Plotting, Puttering, and Doodling My Year

 

I've been wandering around contemplating the legitimacy or need of me making resolutions.

Yeah,  I was way over thinking the thing.

Then I read something really cool in our local paper:

"Enough already with the guilt-ridden, I'm-so-fat, I'm-so-lazy, I-must-fix-my-life NEW YEARS RESOLUTIONS. We're over it. They don't help. Get a grip! THERE'S NOTHING WRONG WITH YOU. You're fine. Sure, pick a goal. Do it. You're capable. But NO MORE BEATING YOURSELF UP. The phrase is not 'Have a Guilty New Year.' Take a breath. SEE THE GOOD IN YOURSELF. If you must make a resolution, start with one of those you'll find on Page E2. Because the biggest word in 'Happy New Year should be HAPPY. "  Diane Porter - The Arizona Republic

The resolutions on page E2 were all really great feel good type of things:

• Pay for the person behind you in a drive-thru.
• Take old towels to a vet or pet shelter
• Notice someone
• Write a fan letter
• Write a manifesto (that sounds like It would make me instantly more important).

The list is very long with very fun and gratifying things like eating donuts.

This made me feel infinitely better and I went ahead and made some resolutions after feeling so good about not making any resolutions.

I loved this thought processes of thinking about your year ahead. 

It's not about what you don't get done, because shoot by today most of us have already done a pretty crappy job with keeping up any 'typical resolution'. 

But if you resolve to just make your year happy, you've got a long way to go and lots of things you can do.

I decided my Life Is Still Sweet goals are going to be less about the actual blog and more about why I have this blog. FOOD and sharing everything about food.

I even doodled my list because 2 drink recipes and one salad recipe I had wanted to post were just not working out. Some photo issues, some not so spectacular on the taste issues. BUT, it's not about making sure I slap something up, it's about the process. You may never see 2/3 of what I make or what I hope to put up, but it's not really about what the internet sees (sort of). It's about MY life and food.

You may not see every detail of the fish I'm going to eat more of, but more than likely since it's what I want, you'll see some more sea food recipes.

I used to check out cook books from the library and pour over them. This year I did that less, but I miss them and I have a list a mile long of ones I'd like to look over. I'll let you know about the good ones.

I have some really amazing friends who come from different cultural back grounds and have some chops in the kitchen. I want to cook with them and learn from them and they usually don't make fun of me when I whip out the camera and take pictures of my food, so I'll post them up here too.

My one little "diet" goal is to amp up my raw food intake. I felt the best this year during the week that I consciously cleansed my little insides and ate mostly raw for about 4-5 days. I'd like to delve into this and perhaps at least once a week stick to mostly raw. I'm hoping to whip up some creative recipes to keep this little challenge feeling less like a challenge.

There it is. It's not life changing, or something I'll feel guilty about if I don't make it to the library. It's about what I'm looking forward to.

Now if you'll excuse me, I feel like doodling my manifesto.