By Torsten Henning [Public domain] via Wikimedia Commons For many people a new year is a time for a new beginning. We make resolutions, go on diets, begin new projects and swear that we will be better people than we were last year.
I vowed that I would be more organized this year. I would plan ahead, and then act on those plans so that my life would run more smoothly.
I didn't have to wait long to see how my new plan was going to go. My resolution faced its first challenge on the first Saturday of the year, which also happened to be the second day of the year.
On that particular day, I had planned an 8 mile training hike to help me and my team of middle schoolers and their parents get ready for the Bataan Death March Memorial Marathon on March 20. (I'll write another blog on this event if people show interest.) I knew I'd be coming back tired, so I planned to have dinner ready in advance. I loaded the bread machine with ingredients and set the timer. I loaded the crockpot with the makings of split pea soup (one of my favorite uses for a leftover ham bone! Thanks, sister Wendy for the Christmas ham!) Out the door I went, confident that all was organized and I would come back to a house filled with wonderful aromas.
The house did smell good when I got home, but smelling and looking are not always the same. Although I had set the timer on the bread machine, I had not pushed the pan down, seating it firmly into the mechanism that mixes and kneads the dough. The machine had diligently cooked the bread without mixing the ingredients, and so I had a flat, hard brick of whole-wheat something, with a layer of yeast on top and a layer of liquid at the bottom. Cheapy me couldn't even salvage the mess by cutting it into squares and turning it into croutons.
And the crockpot: I am sad to report that it was a no-go, as well. I had plugged it in. I had turned the dial. What I hadn't noticed was that the dial had split, and so even though the dial turned, the metal stem beneath it did not. The crockpot was as cold as it had been when I left three hours before.
Vince Lombardi said "It's not whether you get knocked down, it's whether you get up." I tossed the cold, hard peas and the hot, hard flour brick in the trash and reloaded both machines. By dinner time the house smelled good, and I had made good on my morning of stumbling around the kitchen. And the next Saturday I loaded both machines up right before heading out for a 10 mile hike.
I'm going to stumble a lot more in the new year. I'm probably going to lose important papers, forget appointments, write abysmally bad chapters, hurt someone's feelings, eat a whole bag of tortilla chips and who knows what else. If you're not failing, you're not trying. But I'll keep getting up and trying to redeem myself and the year.
How about you? Got any resolutions to keep? I'd like to know what they are and how you're doing with them.
I vowed that I would be more organized this year. I would plan ahead, and then act on those plans so that my life would run more smoothly.
I didn't have to wait long to see how my new plan was going to go. My resolution faced its first challenge on the first Saturday of the year, which also happened to be the second day of the year.
On that particular day, I had planned an 8 mile training hike to help me and my team of middle schoolers and their parents get ready for the Bataan Death March Memorial Marathon on March 20. (I'll write another blog on this event if people show interest.) I knew I'd be coming back tired, so I planned to have dinner ready in advance. I loaded the bread machine with ingredients and set the timer. I loaded the crockpot with the makings of split pea soup (one of my favorite uses for a leftover ham bone! Thanks, sister Wendy for the Christmas ham!) Out the door I went, confident that all was organized and I would come back to a house filled with wonderful aromas.
The house did smell good when I got home, but smelling and looking are not always the same. Although I had set the timer on the bread machine, I had not pushed the pan down, seating it firmly into the mechanism that mixes and kneads the dough. The machine had diligently cooked the bread without mixing the ingredients, and so I had a flat, hard brick of whole-wheat something, with a layer of yeast on top and a layer of liquid at the bottom. Cheapy me couldn't even salvage the mess by cutting it into squares and turning it into croutons.
And the crockpot: I am sad to report that it was a no-go, as well. I had plugged it in. I had turned the dial. What I hadn't noticed was that the dial had split, and so even though the dial turned, the metal stem beneath it did not. The crockpot was as cold as it had been when I left three hours before.
Vince Lombardi said "It's not whether you get knocked down, it's whether you get up." I tossed the cold, hard peas and the hot, hard flour brick in the trash and reloaded both machines. By dinner time the house smelled good, and I had made good on my morning of stumbling around the kitchen. And the next Saturday I loaded both machines up right before heading out for a 10 mile hike.
I'm going to stumble a lot more in the new year. I'm probably going to lose important papers, forget appointments, write abysmally bad chapters, hurt someone's feelings, eat a whole bag of tortilla chips and who knows what else. If you're not failing, you're not trying. But I'll keep getting up and trying to redeem myself and the year.
How about you? Got any resolutions to keep? I'd like to know what they are and how you're doing with them.
