New Year, New Rules & New Resolution

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New Year:  I love a fresh start!  One of my favorite things growing up was the night before the first day of school.  New outfit, fresh binders full of clean ruled paper, new pens, and a year full of possibility.  I still get that excited when I open a new notebook.  And I love the inspiration that a new year brings for tackling your personal to-do list.  Not the one for work, the one full of fun stuff like:

• Practicing yoga and photography
• Satisfying my addiction to Dexter by watching the next 5 seasons on Netflix
• Traveling
• Digging even deeper into food with some cooking classes and a few new cookbooks

Unfortunately all this new year business plus a kind of ridiculous workload for my job means less time for blogging. Which leads me to...

New Rules:  I spent a lot of time marinating (haha, lame food pun intended) about this blog before finally jumping in. I've told you all my culinary history - what on earth was I thinking, a food blog!?!  But I spent time reflecting on my food point of view and thinking about how to make it work and I took the plunge and put myself out there. 

I have to say, it's been a pretty cool experience!  I reconnected with old friends, uncovered a shared passion with new friends, and learned not to apologize for who I am. Opening up my kitchen and recipe books to you all virtually has been a wonderful experience.

But it's time for a change. The process of food blogging is crazy labor intensive. To post on a weekly basis I have to cook new stuff on a weekly basis, AND it has to be good enough for me to share.  Then I have to snap photos of everything in my kind-of-ill-suited-to-be-a-photography-studio kitchen, upload the photos, edit the photos in Lightroom and upload the final pictures to PhotoBucket.  Then it's time to write the post, attempt to be witty, proof the post (who are we kidding, I hate proof reading), preview the post, sleep on it, make adjustments, and then publish the post.  And if I have time, share it via social media.

I'm tired just thinking about it. 

But I'm not ready to throw in the towel on blogging yet.  So new year, new rules.  Less pomp and circumstance, less focus on trying to "grow" my readers, and less formality and pressure.  More stream of conscience, more straight out of the kitchen photos (so I can eat dinner while it's still hot), and more ideas and thoughts.  Like a personal letter.  Hopefully you guys will bear with me and this will work out better for both of us. I can't guarantee I'll be posting weekly but I'm hoping for once or twice a month and with more content. And finally...

New Resolution:  I don't really do resolutions. Instead, around my birthday I typically pick one or two things about myself that I'd like to work on and I make that my goal for my __th year. Stuff like being a more confident leader, better managing my time, ditching the unnecessary pressure I tend to put on myself, getting more exercise, being more receptive to feedback, you get the point.

I've been making a point to eat more fruits and vegetables in the new year and I decided to make it an official resolution. I'm going attempt to eat 5 servings of fruits and vegetables each day.  Ok, each weekday  :)

I'm always inspired to eat healthier in January so it seemed like good timing for this kind of challenge. I've been at it for a few days now and so far the only result is that I'm much more conscious of what I'm putting in my body. I think I've hit 5 servings all of once in the past week.  Do you know how hard it is to abide by those guidelines!?!

Ok, that's a lot for one post.  But I'm looking forward to the new way of doing things in 2012. 

Anyone else making big changes or resolutions in 2012?

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