I want to see. I made a veggie lasagna with the proper proportions of everything for this week (a special type of low carb noodles, light cheese, veggie overload) I'm also trying to add in more crunches during the week, so that's good too. Sigh- I know I need to wait to see results, but as usual- I'm impatient.

4) Mass: I went last week! I headed up to St. Ignatius, which is technically the parish I'm registered with, as it's a pretty well-known church in my area and has some

sort of young-adult group attached to it. That said, it's still not my favorit

e parish, and I'm always on

the lookout for another one. I had found one that I liked, but it's about 45 minutes away, and com

muting out there is just not something I look forward to on a Sunday morning. But I went to St. Ignatius last week, and it was really interesting, because all of the music and all of the readings were basically about how God is present at this moment, which was just what I needed to hear.

5) Cookbooks: I baked my own whole wheat bread today! I got the recipe from Paul

Hollywood's 100 Great Breads. It's yummy- not as good as the Cherry Chocolate Bread I've made before from this book, but it's a decent whole wheat bread. AND it was the first time Betty, the Kitchenaid, and I got to work together- yay!

Whole Wheat Bread

2/3 c. white bread flour, plus extra for dusting

scant 2 1/2 c. whole-wheat flour

1 1/2 tsp. salt

1 oz. yeast

1/2 stick butter, softened

1 1/2 c. water

1. Put the flour

s, salt, yeast, and butter into a large bowl and mix together. Slowly add the water, mixing with your hands until all the flour has been incorporated from the sides of the bowl.

2. Tip the dough out onto a lightly floured counter and knead for 5-7 minutes. Put the dough back in the bowl and let rest for 1 hour.

3. Preheat the oven to 425F. Line a baking sheet. Using a knife, cut a slash down the middle on top of the dough and dust the top with flour. Bake for 30 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool.

I ate some of it with just a little olive oil and rosemary salt. Delish!

6) Meditation: Um... yeeaaahh... Well, I did a couple minutes of yoga yesterday, does that count?

7) Praying: Doing ok for now.

8) Organizing my room: Not doing great, but not doing terrible- things haven't necessarily gotten worse, other than the fact that I keep on looking at all these cookbooks in my room and they end up getting strewn everywhere.

9) Knitting a sweater: on hold until post-Book 3 Assignment for IPLJ.

10) Volunteer: on hold until post-Follies.

Have I mentioned how awesome my friends are?

I am honestly the luckiest person in the world to have such amazing people in my life. I've had a couple of down days recently- law school taking its toll as it's wont to do, and my friends have rallied around me. My teammate in The Game gave me dispensation to take a snacking penalty (note- I didn't anyway, but it was nice to have it available, guilt-free!) Also, my friends Hillary and Amanda came to the rescue and made me come out of my shell to have dinner and a klatch. That was JUST what I needed today to get back on track. ALSO, Hillary heard about Betty, the Kitchenaid (how, I've no idea. I mean, I've only blogged about, facebooked about it, made every coworker come into the office to look at the box, and made it my gchat status...), and thought what a great idea it was that she wanted to add to the excitement. So my next step in kitchen awesomeness it to head over to Broadway Panhandler to spend this gift certificate from her on an attachment for Betty!!! HOW AMAZING ARE MY FRIENDS!?!?!?! Have I been checking out the website already? Oh yeah, you betcha. Do I go practical and get the splash guard? Or do I go awesome and get the pasta maker? Or do I go in a totally different direction and fill some other kitchen need? (seriously- do I have any more of those? Other than space?) The one thing I know is that I'm (at least for now) sticking to my guns on the "no sausage maker until after graduation." Because, let's be serious. If I have the potential to make sausage instead of study? Yeah..... I'll just fail out of school. On the other hand....

As for the progress on resolutions:

1) Be myself: Well, yes and no. The past few days have been trying, and I've reacted to different stressors in ways that disappoint me. I certainly don't want to be an automaton when it comes to dealing with stress, but I would like to be able to handle it better. That said, I've definitely made some progress over the past few years, when I would get into a funk that I couldn't get out of. I've developed some coping mechanisms that allow me to move past it- at least enough to get through the day. And then my friends are there, being awesome, to help with the rest.

2) CCs: still haven't used them. (sweet!) I also got a kind birthday check from my mom

which, in the past, would have gone out the window quickly. This year, I'm trying to be more measured and thoughtful with how I spend it.

