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I am not a big fan of New Years as a milestone for anything other than taxes and getting a new calendar. In the past I have used it as an temporal goal marker mostly because that is how things are traditionally done and it seemed like a good idea to sync with everyone else.
However, for personal goals, I didn't find it so useful. A year is an awfully long time and December is already a busy enough month without having to try and cram in the year's worth of stuff I had meant to do before an arbitrary deadline.
Now I am trying something different and breaking a non-calendar year up into three parts, with checkpoints that have some relevance to me: Halloween, the day after Valentine's, and my birthday.
This is one of those checkpoints (being the largest after-holiday-chocolate-sale day of the year. :} )
My rough accomplishments since I listed them on New Years Eve (45 days, or 6 weeks 3 days ago)
The one new recipe per week goal of last year wasn't quite met, as, in hindsight, it was rather ambitious. The new goal is a new recipe and one entree of my own creation roughly every two weeks(ish) So for this small window I aimed for 3 "kludges" and 4 recipes. Also, to successfully make bread.
0) Some Zuchinni kludge.
1) Curried plantain kludge, based on the world vegetarian mango curry recipe.
2) Brownie cookies recipe from Chocolate on the Brain.
2.5) Added cayenne, cinnamon, and cloves to half the double batch of the above recipe.
3) This recipe which is an attempted recreation of the Specialties Wheat Germ Chocolate Chip recipe.
4) Herb Baguettes from the recipe in my mixer's handbook.
5) Plain ol' white bread.
6) Bulgar lentil soup, from a SFGate.com recipe.
7) Whole wheat mint walnut loaf - World Vegetarian
8) Dark dark dark rye - Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook
9) Tomato and Bulgar dish - Vegetarian Heaven
10) Mushroom and Zuchinni curry soup - intertubes.
There are larger things I have been wanting to do (besides cooking and reading). I will cross these off as they get accomplished.
Made inroads into volunteering at either an afterschool tutoring project or an adult literacy project. I have been wanting to do this for a while, but much of the immediate motivation is to do something besides just ranting about Oakland's high violent crime rate
-----> Given that my employment situation has not been addressed, I can't commit to a schedule yet. <sigh>
Finish two more stupid sock creatures
-----> Fail.
Take some physical conditioning class. Hopefully back to trapeze, but yoga is an option too.
----->I signed up for the climbing gym, and will be taking yoga classes there.
Books:
When Gravity Fails - George Alec Effinger : Just the right level of edgy and beleivable (while still clearly being sci-fi). I really like stories that have a successful ending while still being distinctly not a happy one.
A Sword From Red Ice - J.V. Jones : Grrrarrr! I hate it when you think you are on the final book of what was originally supposed to be trilogy but now isn't. Enjoyable hack and slash, but it would be really nice if it finished up sooner than later.
The Sharing Knife: Passage - Lois McMaster Bujold: Bujold is one of those authors that other folks seem to be far more enthused with than I am. I like the Vorksagian stories, fer instance, but didn't find it particularly noteworthy (well, kudos for having a differently abled lead character). The same applies to this fantasy series. I like the characters well enough, the writing is okay, and plot is charming: It is an enjoyable read (although with a bit heavier on the schmaltzy romance than I usually want to put up with).
However, for personal goals, I didn't find it so useful. A year is an awfully long time and December is already a busy enough month without having to try and cram in the year's worth of stuff I had meant to do before an arbitrary deadline.
Now I am trying something different and breaking a non-calendar year up into three parts, with checkpoints that have some relevance to me: Halloween, the day after Valentine's, and my birthday.
This is one of those checkpoints (being the largest after-holiday-chocolate-sale day of the year. :} )
My rough accomplishments since I listed them on New Years Eve (45 days, or 6 weeks 3 days ago)
The one new recipe per week goal of last year wasn't quite met, as, in hindsight, it was rather ambitious. The new goal is a new recipe and one entree of my own creation roughly every two weeks(ish) So for this small window I aimed for 3 "kludges" and 4 recipes. Also, to successfully make bread.
0) Some Zuchinni kludge.
1) Curried plantain kludge, based on the world vegetarian mango curry recipe.
2) Brownie cookies recipe from Chocolate on the Brain.
2.5) Added cayenne, cinnamon, and cloves to half the double batch of the above recipe.
3) This recipe which is an attempted recreation of the Specialties Wheat Germ Chocolate Chip recipe.
4) Herb Baguettes from the recipe in my mixer's handbook.
5) Plain ol' white bread.
6) Bulgar lentil soup, from a SFGate.com recipe.
7) Whole wheat mint walnut loaf - World Vegetarian
8) Dark dark dark rye - Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook
9) Tomato and Bulgar dish - Vegetarian Heaven
10) Mushroom and Zuchinni curry soup - intertubes.
There are larger things I have been wanting to do (besides cooking and reading). I will cross these off as they get accomplished.
-----> Given that my employment situation has not been addressed, I can't commit to a schedule yet. <sigh>
-----> Fail.
----->I signed up for the climbing gym, and will be taking yoga classes there.
Books:
When Gravity Fails - George Alec Effinger : Just the right level of edgy and beleivable (while still clearly being sci-fi). I really like stories that have a successful ending while still being distinctly not a happy one.
A Sword From Red Ice - J.V. Jones : Grrrarrr! I hate it when you think you are on the final book of what was originally supposed to be trilogy but now isn't. Enjoyable hack and slash, but it would be really nice if it finished up sooner than later.
The Sharing Knife: Passage - Lois McMaster Bujold: Bujold is one of those authors that other folks seem to be far more enthused with than I am. I like the Vorksagian stories, fer instance, but didn't find it particularly noteworthy (well, kudos for having a differently abled lead character). The same applies to this fantasy series. I like the characters well enough, the writing is okay, and plot is charming: It is an enjoyable read (although with a bit heavier on the schmaltzy romance than I usually want to put up with).
