New Year's Goals

  The year of 2017 was one of the best years of my life, not necessarily because of any one event, but because of the hundreds of small but beautiful moments I got to live through. And now that I do look back I see that I had many adventures, so many in fact that even Bilbo would be satisfied.
  I joined a speech class, which was one of the best and worst ideas I've ever had.  I'm not overly fond of attention and sadly, making a speech catches everyone's attention. I had many awkward, choking, forget what I'm supposed to say moments, and blushed a bunch, but in the end I was able to give a speech without so much as a tremble.
  I joined/started going to Sunday school, it's so much different than just attending the church service and I love it. I met a bunch of wonderful new people and am enjoying the lessons very much, probably because our teacher is so passionate about what she does.
   I sewed a bit, and wrote a bunch, and really fell in-love with junk journaling and keeping a smash book. That's certainly not all that happened this year, I met a ton of interesting and amazing people and stepped out of my comfort zone so many times, with that all in mind I think it's perfectly accurate to say that yes, 2017 has been my best year ever.
   Now let's see how many of my last year's goals and resolutions I completed.

• learn to temper chocolate ... This one was a bunch of trial and error, but I finally learned how!
• have a proper high tea party ... I had a wonderful tea party early in January and now my sister and I want to plan another one.
• complete my crochet afghan ... Sadly I did not get my afghan finished. I did work on it, but so many other hobbies kept me busy.
• start my own kitchen notebook (like Rachel Khoo) ... I did start my own kitchen notebook and I love it. I document all of my own recipes, the fails and the successes, I feel like the best part of the notebook is the fact that I can sketch a bunch into it.
• blog much more frequently ... I think that we all know I failed this one.
• have excessive berry-ings ... As soon as Summer rolled around Diane and I attacked the berry bushes. I think we got more scratches than berries, but this goal is complete.
• read 52 books ... This was by far the easiest goal I had made, on December the 31st I had well over 70 books read. (I think it was eighty some.)
• finish writing my book ... Sighs, this didn't happen, I now wish that I had spent more time writing, but at least my book is about half way done.
• make a proper pâte à choux ... I love French foods and pastries and making pâte à choux was a must for me. I made several things with it actually, including Gougere and the classic éclairs.
• make a proper pastry cream ... I think that considering what I had just said, this one is obvious.
• broaden my french baking knowledge in general ... Well, my knowledge is broadened, not vastly, but a bit.
• break my bad habits (wouldn't you just love to know what they are) ... Hmm, I do wish I had written down what my bad habits were because I have no idea now if I accomplished this or not.
• have a real picnic ... A real picnic had been planned for Diane's birthday, but due to the frigid temperatures we had it inside.
• become fluent in French ... Groans, not quite there yet, I think I'm like 62% fluent now. (Don't you love how precise that is?)

  And now onto this year's goals.

• Blog at least twice a week
• Finish a diary every two months
• Make macarons
• Make churros
• Finish sewing my 50 states lap quilt
• Do NaNoWriMo
• Finish writing my book
• Get my driver's license
• Write a letter every week
• Take a picture every day
• Do a daily Bible study that isn't just reading my Bible

   It seems that I have much less on my goals list this year than I did last year, but at least I am being more specific this time around. And now I shall wish all of you a very wonderful year filled with many adventures (the good kind.)

N ~ New Year's Goals

    A while back (as in way back in January) I had posted a list of all the things I wanted to  accomplish this year, and I am so happy I composed that list because it has served to be such a source of motivation for me. I have tried my very best so far and hope to complete them all yet before the end of the year.

   I am making this post because I want to show you all an update on all of my goals. And just in case you haven't seen my list before, fret not, for I am sharing it below.

          New Year's Goals

• learn to temper chocolate  ~ I still have not attempted this, I have read up a lot on it recently, but the thought of actually trying it scares me. Honestly I don't know why, no matter how it turns out, I'll end up with chocolate to eat!

• have a proper high tea party ~ My sister Diane and I actually did this a while back and it was such fun, in fact just looking back on it makes me want to have another one quite soon.

• complete my crochet afghan ~ I had been working on my afghan during scary movies, because obviously I'm genius when it comes to finding excuses for being too busy to watch a scary part. I had to stop crocheting though because I ended up running out of yarn, perhaps this week we have to pick up some more on our shopping trip.

• start my own kitchen notebook (like Rachel Khoo) ~ Yay! I actually did start my own kitchen notebook and I love it. Now if I could only sketch and paint as well as she can....

• blog much more frequently ~ If the A-Z challenge counts as it all, then I'd say I can check this off my list, if not, then I shall simply have to post a lot more frequently.

• have excessive berry-ings ~ Our berry bushes are obviously not anywhere near ready for the picking so to speak, so I can't really let you know how it all went till I'm actually in berry season.

• read 52 books ~ This is probably my favorite goal, so far I have only read fourteen books, I know I have a lot of reading to do, so I shall simply just have to hold my head high and charge into our book cupboards. Not literally though, that would be quite painful.

• finish writing my book ~ One word, Oy! My book is not going so well, my villain is terribly charming, and the good guy is terribly horrid, whatever shall I do?! I'm starting to understand why so many authors just kill off all their characters.

• make a proper pâte à choux ~ I have already accomplished this, I had so much fun with it too. I wanted to make it truly proper, so I beat at the dough with a wooden spoon till it was thick and glossy. I honestly have no idea why pastry chefs don't have huge biceps, my arms felt like they could fall off by the time I was done.

• make a proper pastry cream  ~ This was also accomplished, I had made the pâte à choux into eclairs and filled them with pastry cream, and it was delicious.

• broaden my french baking knowledge in general ~ Cough. I'm not doing so well in this area, but if reading a baking blog that's written strictly in all French counts, then by all means I'll take it. (Let's just ignore the fact I couldn't understand half of what was actually being said.)

• break my bad habits (wouldn't you just love to know what they are) ~ This is actually hilarious now that I look at it, because I have absolutely no idea what the bad habits were that I had wanted to break.  

• have a real picnic ~ I have not had a real picnic yet, but this upcoming week Diane and I are going to have a picnic romp on the cliff beside our waterfall to celebrate her Birthday.

• become fluent in French ~ If any word could accurately describe all the torture I have gone through in studying French, then no one would even need to ask how my studies are going. But since I have no such word you shall just have to understand that right now I'm listening to a French song and if I was asked to interpret it I would tell you these are the lyrics " You left me yesterday, the end of the season, blah blah blah blah, and now all is finished." I'm sure you get the picture.