Life. Or, that silly little thing that gets in the way of all your plans: A lookback on 2011.

me at the beginning of 2011. i was in mexico when i made my new years reolutions. lookin' fresh and ready for the roller coaster ride of a year ahead of me.

 I have a habit of setting goals for myself. I think it's because I love to make lists, and I love the idea of bettering myself in all sorts of ways. Sometimes they are healthy, attainable goals- like getting rid of products and using cheap homemade alternatives, like I talked about in my post yesterday. But lots of times I just bite off way more than I can chew, assuming that everything is going to go according to plan and nothing tricky or difficult is going to get in the way.

The good thing is, I don't feel too bad about myself when I don't achieve all the goals I set for myself, because I know that I did my best under the circumstances.

So, I want to look back at some of the goals I set for myself at the beginning of 2011. I accomplished some of them, and a lot of them I never really got around to completing. But you know what? That's life. If I've ever had a year where life got in the way of all my plans and good intentions, 2011 was that year. Life totally kicked my ass, actually. It didn't just send me down a road I wasn't planning on going down, it sent me to an entire different dimension.

Anyways, here were my new years resolutions of 2011:
1. Continue to strive for happiness (above all other things). I think I did this pretty well. There were a lot of times throughout 2011 that I threw caution to the wind and did something that was going to make me happy despite how unconventional it might have been. I took a lot of risks and had a great time. After Linn died I found it difficult to know or remember what made me happy, but I think I did the right thing in taking the last 2 months of the year to just be with myself and remember.
2. Maintain a weight of 120 pounds. I did this all year, until Linn died. then I blew up a bit. Now I'm working on getting back down. No more alcohol and eddas cheesy bread for me!
3. Be more outgoing and make several new friends. I think I pulled this off pretty well. I got really close with everyone I went on the Greece trip with, and now I'm good friends with all my coworkers at Brooklyn. In 2011 I also got much closer to my friends from Eddas.
4. Spend more carefully and save more money. I accomplished this in that I got a job and took a personal finance class, but I didn't actually save much.
5. Continue going on dates, playing games, laughing, joking, and loving with Stewart. Hmm. Well, Stewart and I had a great spring semester together, although shortly after I returned from Greece we broke up. Luckily, we stayed very close friends and lived together for the rest of 2011. So I guess I accomplished this.
6. Find more things to be passionate about. I love a lot of things, but I don't know that I found anything new to be passionate about this year. Unless Pinterest counts.
7. Always be reading a book. I'm in the middle of several books right now, but unfortunately I haven't read much since I got back from Greece. I'd like to start again. I feel like before shit went crazy last year I had so much time and I was doing so many things at once. School, working out, blogging, reading, socializing, traveling... I hope I remember how to do that again.
8. Worry less. Hm. I think I definitely became more apt to try risks, but new fears were also introduced into my life. But that's the way it goes, right? I think a small dose of fear is healthy. It keeps us from doing stupid things.
9. Do more creative things. I think I accomplished this. I learned to play some new songs on the piano, and spent a lot of time singing. I also wrote a few poems and started a couple stories. My film production class last semester also provided a great creative outlet. When linn died, I wrote a lot and also constructed a lovely 20 page scrapbook that helped me to take my crazed, grieving energy and focus it into something that turned out to be beautiful and healing.
10. Write 300 blog posts. Obviously I failed at this, but I don't really care. One of those things where life got in the way :)
11. Start compiling recipes and cooking new ones from online, cookbooks, magazines, etc. I think I accomplished this. With the help of foodgawker and pinterest, I was very cuisine-inspired last year. My favorite dishes included alton brown's chicken pot pie, that absolutely divine crazy feta recipe I posted, the pioneer woman's burgundy mushrooms, some feta saganaki I made when I returned from Greece, and pdubs brined turkey. A church down the street gave me a turkey for thanksgiving, and I was really excited to cook it because I had never tried before. Totally easier than the movies make it out to be.

Here are things I accomplished in 2011 that I didn't even fathom would happen:

1. Date Linn, who I secretly had a crush on since I met him in May of 2010.
2. Get a tattoo. In a very visible place, no less.
3. Be the guest of honor at a surprise party
4. Get roofied in Greece. Not exactly something I wanted to happen, but a crazy story and life experience, none the less.
5. Hike the Samarian Gorge. Something much better that happened in Greece.
6. Learn to cope with immeasurable loss.
7. Record a song
8. Work on foley for an independent film
9. Successfully live with my ex-boyfriend
10. Love something unconditionally, no matter how early it wakes me up with barking and gnawing on my fingers or how many times it pees on the carpet.
11.  Pull off catering for a camp after a sleep-deprived month in a different time zone.
12. Pull myself together and push through it all, coming out on the other side (mostly) unscathed.

