Rainy Day To-Do List

Yellow flowers blooming in the middle of winter, in the rain.
Inspiration if there ever was any.

It's a really grey kind of day, the kind of day that makes it absolutely impossible to take an indoor photo, even with extra lighting. So, no recipe post today for Street Cred, as I had planned. Oh well! I have plenty to keep me busy today. The normal housewifey jobs of laundry and cleaning, coupled with planning a trip to Wales this weekend will keep me busy for most of the afternoon.

Why Wales, you ask? Well, I have an appointment in Cardiff this Saturday which pertains to my visa, so we've decided to leave early in the morning and make a day out of it. I've never been to Cardiff before, and being a major capital city, I'm sure there is plenty to see and do (and if you have any suggestions, please leave them in the comments below!).

Some other little bits that I'm catching up on today as well:

Un-following on Bloglovin
I have hundreds on unread posts to go through every day, and it can be tedious and exhausting. Some of these blogs I began following when I started this one in 2011, and not only do I no longer read them, but they simply don't interest me at all. My tastes have changed, and my purpose for blogging has changed as well. Obviously, this isn't solely a "style blog" anymore. If it even ever was. So, hopefully, by going through the masses of blogs on my feed today, I'll be able to narrow it down to the ones I really do love and follow - and make space for those new bloggy friends that I'd like to find in 2015.

Yoga with Adriene
I really, really love her videos, but I'm not a daily yoga-doer. Sometimes a quick dose of one of her workouts is the perfect energy boost on an otherwise lazy, dreary day. And she has this amazing 30 Days of Yoga challenge thing (which began at the start of the month, and I haven't even done one yet), that I'd like to try out.

Valentine's Day!
It's coming, people, and it's coming up fast. Even though Steve and I aren't big on it, since it is a mostly commercial holiday - my favorite quote about Valentine's Day describes it as "a holiday invented by greeting card companies to make people feel like crap" (that's from a favorite film of mine, can you guess which one it is?). I have 0 ideas of what to do this year, and come to think of it, I can't even remember what I did last year, either. Did we go to dinner? Were there flowers? I have no clue. I need ideas, on a budget, and quick. Pinterest is probably going to be my new best friend for a little while until I figure this day out! Past traditions from my single years include downing a bottle of red wine while watching Titanic in the dark (because when you're a single female on February 14th, you're kind of happy at the end when all of the men die). Now that I no longer have to be super morbid, it's a little more of a challenge to actually put effort into a day that I formerly referred to as "Clearance Chocolate Eve".

And if I get everything on my list done today, I might bake cookies. Maybe. Now that I've hopped back on the gluten wagon, and I can't lick the bowl, my motivation to bake things (which was always licking the bowl) has completely gone out the window. But I might, because I know that the hubby likes them and I feel like being nice.

Maybe.

It Snowed!

It did. It may have only been for about 15 minutes, and didn't even leave a dusting on the ground, but gosh darnit, it snowed. I hadn't been this excited to [finally] see flakes fall from the sky, since I was like 10 and routinely & fervently prayed for school to be cancelled. Saturday morning flurries marked the perfect end to our little stay-cation this past week, before heading to the airport to pick up the in-laws from their real vacation.

Some unrelated updates: after a 6 hour stint of computer repair attempts, I've managed to get my laptop working again. Sort of. You have to be patient and talk nice to it, but  at the moment I can (knock on wood) bang out a post or two before it goes into thermal shutdown. I've been having problems with it for a few weeks now, so bear with the lack of frequent posting, please!

Also, you can expect another "Diary of a Diet" post soon, because today marks my return back to the gluten-free world. Long story short, there have been a lot of signs pointing to gluten as the root of some recent health issues, and I really feel like it's time to kick it out again. Like I said, more info on this later in a separate post!

Last but not least, keep your eyes and stomachs tuned into Street Cred this week, because I've been saving up some yumtastic new recipes to share!

Have a great Monday and a fantastic week!

It's Ok

If you asked me about my approach to most aspects of life lately, my most probable response will include the words "over it." I'm not particularly stressed out or busy or overwhelmed; it's sort of the opposite. Waiting for my visa is literally going to kill me - right now it looks like I'm headed down the congestive heart failure route.

Between yesterday and today, I almost forgot that it was January. Sunny 55 degree weather (Farenheit, because I still don't know how to convert to Celsius) has tricked me into soaking up a little bit of the sun's rays - you know, before they completely disappear by 3pm.

I think I need a weekend doing something new, something out of the house, something in the sun to refresh me a little bit. Like a room that needs to have the windows opened so it can air out a bit, I'm a cramped up stuffy little piece of human these days. Let's see what this warm weather can bring, shall we?

New Year Goals

The word "resolutions" tends to bum me out. In my personal dictionary, you'd find the definition as something like, 'lofty and unattainable ultimatums which are expected to be quickly abandoned." Far from 'starting the new year off right', so far I've only managed to start off this year with a case of the flu and some complicated computer problems. So, I don't make resolutions. I'm going to make goals. Here are my goals for 2015, with hopes that I can achieve at least one of them successfully, and hopefully aspire to even more as the year progresses.

Create more art.
I love making and experiencing art in a variety of forms. Drawing, painting, photography, sculpture, dance, whatever. Well, I can't dance, but you know what I mean. In the move, I've had to ditch a lot of my supplies, but I also just haven't made time for my art in the past year. I used to paint, a lot. The walls of my old apartment were covered in my paintings. And I had sketchbooks full of doodles and drawings. It's a release, like having a diary, that I'd like to push myself to involve more, again. Because I miss it, and because it's fun.

Consume less.
This isn't a diet-based goal, it's based on consuming in the economic sense. I'm not going to make any brazen promises like committing to a spend-free year plan (though I totally respect and admire anyone who can), but it's a goal to consume less, to think that we need less, and to abandon materialism a little bit more. I took a few steps in that direction last year, when I decided to combine my love of vintage and thrifted clothing with my shrunken budget. I got rid of (donated) - are you ready for this? - 20 large trash bags of perfectly good clothing, shoes, and handbags when we moved. And my closet is still full now and I have plenty of things to wear. I cannot tell you how much countless CRAP dime-a-dozen pieces of clothing I acquired just because it was on sale, or for the sake of having one more thing in my wardrobe. Now I have the worthwhile pieces I need, and that's that. Not that I don't still love clothing, or shopping - but I don't NEED the senseless, cheap, disposable, things I don't truly like or want. It felt good to de-clutter even just this part of my life, so I'd like to do it in more areas.
This goal to consume less in  2015 applies not just to my wardrobe and shopping, but to lusting after things that we don't need, either, just because society and marketing deems something as a necessity. I don't need an iPad- and here's a really fun fact- no one does. Guess what? Man has survived for thousands of years without an iPad, and I'll survive without one, too.

So, those are my goals for the brand new year. What are yours?