3) Back in shape: Well. We'll see. I've been doing well at The Game- I've actually got a perfect score so far (yeah- all you have to do is tell me it's a competition, and I'll kick butt... you know, unless it's a law school exam), but I'm not sure how that's translating right now. I mean, it's gotta be helping- I just did 150 crunches, which I wasn't doing a week ago, so... that's good. I just have to remember that I won't see change in 1 day, or even necessarily in 1 week.

4) Mass: I didn't go last weekend, I think I mentioned, but I'm making a concerted effort this weekend. In fact, I've planned my Sunday morning around it. I'm headed back to St. Ignatius Loyola, my home parish, which I haven't been to in probably 2 years. Though I am a parishioner there, I know it's not the right home for me. But it's a lot easier to get myself to in the morning than the parish I like that's 45 minutes away. So we'll see how it goes!

5) Cookbooks: I haven't made any new recipes yet- I'm still feasting off the cooking day last Sunday.

6) Meditation: Ok, so again, I'm failing on this, but part of those coping skills that I referred to act sort-of as a structured mediation, so... though not quite what I was aiming for, at least I'm somewhere on the dartboard.

7) Praying: Yeah.... this hasn't gone so well. There have probably been 2 days where I've fallen asleep before I've prayed. And not because I was so tired, but because my mind was so distracted. I will try to work on this.

8) Organizing the room: erm... Yes and no. Probably, no in the bigger ways- clothes strewn everywhere- though- yes in the smaller ways- only clean clothes are now strewn- the dirty ones go immediately in the laundry bag. And when I opened the kitchenaid, I put the instructions right in the instruction folder. And I've put the tape back in the drawer every time. So... progress, just not... ideal yet.

9) Knitting a sweater: haven't started- I finished my hat though. It's pretty great!

10) Volunteer: Haven't done this yet. But I did donate to Catholic Relief Services to help in Haiti. That was actually how I spent part of my birthday money, and it made me happy to do something positive for the world with it. I chose Catholic Relief Services to donate through, as 93% of their funds go directly to the programs, unlike places like the Red Cross who only pass along about 60% to their programs. I'm not passing judgement on the Red Cross or any other aid provider- they're doing wonderful things, and if that's who you feel comfortable supporting, I fully back that decision. They (the Red Cross specifically) are a much larger organization and just have greater overhead costs. I just like CRS. Check out their website to see the projects they're doing in Haiti.

That's all I've got! There ain't no more!

Sleep well, my friends. I hope you have a great weekend!

Game On! Day 1

Hey gang!

Well, I just finished Day one of our healthy living competition,

and scored a FULL 100 points for the day! Now granted, we did give ourselves a little leeway today since we were meeting until later to do any sort of check in. So, I ended up having two of my five meals together in the morning (a smoothie and an egg white omelette), but on future days, they

will be evenly spaced out as they're supposed to be. We picked the teams, and, at random, it ended up that Lori, the other full-time-worker-part-time-student and I are on the same team, so that'll be great. We can whine to each other and urge each other along which will be great!

We also got together and did a bunch of cooking together which was a blast, though we missed Lori who wasn't able to make it. We each went home with some Indian chicken burgers with yogurt sauce and hummus (made by Sara- hummus prep pictured above), tuna salad which was actually much better than any tuna salad I've ever had (made by Alyssa- picture of her toasting some whole wheat bread for us to eat with it), and butternut squash soup (made by Deb- long live immersion blenders!). By popular demand, I made a repeat of the roasted chicken recipe I referred to before. It came out a little differently- I used stock instead of wine, and I tripled the veggies (doubled the meat), so the moisture level was off, so instead of having all the veggies caramelize nicely, there was more of a vegetable sauce (which may have actually been the original intent of the creators). So we're all pretty much stocked for the week with all the food!

Oh! Also, I had a birthday in the past week. It was lovely, though I've postponed the full-on celebration for a while until I'm up for a larger gathering. But my birthday was amazing. My friends surprised and spoiled me by going in on a Kitchenaid mixer for me. It is beautiful and I can't wait to start using her in all of my new recipes! I named her Betty, apparently after a beer I was drinking on my birthday, and because... come on. She looks like a Betty.