Obviously this is a little late, but I wanted to talk about it anyways. New Years resolutions are funny. We can try and attain all these goals we set for ourselves, but I've found that most of the time life seems to get in the way. Hopefully its for the better.

I hope your new years resolutions are already working out :) I'm not sure if I'll make a list for this year (now that we're one sixth of the way through) but we'll see. Have a lovely weekend!

Love,
Em

Summer 2011

It's October, which means several things. 1, it's my favorite month! 2, I'm going to spend the whole month cursing the tucson heat and wishing I was having awesome Fall-filled October like the rest of the world, 3, it's definitely the end of summer and a summer post is way overdue.

Summer 2011 was insane. It was filled with so many amazing once-in-a-lifetime experiences, lots of changes, lots of really difficult times, and lots of really wonderful happiness and love filled times. I swear, every year my summers just get better and better. Now let me rummage through my photos file and facebook to find evidence of all this awesomeness :)

This is how I spent the beginnind of my summer. And a large of my time at home in general, at least before I got my new puppy that makes my older, sweet, perfect puppy feel like she shouldn't spend as much time with me. Internet, puppy cuddles, comfy bed in my nice familiar bedroom :)

My best friends in Prescott are the people I worked with last summer at Mama Edda's. And now 3 or them all live together, so I get to hang out with them all in one spot all the time :) every time i'm in prescott at least. This is from one of the first times this summer I went over to their place. I wasn't planning on staying the night, but then I did. It's kind of a long story with the blanket but basically while I was in Tucson all my prescott friends had a Lord of the Rings night where they all dressed up like LOTR characters. This blanket (and by blanket i mean awesome cape) was a part of one of the costumes. I was cold/jealous/probably a little bit tipsy so we decided I should get to wear it and take pictures and be part of the LOTR group. It was a fun night.

On that same night we played with this plastic dinosaur, sticking it ambiguously into as many pictures as possible. There are probably at least 20 pictures, but I chose this one cause it shows me and one of my besties Natalie :)

 On this day, I woke up at like 11, and decided I was going to work hard all day on getting the youth retreat catering stuff done. at 11:15 I got a call from linn, the boy on the far right, asking me what I was doing. Still in my pjs and having just brushed my teeth, I lied and said I was working on my catering job. He asked if I could get away from that for a few hours and come to frog falls (a swimming hole about 20 minutes away from downtown prescott) I thought about it for a few seconds and ultimately decided that having fun and making memorable experiences would be more important in the long run than spending the whole day working. 2 hours later here I was, drinking blue moon and hanging out with lovely, wonderful friends at a super awesome swimming hole.

 And then there was greece. These are not in order, and they are not my photos. This is at Mystras, an old monastery near Sparta.

I think this is at Pleuron, Greece. With my closest girlfriends of the trip (from the left) Laurent, Jessica, and Jill.

 Jessica and I thought it would be such a fun idea to pick up the ridiculously copious amount of flower petals on the ground outside of the Benaki museum in Athens and throw them in the air. It's pretty obvious in this picture that the girls totally know what's going on and the guys are lost as to what the point of all this is.

 We had to do both a site report and a reading as assignments on our trip. This is me giving my site report on the Charioteer at Delphi, Greece. I am so knowledgeable on this statue it's not even funny.

 One day in Santorini, we climbed down the 587 steps to the dock (i also climbed up them because I was too broke to pay for a donkey or the airlift, but theres no reason you should see a photo of that. 587 steps in 100 degree heat? you try that shit.), loaded up on a boat, and went to the volcano island santorini is next to, and the to the hot springs that are heated by the warmth of the volcano. While treading water furiously and waiting to climb up the single ladder to get back on the boat, we decided to get a picture. the group of people in the back is us, and I'm the sixth from the right.

 One of the most awesome things we did on my greece trip was perform a live reading of The Bacchae at a winery in Santorini. If you haven't read The Bacchae, well you should. Read all the greek plays that remain, in fact. They are all awesome. This is a picture of me reading one of my lines.

 Going back in time. This is at Olympia, in front of one of the many olympic temples. Olympia is small, by the way. just a couple blocks and some ancient ruins. Isn't that weird?

