resolutions

Hello!

I hate to admit this, but I sort of lost interest in doing this sometime in November. I've enjoyed reading some of my favorite blogs' recaps of their eventful 2013's (and their compilations of lovely outfits to go with them!) and sadly, I haven't got a lot of that to my own to contribute. Still, I thought it'd be nice to come back on the night of the new year and talk about how I'd like that to change!

All right, let's see.

• Acquire a sewing machine and become proficient with it. Following this, make thousands of adorable skirts and dresses from inexpensive printed fabrics and impress all the three-year-old students with them. 
• Put that gorgeous camera my grandmother gave me to more use. I love the convenience of my iPhone, but I feel like I could stand to do a little better.
• Continue pilates! That's a really fun new discovery I made late in the year that I hope I keep up with forever. 
• Use those sweet new bread and tartlet pans I bought in Seattle. They're beautiful.
• Put all the kitchen applicances I was gifted with to even more use--come up with even more healthy, fun recipes to feed my very hungry family with! First on the list are breakfast foods (read: waffles with fruit and pancakes), breads and curries. 
• Set some money aside to take a real trip someplace overseas.
• Write.
• Follow through.

That last one is a big deal for me lately. Sometime this year--I suppose around the time my grandma got sick--I realized that I tend to do a lot of complaining and wishful thinking. To clarify, I was exactly the type of person to want to do something and then lament that I hadn't later on. ("Well, I could have entered that contest/written that story/participated in that event, but x/y/z got in the way...) 

Excuses.

Somewhere along the line, I made the decision to follow through. Anything I said I was going to do had to be done on principle. Surprisingly, a lot of things happened that probably wouldn't have otherwise. I did enter a pretty big contest (never mind that I didn't win! I still did it!), I wrote and read my grandma's eulogy, and I completely overhauled a lot of unhealthy tendencies, food-related and otherwise, going on in my household. It's sort of exciting to think about how many things can happen just because you've already decided they're going to.

I can't state definitively that I will become exactly who I want to be just by making these changes in my life. I can mostly just decide that this is all going to happen anyway and see what happens. Hopefully, the result will be good. 

The same can be said for the upcoming bread recipes. 

I'm thinking cinnamon raisin to start with, but I did see a pretty intriguing pumpkin recipe out there as well...

If I do as I say and follow through, I'll have a ton to show you soon. 

To anyone who has read this far, happy 2014.