01/22/12

This post is in effort to remember what I've been filling my time with lately.

Reading:

Bossypants by Tina Fey. The Wichita Public Library is having their annual Adult Winter Reading Program and they are encouraging staff to get involved. This means reading from a variety of genre, including things I don’t normally read. I just finished this last week for the non-fiction category.
Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen. This is for the classics category as well as my resolution to read 5 classics this year. Hopefully I can finish it. I haven’t really read much Austen but since I’ve been steeping myself in historical British things maybe I can stay focused.
A variety of cookbooks and gardening books. I can’t help bringing them home, but often barely glance at them until it’s time to return them. But I am ever hopeful they will inspire me.

Listening to:
Playlists- Matt Hamer and the Ramshackle Sound. Matt’s a friend who just came out with his first CD and it’s pretty great. I’m also pretty attached to my “Folksy” playlist which includes the Civil Wars, Mumford and Sons, Fleet Foxes, and Aaron Lee Martin.
Podcasts- Joy the Baker. Joy and Tracy from Shutterbean.com discuss “all the unimportant important things” and very little about food, but definitely a fun listen.
We’re About to be Friends. Joy the Baker’s other podcast which doesn’t update weekly, but actually is normally about food is a good kitchen listen.
NPR’s Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me.
WNYC’s Radio Lab.
Audiobook- A Monstrous Regiment of Women by Laurie R. King. This is the second book about Sherlock Holmes’ female apprentice Mary Russell and is pretty enjoyable so far.

Watching:

Downton Abbey. It took me awhile to make time for it, but I’ve been hearing great things about it for months. Finally we started watching it and we just finished the first season (Netflix) this afternoon. Thankfully PBS is putting season 2 online so hopefully we can keep up. It has wonderful characters and beautiful settings and compelling stories that we just couldn’t stop watching.
Star Trek: The Next Generation. Brian and I started this awhile ago, after he finally caught an episode that did not bore him. We are near the end of the 5th season and return to it whenever we’re not in the middle of something.
Murdock Mysteries. I often end up watching something in the afternoons after work. I just caught up on Inspector Lewis and have watched a lot of Midsomer Murders and can’t seem to tear myself away from mysteries. I thought maybe I couldn’t tear myself away from British shows, but I think Downton filled that gap. So I turned to Murdock Mysteries, which is almost British as it takes place in Toronto. It’s rather steampunk-y and a bit cheesy, but at least it’s only an hour.

Cooking and Baking:

I’ve been keeping track of what we’ve been eating lately and it’s been nice to see lots of eating at home. Most of the meals haven’t been too exciting, but they are happening. Baking is not happening as much, but it’s definitely more exciting. Last weekend I made Brownies from scratch which was a first, and I added some cinnamon, since they we accompanying tacos. Friday I made these yummy Blood Orange Crostatas (the pictures with the recipe link are beautiful), except I used mostly whole wheat flour and had cream cheese on hand so I substituted that for the mascarpone.

Discussing:

Topics of discussion lately have ranged from reasonable and unreasonable Non-Compete forms, healthy eating, church hunting, and hopes for the new Sherlock season (it doesn’t air on PBS until May! no spoilers please, since it’s done in the UK).

And now I'm off to go attempt a quinoa salad.

Hey! It's 2012!

I even made some resolutions! How very grown-up of me. The good thing: I started thinking about some of them awhile ago so I’m really sure I want to work on them, and even got started on some of them. The bad thing: I had a cold the entire first week of the year. This means I have barely done anything yet. But I’ve got a whole year to figure it out.

So, here goes!

1) Deliberately BE in the Kitchen
- Record our meals. This way I know what I can cook in a pinch and it’ll be easier to see where I need to challenge myself (and maybe even share more food related stuff here).
-Make menus. Sometimes at least, to get in the habit of thinking ahead.
-Shop better. Coupon more, keep an eye out for deals, and keep track for the budget.
-Do the dishes more regularly. Load the dishwasher right away, check (for this week)! Wash pans, still needs work.
-Bake more! I realized toward the end of 2011 that I really like making cookies and I want to broaden my baking horizons. Brian’s definitely on board and got me Cookiepedia for Christmas.

2) Physical Fitness
I’m pretty vague about my resolutions. These are things I want to be mindful of all year, and I don’t want to set myself up for too much failure. So, become more physically fit. Shouldn’t be too hard to improve a little bit, but it will be necessary if I follow through on baking more. Sometime after Thanksgiving a couple of friends and I started getting together for yoga once a week. Wahoo! Progress! Other plans include jumping rope, going for walks, and riding bikes.

3)Travel
We have friends and family all over that we would like to visit more. We would also like to see some places we haven’t been to before. No extensive plans yet, just, travel more.

4) Read 5 Classics
Last year my reading goal was 30ish books and Goodreads helped me keep track of everything I read and I’ll be using it again. I want to focus my goal this year so 5 Classics is a good start, I even left it open-ended and haven’t picked which ones yet. Any ideas?

5) Spend Time Each Week Creating
Ok, hopefully this happens more than once a week, but I needed to be a little more specific about some goals, right? This is kind of a joint resolution with Brian. Basically it means we will spend time away from the TV and work on something we wished did more last year, he on “recreational programming,” and me on writing, or creating. Hopefully this means more posts here, I really would like to inhabit it more, but I already know I can’t promise that.

6) Home Improvement
Not the show (No, I did not have a JTT crush, but we watched it regularly). I just added this to my resolution list, even though we have plans to remodel the kitchen this spring, and want to get the office in order. Not sure why it wasn’t on the list. Maybe my subconscious knows most the resolutions are a bit flimsy and this one needs to actually happen. Somehow it got filed elsewhere, but it fits here as well. Woo, plans! And hopefully details posted as we get closer to working on things.

A pretty ambitious list. For me at least. But I do want to be more ambitious this year. I need to live my life more fully, and stop saying “Someday I’d like to...” and just do it.

Randomling: Is this winter? Mostly I don't mind the temperate weather (especially when driving), but I kind of miss the white stuff. I've prolly just cursed myself with the iciest roads ever, but so be it.