 Santorini again, right after having lunch at a super duper fancy restaurant with an awesome view.

 Back in time even more. Right after arriving in Santorini. We rode a very rocky ferry which made many of the people immediately next to us vomit. It was, um, not incredibly enjoyable. I mostly spent the time with my eyes closed and my ipod on, trying to pretend the rest of the cabin wasn't seasick and disgusting.

 Further back in time. This is in athens, in front of the legendary olive tree that Athena gave to the city of athens in the competition for who the city would be named after.

 Back on the boat in santorini, immediately before jumping into the hot springs water.

 on the almost last day of the trip, feeling very pensive and sad while waiting for the National Museum to open.

 Just a few minutes before I got in the taxi to take me back to the athens airport. So many wonderful friends made, so many wonderful experiences had, so much deep sadness and flittering excitement at this moment.

I flew from Athens, Greece straight to San Francisco California, and then drove to Mendocino, California. The next day, I started work as the head chef for the Mendocino youth retreat which was so much fun, so much work, so exhausting, and one of the best experiences I've ever had. I loved cooking for 30 wonderful individuals and I loved letting my recipes become worthwhile and enjoyed by so many people.

 Roadtrip back to Prescott with Stewie :)

 I got my perfect, wonderful, adorable pup this summer! Clementine has started to show so much personality and spunk, especially with her wiley age of 7 months. Right now she LOVES chewing on anything she can (she's teething), goes nuts when stewie or i come home, and has gained so much confidence from her socialization- she will approach people, lick people's hands, and explore when i let her off her leash. I have to chase after her to get her to come back sometimes :) when I first got her she would only stay by my heels and hide behind my legs :)

 So, I haven't fully disclosed this on this blog. But stewart and I broke up. No worries though! We are still the very best and closest of friends, we are still roommates, and we still have so, so much fun with each other. Not too long after we broke up though I started dating this boy, Linn. He's very sweet and fun and I met him when I started working at mama edda's last summer :)

 One of the parties we had in the second half of summer was a fancy schmancy party for our friend amanda's birthday!

 Then we had another formal wear party after my friend Natalie got back from Italy. I got there at 8pm and everyone was already wasted and passed out... so me and the 3 people that weren't done for already spent the rest of the night hanging out and taking pictures :) see below.

 above two: me and my girly lauren at said party :)

 We went on a picnic at goldwater lake! I made everyone sandwiches and I even wrote their names on all the bags. Cause yeah, i'm adorable. it was so much fun. We drank a few beers, played with puppy, and had fun on the playground :)

 More picnic :)

 This summer ended, as last year's did, with the VW festival. Stewie couldn't go this year due to his cousin's wedding, but I went with linn and there were lots of other people there that we knew. It was a really great time, and I'm already counting down the days 'til next year :)

It was a great summer, 2011. Thanks for all the craziness, all the good times, all the fun, all the sadness and hurt that let me learn so many lessons. I can only hope that the rest of the year will be as awesome as this summer was :)

hope your summer was just as awesome, and hope this coming fall is even better!

Love,
Em

New Years Resolutions

Hola!
So, as you may have noticed I have not been doing my movie mondays for the past 1-2 weeks- I'm taking a brief break from them since I'm in Mexico and don't feel like I have the mental capacity or drive to accomplish good movie posts. Did you know you can't watch Netflix in mexico? If I could I might have posted a couple movies. I do have a good one in mind for the next one though.

I have some time right now because I don't feel like going to class and there's an hour and a half until lunch and I'm hoping stewie will get online sometime very soon. So, I've decided to do my New Years Resolutions Post. I have a coupe in my mind that I have already thought about but I didn't really think much about it before the new year, so I'll probably make some of them up as I go.

1. Continue to strive for happiness- not success, not money, not numerous invitations to social functions, unless any of those things lead to pure happiness. Furthermore, I will not do anything I do not want to do, unless it will ultimately lead me to happiness. i.e., I will go to class even if I don't want to (because getting an education and a degree will make me VERY happy), but I will not drink at a party just because everyone else is and it's there. Unless I want to, and it will make me happy.

2. Maintain a weight of 120 pounds. I'm pretty sure this is my most healthy and normal weight. In highschool I really wanted to get down to 110 but now I'm pretty sure that wouldn't be healthy. I don't want to just weigh 120 pounds though, I want to be healthy- meaning I'm going to continue my workout regime and hopefully work our 6 days a week. I've been slacking with it because of all the traveling I've been doing, but I took a hike (in the humid mexican weather) this morning, and it felt soooo good that I can't wait to get back to the gym.

