the menu: 2015
Happy New Year! I’ve been thinking about this blog quite a bit over the holiday “break”, and it turns out that I am still quite bored with menu planning. Yep. Total shocker.
I’ll continue to post our weekly menu plan on Pinterest if you are needing a little planning fix but I’ve decided not to continue to post the recipe links here on the blog. To the extent that we make something from a recipe that is not already online (which we will), I’ll try to post a review that includes where the recipe came from. Does that work for you? Excellent. It works a heck of a lot better for me.
Now, what am I going to write about? If you’ve met me, or read me, or been anywhere in a room near me, you’ll know that my energy and focus and attention span are all over the map. There are so many things that I want to do and to learn and to experience. I want to be all the places and see all the things. I want to paint all the colors. I want to cook all the foods. I want to bake bread. I want to make crafts. I want to speak another language. I want to open a beignet bus at the base of Bald Mountain. I want to get my kids to stop whining.
I’ve struggled tremendously in the past few years with the fact that I don’t have time to do all the things because there is so much that needs to be done. I’m not trying to take a trip down martyr lane here. Any mom knows that it is hard to make time for things that are only of interest to you (or frankly, to make time for anything that isn’t a fire drill) when there are lots of people running around needing things. And let’s be honest. I totally struggle with the fact that I can’t be all things to all people. You can say it. I need to be needed. It’s a problem. I’ll take your therapist recommendations in the comment section below.
Can we call it like it is one more time? I am 41. I’m pretty sure that’s middle age. And for real? Jennifer Aniston and Cameron Diaz and Gwyneth Paltrow make it look like all that and a bag of chips to be in your forties, fifty being the new thirty and all that, but at this very moment, I am not feeling the love. I feel like there are so many things that I haven’t done that I really want to do. Things I haven’t learned, shit I haven’t gotten together, examples that I am setting for my kids that are exactly the opposite of the examples that I want to set. I see all these amazing and creative bloggers and chefs and crafty people doing crazy, cool things in their 20s and 30s, really going after their dreams and goals, making things happen and you know what? As often as it inspires me to make or try something new, it also makes me feel just plain old. I know, I know. Comparison is the thief of joy. But I’m human, ok? And boy do I sound like a TOTAL whiner. Sorry about that.
I’ve admired Ali Edwards’ style for a long time. She made me think that scrapbooking could be cool way back when I opened the doors of Susie Paperie a lifetime ago. Wait, what? Weren’t we just having a middle age pity party and now you’ve just up and moved on to scrapbooking? This relates. Stay with me. Ali Edwards has a project that she does every year called One Little Word. The idea is that she picks one word for the year that can help focus her energies, drive her bus, however you want to phrase it. For years, I’ve thought this was the coolest concept. I mean, I’m all for New Year’s resolutions*, but I tend to forget them by the second week of January unless they are taped to my forehead.
The thing is, I’ve never done the one little word thing because I’ve never had a word. This year, I have picked a word. My word for 2015 is explore.
Exploration, my friends, is what I will be writing about for the next 12 months. I am going to explore bread making and peg dolls and sharing a small space with lots of people and improving myself and improving my parenting skills and maybe even improving my cooking skills. I am going to explore waffles. Lots and lots of waffles. And tagines. And hopefully taking better photos. It is going to be a lagniappe kind of year. I promise that I will still be cooking and reviewing, and I promise that I will most certainly highlight successes as well as failures like these cookies that we attempted last week.
Total fail. This was supposed to be dough that rolled together and could be cut into cookies. That’s cool though. It’s tough to like someone who is perfect all the time.
To go with my refocus, I am going to be revamping how this site looks a bit, where things are posted, and when things are posted. I wanted to have this all done and complete before I came back to writing but who am I kidding? It’s going to take me a bit to get organized. I hope you will stay with me during this next phase of Susie. Make suggestions. Send ideas. It’s all good. And it isn’t too late for you to pick your own word. I’d love to hear what it is.
P.S. I already mentioned that I’ve had some requests for review on the gingerbread house making. I haven’t forgotten. I am still planning to get a review up hopefully in time for next year’s party.
* I think resolutions may be a bit overplayed on this here old internet (although I really enjoyed this post, loved beyond words this post, and we will be coming back to revisit this post, which isn't really about resolutions but is still relevant), so I hesitate to even add to the noise. But I think, for once, that this year's writing, this year's exploring, will be primarily for me. And while I absolutely hope that you get something out of it too, I feel pretty good about not defining my self-worth in this process by the numbers of people who read about my experience. There. I’ve said it. I am going to try to take control of my own feeling of self-worth. Will you remind me of that if you are still here in June? Excellent. Thanks.