birthday resolutions

I am not a person that engages in risky, adrenaline-filled behaviors. I waited until I was almost seventeen to get my drivers license because I didn’t think I was up to the responsibility of being in charge of a one-ton metal death trap. I was quite content to read about other people’s adventures, but as far as having my own went, I was perfectly fine living vicariously through my sky-diving and date-having friends. (What’s that? Yes, dates are scary. I regularly* turned down dates because of the “never go anywhere with a stranger or you’ll die” public service announcements. I did not want to die! I had so much to live for! Like sitting in my apartment and reading books!)

I’ve been thinking back about my life experiences, and the most exciting one I can come up with is snorkeling in Honduras. Sure, it was in a foreign country, but snorkeling? Really? That’s the best I can do? Any idiot can snorkel. And, truth be told, I wasn’t a very good snorkeler. I held on to Jason’s leg almost the entire time and refused to go near the continental slope for fear of… falling. Which I know sounds stupid. My mind could not wrap itself around the notion that looking at a steep drop in land did not somehow equate to certain peril, and I avoided it in case I suddenly stopped being buoyant. Thinking about it now causes my blood pressure to rise as it was terrifying to see coral reefs ahead of me and have the dark open water on my left. Looking out into the abyss like that was unsettling and I don’t know if I’ll ever recover.

I know that I want to do more exciting things, although it’s clear those things should have nothing to do with the ocean. So I’m coming up with birthday resolutions, as my birthday is next Wednesday. Birthday resolution number one: do more things.

Another birthday resolution I have is to finish what we want to finish on our house, within reason (example: we want to paint the outside eventually, but that won’t happen for a few years. We’d also like new floors, which also probably won’t happen this year). This involves finishing painting the bedrooms and building a bed, as well as procuring various items to make our lives easier, such as a bigger laundry basket and a place for Hurley’s toys to go so they’re not strewn about the living room. I would like to have our room finished and furnished and completely. No half-done projects. No starting something before we finish another something.

Last resolution: cook more. We eat the same things a majority of the time despite the fact that I have two gigantic cookbooks full of recipies. I will be an adventurous chef. No longer will I shy away from a recipe because it has more than five steps with more than three ingredients. I will learn how to properly chop a vegetable. I will learn what blanching is and I will learn the difference between cake flour and all-purpose. I will learn more vegetarian dishes so I can incorporate them into our usual dinner rotation. I will (hopefully) conquer the kitchen.

Last year’s goals were deleted when I changed my layout and because I didn’t write them down anywhere else I do not know what they were. I know that adopting a dog and buying a house were on the list (accomplished), as well as starting a garden and reading the entire Bible (not accomplished). Losing weight was on the list because it’s on every list, but it was intentionally left off of this year’s list because that is its own thing and there really isn’t a deadline for it.

BREAKING UPDATE: Jason just sent me a link to a vegetarian recipe that involves brussels sprouts and grapes. It’s like we share a brain, except this particular recipe looks strange because it calls for roasting grapes. Hot grapes. Ew. (Remember, like, two paragraphs when I was all gung-ho about cooking new things? This is the exception.)

*two times

Tell me this: Do you consider yourself adventurous? Is there anything you flat out refuse to eat?