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.)