Friday, July 30, 2010

To Do List

As you can see by the list below, I don’t have huge aspirations, most of the things I want “to do” are food related. I will explain: I love baking and the idea of cooking, but always stick to the basics. I want to explore the millions of cook books I have and actually do some real baking/cooking. Everything else is sort of a mish mash of things I keep meaning to do, but never get around to.

The hot yoga, I have actually already done, but I stopped going and I should go back. I actually enjoyed sweating my brains out while doing awkward stretches in a room full of people. Even though I live literally one hour away from the Rocky Mountains I have never engaged in any sort of mountain/outdoor activity – hiking, skiing, snowboarding, etc. I’m an asshole. This is what my typical mountain experience looks like:

1) Go to the expensive hotel in town and indulge in an overly priced brunch that has anything and everything you could ever imagine. Usually I just want the bacon.

2) Walk to Starbucks and get a blended drink of some sort.

3) Stop at the fudgery that has been there forever and stock up on chocolate turtles and chocolate bark.

4) Arrive home and fall into a food induced coma.

As you can see, none of those activities involve getting on a mountain, or even walking in a pathway by the river. I stay on the sidewalk and in my car. So, I feel now is the time to make a change. I know that I will never actually get on skis – I am certain I would be cold and uncomfortable the whole time -  so I’ve resigned myself to going for a hike in the mountains. It’s basically just walking with better scenery, so I don’t know why I’ve waited so long.

Also, I’ve lowered my to do list to 15 items from the original 30 I had planned, and am also bumping up the timeline of before the age of thirty down to before Christmas. If it seriously takes me two years to clean out my basement, A & E may do a special on me.

1. Croissants
2. Danish
3. Macarons
4. Crème Brulee
5. Donuts
6. Grilled Pizza
7. Fried Chicken
8. Soutzoukakia
9. Kotopitakia
10. Pasta
11. Eclairs
12. Hot Yoga
13. Photography classes
14. Clean out my basement
15. Go hiking

Deadline: December 24, 2010

Thursday, July 15, 2010

Here We Go! Again.

Hi, it’s me again. Sorry for the huge delay in posts. To be honest, I totally gave up, but I’m back now. I’ve given myself a pep talk and I think I’ll stick around this time. For some extra insurance, I, I thought I should write a list of three reasons I should commit to this, and when the inevitable time comes that I am looking for a quick exit, hopefully something on this list will pull me back. Here we go!

1. I need something to do that is free. Somehow I have managed to pick hobbies/creative outlets that have a huge price point. Some examples include the following:


- Photography – I have about $2500 in camera equipment and still don’t fully understand what manual focus is, why everyone is so against the flash feature and what an F stop is. I saw some nice pictures, told my husband I think I’d be good at it, and dove right in. Not to mention the never ending downward spiral this has caused: Photoshop software so I can edit my pictures and of course 30 hours of Photoshop classes so I can learn how to use the Photoshop software. All of this so I could take a picture of my niece and nephew and edit it in Photoshop Elements, the subsequent software I bought because I felt that Photoshop was too professional for me, and I was just a regular person that didn’t need all the bells and whistles.







- Baking – I love to bake, in fact my sisters and I have started a pseudo baking business from our home. That being said, we just started it. Like 6 months ago. For the last five years I have been buying every type of cookie sheet and muffin tray on the market.Do you need a cake pan? I have 6”, 8”, 10”, 12”, or 14” inches.Round, square, oval (I really needed an oval cake pan set?), orheart shaped? What about a good solid cook book? You need to have a good cake recipe or else the heart shaped cake you were going tomake in the 12” heart pan will be all for nothing. Good thing I have over 200 books to select one basic chocolate cake recipe from.

2. I need to be held accountable. If I keep a blog, there will be a written record of what I say and what I plan to do. In that regard, all of those ridiculous hobbies and projects that I’ve started and never finished - maybe I can shame myself into completing them! I have seen a feature in other blogs where they have a to do list. I think that is a great idea. I love making lists. Grocery and otherwise, so I think I will compile a list of things I want to do before I’m 30 –that doesn’t give me much more time – less than 2 years and post them on the site. Then, I will have ‘put it out there’ and be forced to do it. I can’t wait for my productivity to increase tenfold. I can’t imagine how sitting in front of a computer will actually increase my productivity, but I suppose anything is possible. First thing on the list of course, will be to create the list. See how I did that there? Stay tuned!

3. I.CAN.DO.THIS. I am a professional blog reader. I have discovered gems, and found total duds too, but when I read a blog, I always wonder why don’t I do this? So now, I’m doing it. And maybe I’ll totally suck, which quite frankly, I don’t think I will, but also, I’m posting on the WORLD WIDE WEB, not a community bulletin so if I do suck, I don’t think anyone will notice in the small corner of the Internet that I’m in. But I won’t suck.