I hope everyone had a great holiday season and you’re all ready to tackle the new year!  I have been thinking for days about this upcoming year and what choices I want to make and what resolutions I feel are best for me and where I want to go in life.

Most people shy away from resolutions.  They say it’s dumb, they say it’s a recipe for failure and all that.  I say, resolutions keep me on track.  They remind me of what it is I’m striving for and what it is I’m working towards.  My resolutions aren’t necessarily concrete goals, they’re more like promises to myself to do the best I can in each of these areas.  So with that in mind, here are my resolutions for 2013:

Health:

My resolution this year is to continue to eat better in a way that makes me feel healthy.  That means paleo.  I have found that I do best when I limit sugar and grains, and I feel so much healthier.  I will continue to bake occassionally and lord knows I’ll never completely quit sugar, but my hope and my plan is to stay on an 80/20 paleo path. 

I’ll be starting this off with a modified Whole30 starting Monday, 1/7!  I’ll post more about this soon and I hope some of you will join me.

Family:

There’s not a lot I can resolve that I don’t already do, so my resolution is to keep doing what I’ve been doing.  I see my Dad every week and spend as much time with my nephew as I can.  I try to bring my nephew with me every week so my Dad can see him since my sister and her husband are so busy.  I want him to grow up knowing his Grandfather because I never had that in my life and I think it’s important to have a strong relationship with your grandparents like I did with my Grandma.  I also have to try and be more patient with certain family members and remember that things that come easily to me don’t come easily to everyone else.

Friends:

As I do every year, I resolve to do the best I can to stay in contact with friends both near and far.  I seem to be pretty good at this, but like everything else in life it takes work.  Facebook helps tremedously as does email, but sometimes I forget that not everyone is as electronically inclined as I am.  So I have to make more phone calls and spend the time contacting people who otherwise get left by the wayside, electronically speaking. 

Career:

This is going to be an interesting one.  The path I thought I wanted to pursue is different than I thought it would be and now I’m not sure I want it anymore.  That’s a convoluted sentence, but what it comes down to is that I have to sit down and re-think where I’m going to go in my career and where I hope to be by this time next year.  Luckily, this should be a fun adventure, albeit a little nerve-wracking.

Spritual:

I haven’t been a totally bad Jew this year, but frankly I could be better.  I want to spend a little more time in Synagogue and attending services.  I always feel so good when I leave a Shabbat service and I forget that feeling come the next Friday night when I get invited out with friends.  So I’m going to strive to do services at least once a month.  Plus, I can always go out with friends after.

I also need to do more volunteer work; a handful of times in a year is just not enough. 

Love:

I will fall in love again this year.  Hopefully for the long-haul, but even if not, it’s time to try it again no matter how absolutely terrifying it may be.    

George Clooney doesn’t count (sadly).

Blogging:

While this blog was started with the idea of 2 people working on it and posting lots of recipes, we’ve had to re-tool our format.  Nuria is now going to be guest posting which means the bulk of the blogging is resting on my shoulders.  I will never stop cooking, but a lot of the time I’m making repeat recipes and that’s just plain boring.  So my goal is to post 3 days per week, but it may not be 3 new recipes a week.  It may just be some random thoughts or discussion ideas, life updates or even a book review.  I want to keep up with this space while I still have it and that means seeing what works for me and what doesn’t.  Stick with me as I work on this and please chime in to let me know what you like and what you don’t like.  I do this for me, sure, but I also do it with the idea that at least a handful of people will stop on by any given day and take a read.  I’d like for them not to run away as fast as their mouse will take them.

So that’s it for me.  Any resolutions you want to share?