I also got another cookbook to add to the list- "Not Your Mother's Slow Cooker by Beth Hensperger. It seems to be filled with a lot of really interesting slow cooker recipes which I can't wait to try out. I ALSO got my favorite Gilbert and Sullivan performance on DVD!!!!!!!! I cannot tell you how excited I am about this. It's a stage production of the Mikado done in Canada at the Stratford Festival in 1982. As a child, I probably watched this weekly on a slowly dying VHS. The blow was struck however sometime in late high school or early college, when my mom confessed that she'd accidentally recorded over it. Over the years, I've searched for it, and never found it (or at very least, never found it at a reasonable cost), and somehow, my mom finally found it, and on DVD no less! God bless the internet! And my mom! I watched half of it yesterday, and found that I still know the entire show by heart- choreography and all. If I ever get Alzheimer's, that'll be the thing that I don't forget. Nobody better give me a fan in the nursing home, or I'll start wandering the halls singing "Gentlemen of Japan" and unfolding the fan on cue.

Still no church today, and as I'm fading fast, I'm foresee no meditation today either. Maybe tomorrow.

Remember that tomorrow commemorates the birth of a very important individual who pointed a finger at the invisible line that had been drawn here in America and spoke out against the discrimination that plagued(s) our land. May we all hold his dream in our hearts tomorrow, and henceforth.

Excuses? Gone.

Da**it. So, this healthy lifestyle game that my friends and I are starting- I'm playing with 3 girls in law school, and one other who is also in law school while working full-time like me. I have been giving myself excuses as to why-it-would-be-ok-if-I-couldn't-keep-up-with-Deb-Sara-and-Alyssa, and then went to Game On's website. There's a little bio about the girl who first played this game... who was doing it with a full-time job and a brand-new baby. Well, hell. There go my excuses.

Weekly Check-In: Reso-fail

First week or so of resolutions and already falling behind.

1) Be myself: Well, this one is ok. Though I'll say that I've noticed a bizarre happening- when I hang out with my friend Amanda too long, I start picking up her mannerisms. Though, this is true of most of my friends since, oh, about 8th grade. Certainly not a bad thing, just amusing.
2) CCs: Haven't used them all week, so that's good.
3) Take care of my body: well.... this one is 50/50. My friend Sirrah's "The holidays aren't over until I say so" party was perhaps a misstep in this area (what- there were pigs in a blanket! and devils on horseback! And butterscotch pie! Come ON!) But the girls and I have gotten more into planning our competition (starts on Sunday), so at least that's progress in the right direction. Likewise, even though it's cold, I've been walking to work to try to fit some sort-of exercise in. ...Can I also include the Literary Pub Crawl, which involved a lot of walking, as "exercise?" No? Aw, fine. I guess that Guiness did kind-of negate the walk, huh.
4) Mass: I didn't get to a mass this weekend- maybe next?
5) New Recipes: Already wrote a post about this earlier in the week.
6) Meditating: As I said before, I've been slacktastic on the meditation resolution in the past, and we're starting off 2010 the same way, apparently. For some reason, I haven't been sleeping well this week, so I just feel too exhausted to do it. Likewise, though I am cleaning my room bit by bit, it still seems too cluttered to really meditate in. Or, as usual, I'm just finding excuses. Now that I'll be back to the school schedule, hopefully I'll find an appropriate time to put that in.
7) Daily Prayer: not doing so bad here. The past couple days however, I've been so tired when I've been praying that my prayers end up being a bit more disjointed than I'd prefer. Hopefully, once I start sleeping better, I'll be fine.
8) Organizing and Cleaning: The cleaning my room thing is... well. It's not as clean as I'd like to to be, but it's definitely improving. This weekend, my friends and I had a photoshoot for the "00'Duong Calender" and, though a thousand things were splayed out on my bed by the end of the day, finding them in the first place was pretty easy. Likewise, when I got home, most of the things got put away again. (The rest will hopefully go back to their homes tonight) I've also got a place where I'm keeping all of my extra computer/camera/electronics/etc cords, and was able to find the one I needed for school pretty easily this morning. (a feat in itself, since me doing anything in the morning is a bit of a crapshoot, as anyone who's seen my wardrobe choices on a workday can probably attest to) So, hopefully, I can keep progressing in the right direction.
9) Knitting a sweater: haven't started. Still working on a hat. The hat's coming out awesome though- it's my first lace stitch pattern, and it's actually looking like the picture. The picture here is not mine- just an example of the pattern I'm using. I'm using a different yarn, so the lacy pattern is more pronounced. I have a feeling I could get into using this pattern a lot.
10) Service Project: Haven't looked into service projects yet.

On a distantly related note though, check out this article!
My friend Chris has become the darling of the legal deferral programs and NYT wrote an article and produced a rather extensive video of him. Congrats, Chris!