3. Be more outgoing and make several new friends. I've never been the most talkative person, and through most of my life I've been fairly shy. In high school I had plenty of wonderful friends, but when I went to college I was unable to find anyone I could really connect with. I still had quite a few friends and had some really fun times, but it wasn't quite the same... I'm happy to be back in arizona where all my old friends live, but we are all slowly drifting apart. This year I would really like to learn to be more personable and extroverted. I'd like to not think so much about what everyone else is doing and thinking and concentrate more on just having fun and meeting people. I am joining choir this semester and going to greece over summer so hopefully that will give me plenty of opportunities to meet some new, interesting people.

4. Spend more carefully and save more money. I have been saving 20 dollars a week for about 3 months now, and I wonder why I haven't been doing it all my life. I'd like to continue saving and continue using a budget to plan how much I want to spend each month and how much I hope to save. If timing works out I'd also like to find a job, but with the timing for my major classes and the fact that I will be abroad for most of summer I probably won't be able to work until september.

5. Continue going on dates, playing games, laughing, joking, and loving with stewart. He has been such a special part of my life for two and a half years now and hopefully we can continue having enough fun with each other to last another year. We always have so much fun together and I can't wait to get back to tucson!

6. Find more things to be passionate about. Lately I feel like a lot of the passion has gone from my life. I used to eat, sleep, and breathe musical theatre, but that pretty much ended halfway through my senior year of high school. I would really like to find something new that makes me excited and interested and happy. I've started writing/brainstorming ideas for a novel, so maybe that can be my new passion... or maybe it will be something else. I don't know. I just think its important to have things in life that you truly and deeply enjoy.

7. Always be reading a book. I just finished the time traveller's wife (oh my goodness, wow. I cried on a bus with 40 other people on it.), and I'm about to start eat, pray, love. I have a list of books that I want to read, and my hope is that there is no chunk of time this year during which I am not reading any books. The trick will be finding a library with a good selection, or doing some thrifty spending on amazon.  Or finding well-read friends to borrow from.

8. Worry less. I don't know what it is but in the past couple years my fears and worries have intensified. Like, I've found a newfound fear of heights that I never used to have. When I was a kid taking off in an airplane was my favorite part, and now (although it's still somewhat fun) my belly drops and I clutch the hand rest nervously and think "please, please let us get off the ground safely". And this morning my family went whale watching in a small motor boat, and as soon as we got going I started thinking "wow, I really hope this boat doesn't stop working or flip over... that would be terrible". I don't know what that's about... I just think about the consequences or risks associated with things way more now than I used to. I'd like to try to put those worries aside again and feel a little more confident in the world... while still being safe.

9. Do more creative things. I've always considered myself to be highly creative, but sometimes I get caught up in life and I forget to get back to writing or drawing or singing. I would definitely like to find more time for doing those kinds of things, because I love the feeling they give me. I'm joining choir so that's good, and trying to write a novel, so that's also good. I took a ceramics class last year so maybe I can try to find another artistic class that will make me feel like I'm using all sides of my brain to maximum capacity :)

10. Write 300 blog posts. This allows for 56 days when I don't write a blog, if I write one per day, which I don't always do. Sometimes I write multiple blogs a day. I'd really like to continue increasing the traffic to GO1000F and getting more readers, so hopefully writing often will help to do this. Even if the posts are just a quote or a small update on my life, I'd like to keep posting- not just for readers, but as a way of documenting my life so that years down the road I can read back on these posts and remember all the stuff I did in 2010 and on.

11. Start compiling recipes and trying new ones from online, magazines, cookbooks, etc. I know how to cook quite well but I hardly ever cook any of the amazing things I see online. Mostly because a. I don't have much money to buy ingredients or specialty items and b. I'm too lazy to go to the grocery store to get ingredients when I have all the ingredients for something else in my kitchen. I'd like to expand my cooking repertoire though, and also get back to vegetarian and mostly vegan living. I've been pretty lax on the vegan thing lately. Although I'm still going to eat whatever I want if I want to eat it. I just want to eat mostly vegan. But that's a whole different issue. I want to do more cooking :)

That's all I can really come up with for now- 11 resolutions for 2011. Hopefully I will be able to maintain them :) What are you resolutions for this year?

See you later lovelies.
<3