December 29, 2008

New Year Resolutions

December 29, 2008/

I live for the New Year. Fresh start... new goals... a world of possibility where--yes!--I can be perfect from the word go . In years past, I have made lists and charted my "perfect" day to the point where I all but account for my bowel movements. But this year is different. This year I'm not feeling so concerned about setting goals. Life is pretty good, as is. There are some areas to be fine-tuned for sure, but I am simultaneously impressed/concerned with my lack of stated, specific goals for 2009.

Here's what I've got so far:

Run 2 marathons
Unplug the TV in January
Work out with weights at least 2x/week
Write a novel

These are remarkably different goals from prior years in that they lack specifics. However, I've come to think of specifics as something to be wary of. Yes, I know I'm supposed to set SMART goals such as "I will run the Richmond Marathon in November in under 4 hours." But this backfires for me. For better or worse, I'm the sort of person that if you tell me I HAVE to do something, that is immediately the last thing in the world I want/care about doing. I resent being "forced" into a corner, even if I'm the one doing the forcing.

However, if you tell me, "You know what--anything you can offer is great. If you could just write a page for us, you know, whenever you feel like it--no pressure--that would be wonderful," then guess what? I am all in. I will slam out not only what you asked me for but 20 extra pages of research, collated, and tied with a bow. As long as I have an exit strategy, I am head-first, totally committed to a goal or project. I can fight it, but that's the way I am so I may as well learn to work with it.

Going back to the goals, if I tell myself I have to complete a novel by March and have it sold by November, I won't touch the project. But if the goal is just to complete a novel... just to see if I can do it, no worries about publishing, I'll do it.

How about you, dear readers? Any goals or resolutions you'd like to share for the New Year?

December 27, 2008

And Just Like That... I'm Done With Christmas

December 27, 2008/

Since tying the knot almost 15 years ago, Blair and I have had an ongoing day-after-Christmas discussion that goes something like this:

DENA: "It's December 26th. Let's take the tree down."

BLAIR: "My family left the tree up until January 1st. That way we could enjoy it longer."

DENA: (Collecting Boxes) "Let's take the tree down."

BLAIR: "But leaving it up makes the holidays last that much longer."

DENA: "DOWN! DOWN! DOWN!"

I'm ready to have my house back after the holidays. Everything back in place so I'm ready for a fresh start to the New Year. Leaving the tree up makes me feel like I'm behind, as if the two hours spent on January 1st putting away ornaments will somehow taint the river of potential accomplishment that comes with the New Year.

This year was different. Normally tired of the Christmas blur by the day after Thanksgiving, this year I listened non-stop to the radio stations playing holiday music 24/7. My mood perked up each morning when I plugged in the tree and I gave a small sigh of disappointment each night when I had to unplug it. It had finally happened. I was a Christmas person. And as such, I was ready to make the leap.

I approached Blair this morning: "I'm okay with leaving the tree up this year."

"It's okay," he said. "We can take it down."

"No, no. You don't understand. I want to leave it up."

So this morning I plugged in the tree and admired the colored lights from outside the house as I left to drive to Greensboro for a long run. But then... disaster. I punched the car radio to the all holiday station and--what the hell--they were playing normal music! I quickly switched to the other all holiday station. Bryan Adams crooned that "Everything I do, I do it for you." Lovely Brian, but wtf is my Christmas music?!?

I walked in the door from running, showered, and hauled out the ornament boxes.

"What's going on?" asked Blair, coming downstairs. "I thought we were leaving the tree up."

"Chrismtas music is through. I'm done," I replied. "Here, wrap up this reindeer."

And so once again, Christmas has left the Harris house. All is put away and the house is back together. And I breath a sigh of relief.

Now I can get started on those New Year plans.

December 25, 2008

Harris Vegetarian Holiday Feast

December 25, 2008/

When we last left our dynamic cooking duo, they were huddled in the spice department at Wal-Mart, debating the merits of $8 crystallized ginger and wondering if they could substitute rancid cinnamon without anyone noticing.

The 2008 All Vegetarian Harris Holiday Meal has come and gone. Was it a raving success? No. (Don't even act like you're surprised.) But was it an edible meal? YES. (Now it's okay to look surprised.)

For a picture of what our feast looked like, I offer the Nov/Dec 2008 cover of Vegetarian Times. Our meal actually looked pretty close to this. I was pleased.

Some dishes proved more popular than others, both in preparation and in taste. Here now, a rundown of what was eaten, what will be back, and what is destined for the garbage disposal. (Click on the dish to be taken to the online recipe.) Dishes are rated on a 1-5 scale, with 1 being "blech" and 5 being "Yum-O!"

Mushroom, Cheese, & Vegetable Strudel: 3.5. The filling of mushrooms, red bell pepper, onions, baby spinach and cheese was excellent. I'm not yet a huge fan of phyllo dough. I told Blair I thought the filling would be delicious just put into a regular pie crust.

Green Beans with Walnuts & Shallot Crisps: 4. Delish. The beans are swirled in a dijon mustard/maple syrup sauce and the fried shallots are wonderful and add a nice crunch. A keeper.

Garlicky Mashed Sweet Potatoes: Unrated due to incomplete recipe. I spent an hour roasting a head of garlic that was to be "squeezed" into the sweet potatoe/apple mixture. Forgive me, but I was unable to figure out how to "squeeze" a head of garlic, even garlic softened by an hour in foil in the oven. So the potatoes were rather plain. Blair and I added brown sugar and cinnamon to the leftovers and that helped. Now if we only had marshmellows...

Chestnut Stuffing: 4. This one's a keeper. Too bad I misread the instructions and we weren't able to eat the dish until 40 minutes after we'd finished our other food. I saw "bake for 30 minutes covered in foil." What I didn't see was the "And then remove foil and bake for an additonal 30-40 minutes." I said a few very non-holidayish words when I realized my mistake.

Once again, I can't begin to describe the amount of leftovers in our fridge, and this is after we halved most of the recipes. I'm trying to convince myself Chestnut Stuffing sounds good for breakfast.

Hope your holiday meal was a treat.

December 25, 2008

A Very Kitty Christmas

December 25, 2008/

Today's Blog Entry comes to us courtesy of Lucy_Cat:

Santa came! While he didn't bring me the reindeer I asked for--I would LOVE my own reindeer--he was very good to me and my sister Olivia. We got fleece blankets, a purr pad (why do I need that when I have a perfectly good sofa to claw?), a 5 pack of colorful mini-mice, new laser tag (yes!), yarn balls with rattle, salmon snacks (there goes my diet) and best of all... bobble chicks. I'm also quite pleased with the amount of wrapping paper I got this year and spent the first 10 minutes of Christmas ignoring my gifts and frolicking in Santa wrap, instead.