Happy Monday, friends! It's a new week!

Friday Night

Well, I'm supposed to be out at Game Night with my friends, but the adjustment back to "Life with Alarm Clocks" hasn't been quite as smooth as I would have liked. But I've had a quiet night of risotto making and knitting instead, and am about to hit the hay. (And yes, it was the best idea I ever had to not go over tonight. Franz Josef would have looked like a mastermind in comparison to me) The risotto wasn't a new recipe- just a basic risotto with roasted butternut squash thrown in and a bit of sage- delish. It's pretty healthy- the only bad part is that it tastes so good I want to eat the entire pot. (Don't worry- I kept it to a single bowlful with a cupcake for dessert)

So, in regards to the "healthier lifestyle" resolution- my friends and I are going to start a competition. Not a weight loss competition per-say. But points for doing good things for yourself and negative points for doing bad stuff. (like eating my weight in the cupcakes that are in my fridge) I'm excited to start. We're also going to try to start running. Heh. We'll see how I take to that. But there will be a prize at the end, (and potentially a trophy? Oh yes, my friends... there will be a trophy) so I'm in it to win it. Riiiight after this cupcake....

So I knew you all were just dying of antici...pation for the last two resolutions (ha). Here they are:

9) I will knit a sweater in 2010.

As some of you may know, I started knitting in October 2008, and have become what some might call an "addict." (As far as I know, they don't have knitter's anonymous yet, so I think I'm totally ok. I can quit buying yarn on ebay anytime I want...) That said, things I've made have not been terribly difficult. I feel like knitting a sweater will be a bit more of a challenge for me, so that's the next one I'm taking on. By the way, if you knit or crochet, friend me on Ravelry (username: karebeaner) to check out what I've made so far.

10) I will do at least one service project this year.

Wow- I actually had a completely different #10, and then started writing about wanting to volunteer but not forcing myself to, and justifying to myself why I didn't have to do it this year, and it just sounded so.... lame. It sounded like the person that I don't want to be that I mentioned in my first post. So, here's resolution #10. And yes, indeed, my heart feels happier about it already.

Alright, this took much longer to write than anticipated. Off to Snoozeville. I apologize for the typos. Or ramblings. Or... zzzzzzzzzz

First New Recipe

Tonight, Alyssa and Deb came over for dinner in remembrance of summer dinners back in the carefree days before classes. I decided that this was a great occasion to try out a new recipe. My first endeavor was Savory Roasted Cornish Hens (ok, Chicken, whatever) with Roasted Garlic from The Healthy Kitchen by Andrew Weil and Rosie Daley. I first came across this cookbook at the Ross's vacation house in Galveston where I poured over the book, realizing that some day, it must be mine. Happily, I found it in a used book store in Washington, DC one day for $4. Can't go wrong there!

How did it turn out? Well, in Deb's words, "There's no way this can be healthy." It is such a filling meal with such complexity of flavors that you can't even begin to imagine that it's good for you. I'll put the recipe as is below, but here's what I would change: double the veggies. I made the full amount called for, and I felt like it only had 4 servings in the end, rather than 8. I only made one roast chicken, though, to be fair, it was of a medium size rather than a small size. It probably would have fed 6. As it is, I'll have a nice lunch tomorrow and have some left over chicken for soup, enchiladas, whatever delicious thing I might want to make with some shredded chicken... mmmmmmm..... The roasted garlic was probably the right proportion- we probably ate a head each with bread (sorry, Dan), so no need to up those proportions. We also had some delicious wine, some grand semolina bread, and a great salad with everything but the kitchen sink (and not as much lettuce- sweet! best kind of salad!), and some Ghirardelli cupcakes, which were also quite good. Thanks so much to Alyssa and Deb for coming over and being my guinea pigs! I know I'm supposed to check out all of these cookbooks but, with recipes like this one, I definitely want experiment more with this book!

I wanted to take pictures of everything and post them, but we were ravenous, and I only thought of the camera later, so... here's picture of some devoured roasted garlic to stare at while you're reading this delicious recipe.

