1.01.2006

Happy New Year!

As I trade in the Shag tiki calendar for a Hula Honeys calendar, thus begins a new year. I hope that 2006 will be a very big year for me full of life changing events. This is the year that I am going to try to open my own business (actually, there will be two of us opening a store.) I am taking this week off work to try and get an online Etsy store running, visit the local Small Business Association, design a logo, and buy the url for our future site. I am also going to be working on several projects around the apartment so I will be very busy this week and I will chart my progress as the week goes by.


Resolutions for 2006

1. Consume less- I make this resolution almost every year and I always get a strong start, but as the year goes by I get lazy. This year I specifically want to work on my consumption of packing materials. I started thinking about this at Christmas when Philip and I had to go out and buy wrapping paper to wrap the gifts we made and bought. The paper made me a little sad since it was so beautiful and it was just going to be ripped to shreds. Since I no longer get a newspaper delivered to my house (I now have a digital subscription which saves a ton of paper) I don't have regular access to wrapping material. My solution is to designate a bag to store all of the good wrapping materials I come across so that next year I will have all kinds of unique materials to wrap presents with. So far the bag contains plastic packing materials from some of this year's presents, some small boxes, and some yarn scraps for making pom poms and bows.

2. Buy locally- The farmer's market is less than a 5 minute bike ride from my apartment and the produce is cheaper than the grocery store so there is no reason I can't buy most of my produce locally. I am also walking distance from several small businesses and I want to give them more support with my everyday purchases. Cheaper isn't better. When you factor in the impact of big box stores and dollar stores on the health and well being of our society the cost is much greater than the small savings. I will also be buying a share in my local co-op since they finally ordered some Follow Your Heart cheese.

3. Fix my bike- My bike isn't broken, but it will need new tires before the spring and I want to install them myself as well as learn to do a tune up on it so that it will be in great shape for a summer of riding.

4. Learn to bake- Philip and I cook all of the time, but neither of us can really bake. Our reasoning is that a curry dinner is a lot more satisfying than a tin of muffins so why bother. Of course, there are still those times when we want muffins and neither of us is willing to make them. This is going to change, I am going to figure out the secrets of baking and I will bake us biscuits, muffins, bread, cookies, and cakes- not all at once.

5. Start my own business- This will be a lot of hard work (goodbye nights and weekends), but in the end it will be worth it, even if it doesn't work out. This is something I have wanted to do since I was 16 and the only real dream I've ever had so it will be great to try.

3 comments:

Unknown said...

My only baking 'secret' is to follow the recipe exactly! As La Dolce Vegan says, it's chemistry so you can't mess with it too much (unless you're into writing your own recipes that is!). I love to bake, it's cooking where you can just zone out and do as you're told and you get something lovely to eat at the end! Have a great 2006!

Robyn Wade said...

That's my problem, I hate following recipes exactly. I need to learn about the chemistry part and which ingredients do what so I can master it.

Michelle said...

Yeah, I agree. My baking only works out if I follow the recipe, and I'm the type of cook that just likes to do what I want. So in baking, I follow, though not with most other cooking. If you learn about the chemistry of baking, let me know, cause I always wonder why b. powder vs. b. soda, etc.