New Year, New Blog, Yadda Yadda Yadda

I should definitely start adding more Yiddish to my blog posts...resolution #1.

But seriously, welcome to the new blog.  The LJ blog was getting a little tiresome, and I was getting a little sick of having the urge to skim through all the old posts on a fairly regular basis, rehashing the past.  Unnecessary.

Some new things people may/may not know from 2010:

• Chris and I moved to Minneapolis.  We live right downtown, about a 7 minute walk to my work, which is right on Nicollet.
• We got two new additions to our family: two cats, both adopted from the one of the humane societies in the Cities.  Mishkin is a (fairly large, heavy) tortoiseshell, and has absolutely gorgeous markings.  He's also not very graceful.

•  Mao (named after the Chinese word for "cat") is extremely lithe, graceful, and ebony.  She is, however, a pig, and makes the most ridiculous noises when jumping on/off/around things.

Both cats are wonderful, and providing great fun for us.  They received more presents for Christmas than I think we received as a couple, and have been thoroughly enjoying their new cat condo (complete with downtown views and ample street noise to watch all day).

• I began crafting!  I started simple, picking up supplies for making homemade Christmas cards and gifts while on a trip to Michigan with my mom (who was a huge help picking out the right supplies).  I only ended up making the Christmas cards, but I'm considering that a huge accomplishment for 2010.
• We began cooking!  Not nearly regularly enough, but it's happened nonetheless.  Some of our favorite dishes include: eggs baked in tomatoes, potato gnocchi, bacon tortellini bake, Asian-style pork and turkey meatballs (a huge hit at Friendsgiving), whole wheat cranberry scones, and sausage chowder.  We've been acquiring many free magazine subscriptions due to my never-ending Coke points, and one of the mags we've been using regularly is Everyday Food, which, while being a Martha Stewart publication, has a surprising number of easy-to-make, easy-to-obtain ingredient-ridden recipes.  Definitely worth looking into.

And honestly, those are the biggies.  Looking forward, there's a bunch of things I'd like to accomplish, work on, change and master in the coming year.  The short list:

• Truly begin exercising.  Not all the time, and not totally hardcore (at least not in the beginning).  I don't want to burn out.  I'd like to focus on the simple goal of ensuring I do one heart-healthy activity every day, whether it be for 5 minutes or 3 hours.

• Cook a homemade meal every week.  We've been pretty good on this one so far, but I'd like to start trying more of the new recipes we've been coming across, and definitely on a more regular basis.  Also, I'd like to have the leftovers to eat during the week for lunch!

• Really learn to craft.  Not only would I like to begin making personal Christmas gifts for people, but I'd specifically like to work on cross-stitch, papercrafts, and amigurumi!  I've already purchased lots of how-to materials and am excited to learn/share more!

• Continue to find/indulge in new music.  I've been finding extremely creative ways to find new music that have been pretty useful, so I'll continue to do this into 2011.

• Start completing some video games!  I haven't exactly worked this one out yet (did you know if you were trying to complete an 80-hour video game (of which I have many), it would take you 20 hours a week per month to complete?  That's a part-time job!), but it will get done, rest assured.  I've got a short list of games I'm currently working on that I think I can get done in the coming months: Donkey Kong Country Returns, Kirby's Epic Yarn, Super Mario Galaxy, Lego Harry Potter.  Also, this doesn't take into account my regular time spent gaming, which is primarily spent on World of Warcraft and The Sims 3.

• Read more!  This is an easy one, and something I've been working on especially the last few weeks.  I finished my first book today, and have started reading my next already.  I'd like to begin poring through our library at full force!

• Share with the world my findings!  (This is where you come in...)  I'd like to post a fun/creative link on Facebook most days (humorous, music, etc.) and note book and movie recommendations in this blog.  Hopefully it should provoke some interesting conversations, eh?

• Finally (and this is a big one), find a good job for Chris.  This really does fall on him, but I do feel responsible as I'm the sole reason we moved to Minneapolis in the first place.  Part of this has been exploring new opportunities and possibilities for ourselves based on our interests, which lately has led to tons of research into major metro areas that would be good for publishing/editing.  Where has that led us to look into?  Take a look into the book I'm currently reading and you might begin to have a clue.  :)  Either way, it's in the early stages and we're just doing research, nothing else.  I'll keep everyone posted, so don't worry!

So, yes.  Exhaustive enough, I feel.  I want to try and write in this blog most days, if possible, and have it be interesting, thought-provoking and humorous prose.  I think I can pull this off, but I would appreciate comments and other notes from the outside world!  Hopefully this year will bring many changes (for good!) and I'll have plenty to write about.

Cheers to that.  Happy new year everyone!  Hope it was as grand as mine!