New Year Goals ~
I was reading Living Off Love and Coffee’s blog today and ran across this post about New Year Goals. She has a nice Google Calendar with her weekly blog goals on it. And they are color coded, which I LOVE! I have a planner that I use and I like to write which events that Cheap Is The *New* Classy will be part of and, guess what, they are color coded, too. It’s the little things in life. 😉
One of my main New Year Goals (blogwise) is to read more. I love doing book reviews and what better way to do more reviews than to read more. 😛 I decided to take part in the Goodreads Reading Challenge. My goal is to read 60 books this year and I am currently on my 11th book. For anyone who likes to read, I highly recommend Goodreads. Occasionally I will run across a book that I am not quite sure if I have read or not and all I have to do is check my Goodreads account to see. I especially have this problem with authors who give their books similar yet vague names (i.e. James Patterson…”Jack and Jill,” “Roses are Red,” etc.). I buy books most frequently from yardsales and fleamarkets, but I also buy them from Barnes and Noble and Doubleday Book Club. Buying repeat books is definitely not “cheap.” If you would like to join the 2012 Reading Challenge, please click this link.
One of my other New Year Goals is to post more recipes this year. I have purchased several recipe books and look forward to trying them out. I am not at all that adventurous or knowledgeable in the kitchen so this shall be a dangerous grand undertaking! I especially enjoy cooking with the slow cooker and canning. I hope to find a variety of new and interesting canning recipes, in particular. I am especially interested in salsa recipes as my family loves salsa. Here are some the recipes that I have canned recently.
These were all canned using the water bath method. I have never tried pressure cooker canning yet. Since I am still a relative novice at water bath canning, I thought I would try to master it first and then learn to use the pressure canner {which I find rather scary}. If you have not canned but would like to learn, I will be posting recipes later this year with detailed instructions that follow today’s safety guidelines.
Note: No people, fire pit canning is not safe! Putting everything in the jar and turning the jar upside down so it will “seal” without the benefit of the heat from the water bath is not safe. And, finally, using your mom’s old mayonnaise jars to can with is not safe either. 🙂 Yes, I know you may have been told that granny did these things and “no one” ever got sick. What granny failed to tell you was that their life expectancy was like 42 and most died from diarrhea {okay, maybe not most, but a lot!} – hmmm, wonder if unsafe canning techniques had anything to do with that? Anyway, when canning season starts, I will be sure to explain why these methods are not safe and I will share techniques that most definitely are when followed properly. Stay tuned.
How are your New Year Goals working out for you?
View Comments (10)
I'm probably not doing as well as I wanted to but realistically at least I am heading in the right direction!
Very nice job with the canning, and I love your commentary on unsafe canning. I am not adventurous in the kitchen either. Well, that's not entirely true. I'm adventurous enough, but I lack the skill to pull it off. Kind of like climbing Mt Everest without a a coat! As for my New Years goals, I think I'm doing okay sticking to them. The dieting thing is going slower than I'd hoped, but it's going at least!
Sure you have the skill to pull it off. It's just like I did with the canning. Baby steps! Lol!
Glad you are sticking with your goals! At the end of the year, you will be so glad you did!
Dawn
I recently joined GoodReads and need to get that more organized. I haven't stuck with my goals at ALL lately, but I liked looking at the Google Calendar you referred to. I wonder if that would actually keep me off Facebook if I only "scheduled" one hour per day..?
It might. But if you are like me...I know that I am lame for not remembering to look at my planner, though. I write it down but have to remember to look at it, right? Haha!
Dawn
Honestly I don 't even want to look at my goals - haven't done much with it
Those canned goods like nice...wish they were in my kitchen!
I didn't even do any planning this year. This have so chaotic at my place since before Christmas and every time I think they are calming down and I can get a schedule going...something else happens.
I'm lucky anything at all gets done.
Yeah, I haven't done anything this year yet. I hope to get started in the next week or two. :)
Dawn
Since January is right around the corner, I've been thinking about what I want for 2013 ... need to set some realistic goals this time!
I like looking at this, and feeling hopeful that maybe this upcoming year I will stick to the list I made for 2012! LOL