New Years Resolutions

I, like many, don’t get very into the whole New Years Resolutions thing for a simple reason: I don’t believe they work.

I mean, think about it. You make a list of things you know you’re supposed to want to do just because it happens to be a new calendar year, and then you call them resolutions instead of plain old goals, and that somehow makes it more likely that you’ll actually do those things?

Like I said, they don’t work.

When I’ve made “New Years Resolutions” that have “worked”, they haven’t actually been “New Years” Resolutions at all--they’re things I’ve decided, deep down, to do, completely independent of whether a New Year is starting or not.

So here are a few things I’ve decided I’m going to do, and I’m using the New Year as an excuse to tell you about them all:

1. Blog Weekly.

I’m not going to decide on a specific day of the week to blog, because I want to keep a bit of freedom on my end. I’m just deciding that every week, between Sunday morning and Saturday night, I’ll post something on my blog. It may be a comic, a painting, a craft, an entry about my life, random musings on a topic nobody except me cares about (like, random example--New Years Resolutions.) Just something on my blog every week.

I debated awhile after combining my three independent blogs, each with its own theme--do I want to have a theme to this blog? And I realized that depended on the answer to the question, what is the purpose of this blog?

Eventually I decided, my purpose isn’t to write about any single subject. Its just to write about things that I think are interesting, and that other people might find interesting too. Basically just a way to let the world know what I’m doing and figuring out, what I’m excited about, and what I’ve learned. I don’t think its a coincidence that I really got into my other blogs when I moved away to college, and then came back to blogging when we moved across the country. Blogging is kind of my way (well, one of them) to keep in touch with the world.

So if there is a theme, this is it: Interesting Things. I can find something interesting things to post about every week, can’t I?

(Tangent: this was really solidified for me since I’ve been re-reading Dragonhaven by Robin McKinley, which is easily in my top 5 books ever. In it, Lois the baby dragon is described as galumphing from Interesting Thing to Interesting Thing and I realized that I kind of do that too. And that that was what I wanted to blog about.)

2. Get back into painting.

Part of this is figuring out a good schedule and structure for how this will work. But I’ve been mostly working digitally lately--in vectors, in fact, so I don’t even get to call it digital painting. And, while that is fun, I really miss my paint.

3. Find kinds of exercise that I will actually do. And do them.

Because I’d like to be healthy and do all the things. Weight isn’t really a motivator for me, this isn’t a diet type of resolution. I actually have a somewhat lower opinion of most diets than I do of New Years Resolutions, for some of the same reasons. I just want to be able to feel good and be active, but jogging and running don’t work that well for me as well as they do for many (at least for extended periods) because of foot problems. Also I think they’re just plain boring. So I need to explore other options... I’ve started doing a bit of yoga once in awhile, and want to find a few more things to try as well. Yesterday I realized that dough kneading can also be good exercise (my kitchenaid can only knead the dough for me if its a big enough batch, I discovered--one small loaf doesn't work.) Not cardiovascular, but seriously guys, bakers have big arms for a reason.

Which brings me to this last resolution--

4. Figure out making yeast breads in this new climate.

Because the breads I've made since moving here have been passable, but honestly not that great. I got to be okay ish at making bread in Utah, but even then I wasn't super proficient, and it was still pretty hit-and-miss. I want to figure out doing commercial yeast AND natural yeast, white breads AND whole wheat (maybe even multigrain), sweet AND salty (and whatever else) because I'm no purist. Yes, I know that naturally yeasted whole wheat would be the healthiest, but sometimes I'm in a hurry and want something fluffy. Also I managed to find myself a guy to marry who actually really likes the flavor of whole wheat, and I would like to like the flavor of whole wheat (if that makes sense), so thats kind of a sub-goal here for me.

So I want to experiment with them all--yeasts, flours, recipes. Speaking of, I have my first very small naturally yeasted (hand-kneaded!) whole wheat loaf rising in the kitchen as I type. I even have a picture. But we don't get to know how it will turn out until tonight because natural yeast takes foooooooreeeeeeeeveeeeeer. And I'm not super patient. But I have to be so I will. But also, like I said, I'm going to figure out the commercial yeast too.

Thats it. I know the list is short, but I don’t see much point in focusing on too many things at once.

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