Hello, 2015! Watch this at 27 seconds in and you'll get my tone. If I ever make it to New Jersey, I know the first thing that I will say.

I am welcoming 2015 in on the heels of a crazy-hectic-wonderful-exhausting-draining-work overload of a December. Obviously, the holidays were the wonderful part. The work part--the most crazy I have ever had in my career. And now, with a small reprieve and hindsight, I can say they were fulfilling days. Hard, but fulfilling days. I definitely learned a lot about myself and my profession along the way. And even more importantly...

....I did get my Christmas tree up

...I did make puppy chow...TWICE

...and I did spend time with family!

Needless to say, Christmas 2014 will always be memorable.

I am going to try to continue to make this blog a scrapbook of my life. In late 2014, I did not follow through on that too well, but I did create a stop-gap for poor blogging follow-through. I discovered Instagram as a nice way of keeping track of some of my favorite activities so feel free to find @megengscunningham.

Other resolutions include continuing to document my food and fitness choices each day. It helped me to stay healthy in 2014. I am also looking forward to being more deliberate with my time. Stephen and I did this well by choosing new restaurants and activities to do together. In 2015, this will also mean not checking our phones while watching a show together, choosing when to have screen time, etc. And finally, for practicality, every Monday will include 10 minutes of cleaning as much as I can (thanks, Real Simple).

As I hope to be a more active blogger, please let me know if there is something you would like to see more of.. A little structure never hurt anybody. And in the meantime, stay warm and say hello to 2015!

Revised Resolutuions

Back in January, I wrote about my resolutions for 2014 here. They aren't going very well at first glance.

1. Buy a house. We have not bought a house. We did make an offer on one, but it didn't work out. We are ok with that. In fact, some days we are ok with not buying a house at all for now. Stay tuned.

2. Teach myself to play guitar. Have not touched this one since approximately January 2. I move the guitar every now and then, but for some reason I am not feeling inspired.

So. These aren't going well. My vague eat healthy, cook, and workout is going well. I enrolled in an 8 week yoga class that I just finished and now we are gearing up to begin training for a new half marathon. [We are determined to have our best time: under 2 hours.] I have also downloaded a food tracking app to help me pay attention to what I am actually putting in my body and in recipes.

Now for the biggest qualifier of all: sometimes resolutions change and evolve. For example, the more we look at houses, the more we weigh what being a homeowner means. Does it mean not having as much money for fun vacations? Does it mean our lifestyle changes?  I am not sure, but through the process Stephen and I have started prioritizing being spontaneous and keeping a list of restaurants and places we want to go. This weekend we are going to hike at the Schlitz Audubon Center and next weekend we are going to explore Kenosha for the day because we want to. Our biggest resolution and priority right now is to spend time together and have fun.

Of course, a lot of that time together is spent on the couch watching TV. In honor of my always-present resolution to blog more, I'll entice you to return to my blog with the promise of a post about The Mindy Project and other television explorations.

In the meantime, a few thoughts on Friends, which is now over 10 years old and a television show I still enjoy, almost daily.

2014 Resolutions

I use New Year's resolutions as a way to stay on top of things I enjoy or want to learn how to do. I also use them as a way to set goals. Resolutions are a good reality check, as well. When I was in graduate school, I didn't come up with a list of resolutions that included cooking or hobbies. Instead they were goals, or hard and fast milestones. My resolutions for the year 2011 we as follows: write thesis, defend thesis, obtain MA, get married.

In 2012, I know I had some resolutions, but I didn't blog about them. Bummer.

You can see my 2013 resolutions here. How did I do?

1. Baking - I tried a bread recipe. I made it one or two times. I haven't baked bread since March. I collected a naan recipe, one for pizza dough, and multiple for various types of bread. None have been baked = not successful.
2. Get into a better reading groove - I definitely did do this. My mom and I started reading books at the same time, like a mini book club. Stephen and I have picked out a few books that we waant to read together, like Catcher in the Rye. 
3. Run a half marathon and marathon - Check and check. We ran a lot!

Here we are in 2013 and what are my new resolutions?

1. Buy a house - This is clearly a joint goal with my husband and one that I probably won't blog about much until it is successful.
2. Teach myself to play guitar - In high school a lot of my friends were musical (as was I) and I asked for a guitar for Christmas. I taught myself "Smoke on the Water" and plodded through a few songs in a beginners book. Then college happened. Then graduate school  happened. Right now my goal is to set aside an hour a week and start working my way through a book about guitar playing for dummies. I'll keep you posted.

I also want to keep plugging away in the kitchen, cooking healthy food and using new recipes. I also want to keep up the running and stay fit. Both of those resolutions are generally a part of my daily living and not something I necessarily need to resolve to do--although some days are better than others. 

At the end of the day (or year), I like being able to sit down and think about where I was as 2013 began and then imagine what I'll be doing and planning for as 2015 begins. Not knowing what 2014 will bring, I leave you with a poem by Seamus Heaney, a great Irish poet who died in 2013.

"Anything Can Happen"

Anything can happen. You know how Jupiter 
Will mostly wait for clouds to gather head
Before he hurls the lightning? Well, just now
He galloped his thunder cart and his horses

Across a clear blue sky. It shook the earth
And the clogged underearth, the River Styx,
The winding streams, the Atlantic shore itself.
Anything can happen, the tallest towers

Be overturned, those in high places daunted,
Those overlooked regarded. Stropped-beak Fortune
Swoops, making the air gasp, tearing the crest off one,
Setting it down bleeding on the next.

Ground gives. The heaven’s weight
Lifts up off Atlas like a kettle-lid.
Capstones shift, nothing resettles right.
Telluric ash and fire-spores boil away.

- See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/23684#sthash.E2GBFLbR.dpuf

Sometimes you just need to focus...

In a job interview, and in many other moments in life, "multi-tasking" is deemed good thing. Quite a few times I have responded to a question about my strengths and enumerated on how can I manage multiple tasks at one time. I am not doing a 360 and saying multi-tasking is bad, but it is not something that always needs to be done. As a beloved English teacher repeatedly told the class, "Know when and when not to."

In a work place, it is good to balance multiple projects. I know I could not have survived graduate school if I did not keep multiple research projects and reading assignments going at one time. In fact, I remember being in high school and reading 3 or 4 novels at a time--a few were for class and a few I read simply because I couldn't wait to read them. Lately at home, multi-tasking has started to look like me grabbing the laptop or iPad, sitting on the couch and then wondering where the night has gone and what I have actually accomplished. (Being updated on Facebook gossip does not count as an accomplishment, in this case.)

Whenever I need to relax, I think of this moment, and shirt from Friends.

Tonight, however, I am trying to focus on doing one thing at a time. My husband is gone on a little trip to NYC and I have a few nights to myself. I made myself a list of things that I want to get done and was about to take the laptop to the couch, turn on the TV and start checking the list off. Then I asked myself, why do I need to watch TV while I pay the bills? If I want to blog, why don't I focus on blogging? And really, as much fun as eating in front of the TV is, it is messier. I realized that I might get a lot more out of my relaxation time if I am actually able to do simply that...relax.

 Originally, I was not going to blog about multi-tasking, but I started writing and it felt cathartic. So, I have two posts in the works for all you readers. Stay tuned for:

1. A recipe for a citrus salsa to accompany a salmon entree.
2. Exciting news from my professional/career life

I hope to work hard on balancing many tasks, but also devoting adequate time to each and everyone of them. Call it a Lenten resolution--along with giving up soda...and ironing my clothes.