I am not a person who sees much value in New Years resolutions (considering we’re now 27 days in to the new year and I’m just now talking about them, that might not come as a surprise). If you’re going to feel compelled to do something or change a habit, it seems to me like you need a more significant reason for change than the start of a new year. Despite my resistance to New Years resolutions, I have spent a lot of the last month or two reflecting on what I want to do and where I want to be in 2 or 3 years and what things are important to me. I’ve put my reflections/project list together as an interest list (not a resolution list!) and this blog is a summary of what I’ve come up with so far:

Interest #1: I like to bake and cook and I want to do more in the kitchen. I’m sure when Jeff hears this, he will be glad and dismayed at the same time: glad to eat the things I bake, and dismayed because he will eat too many of the things I bake. I got the best Christmas present ever in the form of a KitchenAid stand mixer (thanks Jeff and Mom and Dad!) and have already put it to good use (as Jeff knows too well). I also got so many great kitchen gifts from all my family: new measuring cups, the Panera Bread cookbook, Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day, a southern style home-cooking cookbook, and a salad dressing mixer. I also bought an amazing pizza stone and a stone pie plate! Now I have lots of fun new things to play with in the kitchen and will hope for success in my endeavors!

Interest #2: Along the same lines as Interest #1, I would love to try and grow a vegetable garden and experiment more with canning. Last summer, we went blueberry picking with some friends and I made blueberry jam out of the extras we had left over. The jam came out really well and I had so much fun that I would love to try something like that again. I think it would be fun to grow tomatoes and make homemade tomato soup to can and save for a cold winter night. I think it could also be fun to grow cucumbers and try to make pickles.

Interest #3: After my fairly successful projects in the kitchen, the next domestic thing I’m tempted to try out is a sewing project. Specifically, I want to learn how to quilt (this is starting to sound like a list of projects for the 1950’s housewife). I’ve realized that I like learning to do homey things and I actually have a lot of fun doing them. Learning how to quilt is probably a longer term project since I don’t have a sewing machine (obstacle #1), and the only training I’ve had on sewing was in basic 7th grade Home Ec. (potential obstacle #2).

My inspiration for this goal came back in October when Jeff and I went to the Topsfield Fair. While we were there we saw some really beautiful quilts on display. I think I have a basic understanding about how to quilt (I’ve watched/helped a friend do part of a quilting project), but I haven’t tried it myself. The thought has been percolating for a while now, and I’m feeling ambitious enough to want to give it a try. However, this probably won’t happen until we have a place where I can work on a project like that. And a sewing machine is kind of important too…

Interest #4: I want to spend more time at home and have people visit us! Last week was the first time we had had some friends over since we moved to our “new” apartment six months ago… Jeff and I do see people fairly often, but sometimes it feels like we spend more weekends away visiting people than we spend in our own apartment. Then when we’re finally home during the week, we’ve got 9 or 10 hour work days and I feel like I can’t even find time to go grocery shopping let alone plan to meet friends for an evening outing.

As a result, I want to have people over for dinner more often (partially so Jeff doesn’t have to  be the only one eating everything I bake) and I want to find some reason to have people over at least once a month. I think a game night would be fun!

Interest #5: I really want to look in to owning a bed and breakfast. This sounds fairly improbable but actually could work out pretty well because Mike and Amy also share this desire. So far, we’ve only talked whimsically about someday co-owning and running a bed and breakfast, but I can’t wait for ’someday’, so I’m doing some research now to find out more about what goes in to a business like that. I figure after doing a little information gathering, I’ll either come crashing back to reality, or I’ll consider quitting my job and we can get started on the dream now. This is also on the “Long Term Projects” list.

Interest #6 I haven’t really had much of a chance to get in to this yet, but I’m really interested in using and posting photos on my blog of the outings that Jeff and I go on. I’ve realized that some of my favorite things to look at on facebook or on other people’s blogs are the photos they post of the things they’ve been up to. Especially living long distance from my family, I think that would be a fun way to keep up to speed on what’s going on in the life of Jeff and Alice. It also helps ensure that we’ll have fun pictures to one day look back on the time we’re currently spending being newly married (and without kids!). It’s been easier to document our adventures now that Jeff has an iphone, but until I also get an iphone (hah!), I need to start taking more pictures!