A New Month

I am extremely grateful to have an easy post this week – I have been too busy to cook anything interesting, which means I’m definitely too busy to write a blog post about a recipe.

February’s goals and results:

• Shedd Aquarium!  Done and done.  What a great trip!
• Super Bowl!  I love social get-togethers.  Not everyone could make it or stay the whole night but we had a really great time and the food was fantastic. 
• Bottle wine.  For the first time ever, I bottled it all by myself.  I’m ridiculously proud of myself for that.  I also started a new batch.
• Candied citrus peel!  Check out this recipe!  Soooo tasty.
• Taxes.  Did not happen.  The end of February snuck up on me (I thought I had one more weekend!  Since when does February end on the 28^th?  Kidding.  But I ran out of time).

So basically I did all the fun stuff and ignored the boring stuff.  But that puts taxes at the top of March’s list:

• Taxes

In fact, taxes is the ONLY thing on March’s list.  Yeah, that’s happening.  I’ve got a thousand other things to do in March (namely, I’m working on a huge fundraiser and project that is having 3, yes THREE, events in March.  Always on the weekend).  

On a whim, I approached my favorite food blogger about donating a cookbook for my fundraiser’s silent auction.  I expect she gets requests like this all the time and thought I probably wouldn’t hear back.  Within hours, the publishing company was asking for my address and said a signed copy would ship out same-day!  WHAT?!  So that is probably my favorite moment from this month.  I’m still slightly in shock that I have this fabulous cookbook sitting on my shelf, and I’m a little sad that I have to give it away.  But it’s for a great cause, so I’m just happy to have another awesome item to contribute.  

I watched a movie this month in which a child questioned why adults hate birthdays.  The answer made me realize why I had such a hard time with my birthday this year:

Getting old sucks. Most people don't accomplish what they'd hope to and they realize that they are most likely not going to. They end up living these quiet lives of denial, and brushing birthdays under the rug just becomes a part of that.

I feel like time is slipping away and I’m not realizing my dreams.  I have a grand plan and timeline for my life goals, but no changes in the immediate future, so I feel pretty stagnant right now.  As another January ticks by, I feel like living my dream becomes less realistic.  I’m still in the same place I was a year ago.  I wonder if I’m doing enough, but I also wonder if I have time to take on more.  And that was probably my saddest moment this month.

Onward and upward.