Sooooo...Fess Up! What are YOUR New Year's Resolutions?

L

luisa_calif

Well-known member
#1 No more sweetener in coffee, just milk

#2 Read more books, watch less TV

#3 Eat more beans?

#4 ...(Still trying to think of a really good one, maybe Flossing More?)

 
My 4

Organize!
a. recipes
b. photos
c. (most difficult)- my closet!

Eat better

Exercise more

Write more letters

 
Simplify, simplify, simplify! Go through and get rid of STUFF... where does it all come from?!

 
I've just met someone with a 1-bedroom apt. - she owns an army cot, small dresser, desk and chair...

That's it! I went home and looked around and felt like SUCH a consumer - ugh!

 
Mine covers all - to get things done! I have been working on it for 2 days - I think it is good ...

for another 2 weeks. (although I feel determined,
I do know myself).

 
My neatest place ever was a 540 sq. ft. apartment right before I bought

my house. It was brand new and had great storage as to closets & cabinets. I made sure not to accumulate junk. Wish my place looked like that now. I was looking at elfa storage on Container Store's sale today. It is still a big "ouch". I could have a great pantry for about $650.00.

 
Cheezz, I'm with you on the "stuff" accumulation. There are just two of us and we are both "stuff"

people and the basement is PACKED! We both have resolved to get it cleaned out this year and we have already started at it. Purple Heart is coming Monday to pick up all the shopping bags I have filled and today (if it get a little warmer than the 15° it currently is) we will make a trip to the recycle with a car packed to the brim--and that's just for starters!

Other resolutions:
1. stay committed to regular exercise
2. learn how to be less stressed when guests are coming over for dinner
3. take advantage of some of the wonderful arts that DC has to offer, we are so bad about the hassle of "going down town" and miss out on a lot, we are even lucky enough to have a parking space in DH's building on the weekends. We will start this Friday by going to see the Capitol Steps perform at the Regan building.

 
My best apartment was a converted one-car garage...decorated by an interior designer.

She had built a large stone fireplace in one corner, single bed, comfy Queen Ann's chair and ottoman, antique drop leaf desk, hi-boy dresser and bookcases. She had six-foot wall built around the entrance to make a private outdoor court with seating. What else does a woman need?

No kitchen: I lived off of a microwave and mini-frig for nine months.

 
Like you Pat, I vowed to....

- Organize hard-copy recipes into files, purge the mile-high stack of to-be-trieds and food magazine clippings. And continue entering recipes into the Living Cookbook software I bought last year.

- Reduce cookbook collection significantly.

- Organize closet, release items no longer serving me.

- Eat more fruits and vegetables. Find more creative recipes for vegetables and salads.

- Drink more water each day.

- Walk for exercise at least 4 days a week.

So far, I've already accomplished the closet and the cookbooks. Went through the closet and got honest about the clothes, shoes, purses, cooking aprons (how did I acquire so many of those aprons?? LOL) I was never going to wear again or simply no longer liked...bagged them all up and dropped off at a nearby thrift store yesterday. Felt so good!!! and the closet is so much lighter now, ready for new things to come in that I'll actually like and wear. Then I went through and grouped colors together (learned that in a decluttering book last week.) And new years eve day I started culling out cookbooks. Just had WAY too many cookbooks and looking through them again I got honest with their current value to me in the way I presently cook. In the last 2 days I sold 85 cookbooks...mostly to the used book store but several that I put online have already sold...just need to package and mail them out. Feels realllly good to have done all this in just a couple days, even though it took hours and hours and hours. It's very motivating to continue with the resolutions AND the bonus is I have a fresh idea of what's in the cookbooks I kept. Next up is the recipe clippings pile.

Good luck with your resolutions, Pat. :eek:)

 
I also went through the remaining cookbooks and

grouped them together by either cuisine, like Asian, Indian, Italian, Mexican, Grilling, Appetizers, Soups, Salads, Vegetarian, Food & Wine Pairing, Party-planning, Baking, etc., or by popular author where I have multiple books by them...like James Peterson, Joyce Goldstein, Julia Child, Paula Wolfert, Greg Atkinson, Madhur Jaffrey, Mark Miller, Joanne Weir, Hugh Carpenter, Marie Simmons, Nina Simonds, my culinary school textooks, Cindy Pawlcyn, Williams Sonoma series, Marcella Hazan, Bruce Aidells, Andrea Immer, Wolfgang Puck, Jacques Pepin, Charlie Palmer, Thomas Keller, Charlie Trotter, etc. etc. It feels GREAT to get the collection in order and I plan to do more cooking from my books this year as opposed to the majority of the cooking I've been doing from online recipes.

One of these days I'm going to catalogue all the cookbooks (still have about 800) and write the titles down but for now I need to focus on purging the recipe clippings pile. ;o)

 
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