A New Year & New Goals: Part 1

The new year.  A popular time to reflect on your accomplishments and set new goals for the year.  Bleck!!

Seriously, I’m not normally a New Year’s Resolution type of gal…I prefer spontaneous motivation to spark both my personal and professional goals, not flipping a page on my calendar.  

BUT, this year the stars have aligned and I am motivated right now to light a little fire under my tush and try some new things!  No pressures, deadlines, or consequences in this house!  No siree!  Just fun and healthy activities for some personal growth, as a teacher and a mommy.

My first goal this year is to spend more time in the kitchen!


Yep, you read that correctly.  Mind you, I'm not clamoring to do more dishes or clean out the refrigerator, but I do want to start cooking more meals from scratch with my little girls.  I've perfected a few recipes that I make quite often, but boredom has set in and I can certainly learn new recipes to add to the rotation.

Step 1:  Cooking with my girls – 

My little girls are hard-core fans of cooking shows, especially if children themselves are competing, like in Chopped Junior or Kids Baking Challenge.  At age 5 and 8, they are wanting to help more and more with peeling carrots and mixing the salad dressing…which is a much better than just licking the spoon I used to mix the cake batter.  Getting them in the kitchen more helps me cook more healthy meals from scratch and encourages them to eat a bigger variety of foods.  Win win.

My little chefs are ready to cook up a storm!




Step 2: Prepare one new meal from scratch once per month – 

This obviously ties into getting my girls more involved in the kitchen, but this is more about helping me become a better cook.  After work, I’m SO not motivated to whip up a healthy Martha Stewart meal and have it hot and ready by 6 p.m.  Sadly, I tend to steer towards Papa John’s instead.  But, this year I hope to give that pizzeria less of my hard-earned cash!

Now, goals should actually be achievable, so I’m sure Martha will never make an appearance in my kitchen, but perhaps I could use one Saturday or Sunday per month to plan, prep, and make something new from scratch!

Enter YouTube.  Don’t you just love YouTube?  I think I use YouTube as much as I use Google.  Want to know how to play Jingle Bells on the guitar?  YouTube.  How to do a Dutch braid?  YouTube.  How to make homemade tortillas?  YouTube!  

Here the girls and I bravely accept the challenge of making homemade tortillas!  Did we have the right ingredients?  NO, but that didn't stop us.  We made a few substitutions and although they weren't as fluffy as expected...they were edible.  That's a success in my kitchen!






The links below are to my newly discovered cooking channels with real ladies with real senses of humor.  A MUST for me, as I never take myself too seriously and love a good laugh.  Click the pics below to be taken to Hilah Cooking and Jenny Can Cook on YouTube.

Hilah Cooking:



Jenny Can Cook with Jenny Jones:


Next time, I tell you about my other goal for this year...which has me going WAY out of my comfort zone.  Truly.  It will be painful..and public...    Oh my word!

Are you trying anything new this year?  Being adventurous?  I'd love to hear about it in the comments below!


2 comments:

  1. Love your new goal, way to go! I am not good at making New Years resolutions either. I recently read a blog that talked about the "one little word" idea for the new year. The idea is to focus on one word throughout the year instead of setting a bunch of New Year's Resolutions. So mine word is "Organization" Hoping that doing this will help when things get hectic.

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  2. Wow! Such cool post. You did a good job by teaching your kid home cooking and it looks yummy and delicious. We'll try this at home. Thank you.

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