Savory Roasted Cornish Hens with Roasted Garlic

from The Healthy Kitchen (serves 8)

4 Cornish hens or 2 free-range chickens

1/2 c. freshly squeezed lemon juice

4 tsp. lemon pepper

Salt

4 c. quartered plum tomatoes or whole cherry tomatoes (about 2 pints)

8 large shallots

4 large cloves garlic

2 c. chopped fennel

1/2 tsp. salt

1/2 c. lightly packed chopped fresh basil

1 c. red wine

4 bay leaves

4 lemon slices

4 sprigs fresh rosemary

Roasted Garlic: 8 whole garlic bulbs, 1 tsp. olive oil, 3 Tbsp. water

Rinse the Cornish hens thoroughly, letting the water gush inside each cavity and drain back out. Rub the lemon juice, lemon pepper, and a little salt over the birds and let marinate for 1 hour or overnight. Put the tomatoes, shallots, garlic, fennel, a pinch of salt, and red wine together in a medium bowl and stir until everything is thoroughly mixed.

Preheat oven to 375F.

Place 1 bay leaf, 1 lemon slice, 1 rosemary sprig, and equal portions of the tossed tomato filling inside each hen. Each cavity should be full. (As mine was a little bigger than called for, I didn't fill them, and just followed the rest of the directions) Spoon the remaining filling over the bottom of a roasting pan. Set the birds on top, spacing them evenly apart. Spoon the lemon marinating juice over them, then sprinkle a little salt over them. Roast for 1 1/4 hour (For chicken, roast 1 1/2 hours.) The skins will be golden brown, and the juices will run clear when they are done.

Meanwhile, prepare the roasted garlic: cut 1/2 inch off the top of each garlic bub so that the cloves can be easily squeezed out after roasting. Put the olive oil and water in the bottom of a 9-inch baking pan. Arrange the garlic bulbs in the pan, cut side on top. Cover the pan with a lid or foil. (Oops- I forgot to do that) After the hens have been roasting for 30 minutes, place the garlic dish in the same oven and bake for 45 minutes.

Remove the hens from the oven to a platter or board and let them rest at room temperature for 15 minutes. (yeah, didn't do that either. Like I said before, ravenous) When the hens are cool, scoop the filling out from each hen and put it into the roasting pan with the remaining filling. Remove all the bay leaves and discard. Set the pan over low heat and simmer stirring and scraping up the browned bits, for 3-4 minutes. (wow, this sounds great too. What happened in our case was, it came out of the oven, and we attacked.)

Blah blah blah- plate it nicely and make everything look pretty. Or just devour. Serve with crusty bread for the roasted garlic. (this last paragraph is the Karen edit of the end of the recipe)

Anyway, that was my evening. I'm still working on those last two resolutions. One is definitely going to involve craftiness of some sort- I'll update you as I figure out the exact plan.

Have a lovely night my friends!

Flaren's New Year's Resolutions

Yesterday, Chris noticed the distinct lack of resolutions to create a robot army, and I realized that he may have been talking to my evil twin at some point without even realizing it.

We learned of the existence of Flaren, my evil twin, sometime in high school. She made appearances in Stick People Theater episodes, often maniacally driving some sort of oversized vehicle, and had a role in The Book before the Betrayal and Destruction of 1996. She also showed up in college a few times, allegedly instigating a number of tickle wars in which I was the eventual casualty.

It was thought that she had disappeared somewhere in the wilds of Mozambique (potentially after a marriage to Andre Bantu?) , until yesterday, when one Chris Reid unknowingly let it slip that she still exists.

After some research, I came across her own set of resolutions, which I will recount here. If you see me doing any of these things, watch out, it's not me! It's Flaren!

Flaren's New Years Resolutions for 2010:

1) Create a robot.
2) Create a robot army.
3) Under no circumstances name the robot army anything that rhymes with "nylon."
4) Keep robots from gaining sentience.
5) Find and train sharks.
6) Create waterproof lasers.
7) Figure out a contraption that will keep the lasers attached to the sharks' heads.
8) Attach lasers to sharks' heads.
9) Upgrade security in hidden lair.
10) Create the rest of the plan for world domination.


So, here's what we know about Flaren's plans: They (obviously) end in world domination, but it looks like we can expect that in 2011 or 2012. We also know that she hasn't created any robots yet, nor has she even found the sharks that I've kept hidden in that underwater cav... uh... I mean... she hasn't even found any sharks yet. Also, apparently, if we can figure out where her current hidden lair is, we might be able to get in and upset her plan if she hasn't getting a better security system yet.

The other thing that I've noticed is that she has 2 more resolutions than I do. Which has some symmetry to it- doing 10 things in 2010. I'll have to come up with 2 more. You know. In addition to stopping Flaren's evil plans.

