Back and ready to start again

Finally, we have all of our holidays behind us and now can try and get back into a routine. I know, I shouldn't complain. A 3 week Winter Break followed by 2 weeks of routine and then a 1 week Chinese New Year break sounds nice. It is....but it is so hard on all of us to get back into our groove. I have already missed my exercise routine 2 days because of catching up I needed to do.

I am however buckling down and wrapping my head around the spring. I am already doing well on my New Year's resolution of reading more. I have read 5 books since the Christmas break which is more than I have read in the last 3 years combined. I have to say that I am quite pleased with my reading and hope that I can keep it up although I am sure the holidays had something to do with it.

I am also please to say that this is my ninth post of the New Year which is more posts than the past 3 years combined. I am constantly thinking of new ideas about what to write about, new places I want to try and new things I want to cook. I am so happy to have a couple tidbits that I will be writing about in the near future, one which will be about the beautiful food in Burma and the second thanks to the recent visit of Sichuan food expert Fuchsia Dunlop, I have this wondering article get me back on the food trail again.

My New Year's Resolutions

I love the New Year and it is even better living in China because you get to celebrate two of them. This year the New Years are about 3 weeks apart, so it seems like January has been one big party especially with Gemma's birthday right smack dab in the middle of them. One of my favorite things to do at the beginning of the year is to make a few, very achievable resolutions. I am not into setting resolutions about weight loss or exercise, I am more about setting resolutions about how I can make a difference on this earth.

I was thinking about setting a New Year's resolution about becoming a vegetarian, but I thought that was a bit drastic. Just last spring we started eating meat only 1 time per day because of all the reading I have been doing online about plant based diets and also to help Jonny with his health kick and weight loss regime. Now this is coming from a girl who was raised in Nebraska from parents who attended the church of corn-fed beef. I wanted to make the goal obtainable, so I slightly increased the goal to eating meat less than 1 time per day. This means that maybe we eat meat 1 time per day or maybe we skip it altogether. I hope that I am able to share recipes in my journey to cut out more meat throughout the year my blog on new vegetarian dishes or recipes I manage to concoct.

The other resolution I set was that I wanted to get back to reading books. This is one of those 'for me' resolutions. For the past 2 years I have maybe read 3 books in total. That is very sad for someone who started a book club back in Arizona (that is still running strong although I have a suspicion there is more drinking than reading going on these days) and attended book club in Chengdu religiously for the first 4 years of living here.

I started reading over the Christmas holiday and managed to finished 2 1/2 books over the holidays. The first book I read was "11 Minutes" by Paulo Coelho which then made me what to read his book "The Alchemist". I have never had the pleasure to read anything written by Mr. Coelho, but I definitely will looking for other books by this incredible yarn spinner. I also managed to finish "The Paris Wife" by Paula McClain. It was the January pick for our book club and since I recently watched the movie "Midnight in Paris", which was a movie by Woody Allen about the 'Lost Generation', it motivated me to read this historical fiction book. I am happy to say that I have made it through 2 books this year, "11 Minutes" is registered in the 2 books read last year tally. I have already started my third book and February book club selection "Tall Grass" by Sandra Dallas.

I am feeling really good about 2012! My this is my fifth blog post of the year, so I am keeping up in all my resolution categories!