Looking Back

Coming up on the end of the year, and I thought this would be a good time to go back and see how I did with my resolutions. Without further ado:

• Plant some herbs. I'd love to have fresh basil and mint and maybe thyme available in my kitchen. And I think I can handle a small, indoor herb garden.
• I tried this! I had an herb garden for several weeks. Then the cat got mad and ate the entire thing and threw up all over the bathroom. At least he did it in the bathroom. No more herbs for me.
• Plant some tomatoes. Tomatoes are supposed to be easy, and it'd be great to have some nice, fresh ones available to eat. Especially since I just found an easy marinara sauce recipe.
• Man, I didn't even attempt this one after the disaster of the herb garden
• Learn to make jambalaya. Last year I conquered risotto and the year before that it was soup. This year: jambalaya. (My first attempt was a little too soupy. Next time will be better.)
• I did this! I made jambalaya several times. Each was better than the last, and I now have go-to recipes for a quick jambalaya-tasting dish (~25 minutes) and a more involved version. Yay!
• Bake some bread. We've got this lovely stand mixer that I never, ever use. I want to use it more. Bread could be fun, right?
• Nope, this didn't happen at all. Maybe next year? But it's so much easier to buy.
• Make pasta from scratch. See above, re: stand mixer. With pasta making attachment
• We did do this! Several times. We even did ravioli once. It was fun and delicious but also lots of work considering pasta is usually around $1/lb
• Cook more new things in general. I already moved the cookbooks out of the cupboard to help with this. If I see them everyday, I'll be more likely to actually use them.
• I think I did this? It's hard to quantify. I cooked some stuff, though
• Learn to knit? I mean, probably not. But also it could be fun. And something to do while I'm watching TV
• Definitely did not do this.
• Start building up a home gym. I want to start small: a foam roller, a mat, a set of dumbbells. Eventually I'd like to be able to cancel my gym subscription. I just need to get in the habit of working out at home first.
• I have a home gym! Mostly I use it for yoga, but those dumbbells still sit there and mock me.
• Lose some weight. It's such a cliche. For real this year, though 
• Actually I think I gained 5 pounds? Whatever
• Bike to work at least once. I'm doing decently on the exercise bike, and my office really isn't too far away. I'm planning to buy a bike in March or April and get out more. Especially if this summer is as gorgeous as last summer was. (I hope I didn't just jinx it.)
• I rode my bike to work a ton last Spring. For three months I was biking to work at least twice a week. Then it got hot. Then it got dark. But come April I should pick this up again.
• Reorganize the library/living room. I want to get a couple more bookcases for the living room and start moving some books down there. Because my library is actually overflowing.
• I did this, and I love it. But now it's time to reorganize yet again Or maybe get rid of some books?
• Pay off my student loans. This is definitely happening this year. It's barely even a goal. Still you have to put down something that's guaranteed. It makes the rest of the list easier.
• I did this, too! Goodbye student loans. Now we just need to pay off the car. And the house. 

 As for my reading goals, well I think that was an utter failure. I did complete Wheel of Time, which was well worth my time. I'm really glad that I read that series, and also that I waited until it was finished to read it. And while I did inject some diversity into my reading habits, I still mostly read books by white men. I guess that all I can do is keep trying.

I also failed to read less. As of this writing, I've read 110 books so far this year and will likely complete two more by Thursday (yeah, I know). Four of those 110 books were the Vorkosigan omnibuses, each of which contains 2 novels and 1 novella. Though that's probably balanced out by the graphic novels I included in my count. The point is that I read an absurd number of books this past year, and it did occasionally cut in to other things I could have been doing. As proud as I am of reading 100 books in a single year - it is a pretty great accomplishment - I'm once again hoping to read less next year. If only there weren't so many books that I want to read.

Then there's the writing goal. I didn't even try that hard. I half considered a few ideas, and I even came across a request for posts from a blog I frequent that I could have written something interesting for. But ultimately I didn't write anything with the intent of getting it published somewhere other than my blog. On the other hand, I now have three blogs. Maybe that counts?

Even though I didn't do everything I said I wanted to, 2015 was pretty successful. I did some cool things, read a ton of books, and generally had a pretty awesome year.