Making the List

Making New Year's Resolutions is far from a new idea. Writing them down isn't a new one either. And apparently, blogging about them, as I've seen from trying to find a website address that wasn't taken, isn't exactly new either. So I follow in the steps of those who've gone before me, and am telling you, World Wide Web and all your inhabitants who care you listen, what my new years resolutions are, and hopefully a play-by-play as I attempt to keep them.

Every year, I make approximately a thousand resolutions, and keep approximately 1-2. By accident. Or because it's a resolution like, "go skydiving this year!" This year, hopefully with the impetus of blogging about it, maybe I'll actually keep all of these.

So the list and the motivation behind each resolution:

**1) I will continue to live life the way that I feel is right for me and will not fall prey to the well-intentioned, yet potentially faulty, expectations of others.
For most of my life, I've been a fairly self-assured person who has more or less followed the beat of my own drummer. But moving to NYC in my late 20s did a bit of a number on me, making me question for the first time if who I am is good enough. In addition to the usual NYC oh-my-god-I'm-walking-down-the-street-with-supermodels self-image issues, I also neared 30 thinking of all of the things I was "supposed" to have accomplished by that point and hadn't. The morning of my 30th birthday was one of the most liberating moments of my adult life, in which I woke up, breathed a deep breath and thought, "Well thank God that's over." Imagine that- nothing catastrophic happened when I didn't meet those self-imposed/societally-imposed accomplishments. I really felt like I had woken out of a dream and back into who I am supposed to be. Occasionally, I lapse back into the, "Wait! But I'm supposed to be doing something else with my life!" mentality, and this resolution is to remind me not to do that.

2) I will pay off my credit card debts. Enough fooling around on this. I will also check my credit score and resolve any outstanding issues if they exist.
This shouldn't really need explanation. It's just the grownup thing to do. Mine is certainly not as bad as it could be, and I've been working it down for the past 6 months, but I'm going to really make a concerted effort on this front this year. You probably won't hear me talk about this much, I assume, unless it's something like, "I chose NOT to buy that really cute shirt, even though it was on sale..."

3) I will get back into shape and get back into the middle of my weight range. As part of this, I will get back to eating healthier and I will work out at least once every 2 weeks. Preferably once a week.
Ok, ok, I know, I shouldn't be judging my weight, etc. based on post-holidays weight. But I've been creeping up the scale for the past year now, and as of this morning, was 2 pounds over the average weight range for my height and age. That said, I have been here before, and know where it goes from here. So I'm currently eating a clementine rather than the chocolate bar I'd rather be eating. Ok, 2 clementines. But that's still got to be better, right? I'd just like to get back down to being in the middle of my average weight range where I felt more healthy and energetic.

4) I will go to mass at least once a month.
Doesn't necessarily have to be a Catholic mass. I just have to go to some sort of religious service once a month, as I've been getting really lax about it. In past years, when I've given myself this goal, I'll go every couple weeks for a few months and then go 3 or 4 months without stepping into a place of worship. I'd rather be a little more consistent about my faith. (I also wouldn't mind finding a retreat to go on, but that'll just be an added bonus, not a resolution this year)

5) I will make at least one new recipe from every cookbook I own.
I assume this will be the one y'all will hear about most. After getting 5 cookbooks for Christmas (best Christmas EVER!!!!), I realized that I need to go to these resources more. So, you will hear about at least 32 new recipes this year. Yep- 32 cookbooks. It's an addiction. (so probably related to #2, you may hear alot about "I didn't buy this new cookbook that looked so delicious and amazing!!!" But they always make good holiday gifts :-)

6) I will meditate at least once a week.
You know, this has been on my resolutions list for about 3 years. You know how many times I've meditated? Probably about 4. Maybe less. Let's see if this blogging thing-a-ma-jig helps.

7) I will attempt to pray at least once a day.
I actually am ok with this, but I just want to keep it on the list so I don't get lax about it as I have in past years.

8) I will organize my room and give everything a place. If it stays there, great, but everything should have it's own place by this point.
If you know me, or have seen my room (or my office and can extrapolate) you know that things in my room generally end up on the floor. Or other flat surface that isn't already covered. Often this happens because things don't have their official place. I'm going to change that this year. Hopefully. I actually spent this last weekend organizing a bunch of junk in my room- tossing a bunch of useless stuff, and finding places for other things. i just hope I can keep this up once classes start again.

So, basically, all of these can be consolidated in #1, which can also be rephrased as, "Be more Me this year." That's what 2010 is going to mean to me. What about you? Have you made any resolutions? Do you want to join me in any of mine?

Happy New Year, everyone!