KitchenAid Mixer

So for Christmas I received a KitchenAid which is pretty exciting. Hopefully I can put it to good use with my New Years resolution!

New Years Resolutions

So it turns out, I sucked at last years New Years Resolution of posting to this blog everyday. I made it 64/365 which is a depressing >20%. I am trying to be revamped my efforts this year and catch back up. Not to make excuses but November and December with the Holidays were extremely busy. Oh well.

As for this year, I don't have a resolution. I always have the "eat healthy and work out" which I suck at too because I love everything that is unhealthy for you, namely, cheese, bacon, and chocolate. I think what I want to strive to do is 1. save money and 2. don't eat out. Number 2 is the big one since it directly impacts number 1. Also, because my boyfriend is a wonderful cook and is sadly moving far, far away to Texas, I do not want to default back to my old habits of eating out every meal, so I must strive to cook for myself and be healthy! (don't I sound excited?). Being unhealthy is just so much easier. But alas, healthy it is. And it looks as though I just came up with a resolutions in this paragraph.

Anyhow, to do so, I found this blog that this lady plans out her meals a month at a time for budget, time, and convenience factors. So I thought I'd pass along and share that a few other things that will help me along the way. As long as I can plan ahead an make the meals in one go, I think I will stick to it. I just have a hard time justifying spending so much time cooking when it's just me.

So here they are:

Monthly Meal Planning

Freezer Meals

75 Healthy Recipes to Kickoff 2013

Failing at my new year's resolution...

Then again, i have never really been that good at sticking to them. My resolution was to post to this blog everyday.

I swear I am a lot more active on Pinterest so if you would like to follow me there the link is:

http://pinterest.com/jennagaylewade/

Sushi

I LOVE sushi. It's delicious. I had this for lunch. Fusian is the most brilliant idea ever. Think like what Chipotle is to burritos is what Fusian is to sushi. You pick your toppings as you go along with your roll. Then they cut it and sauce it for you. BRILLIANT. Happy Lent.

New Apartment!!

I am super excited to be taking control of my new apartment today!!!!


If anyone has any decoration ideas for me, please let me know! It is literally a blank space that can be transformed into anything!

Seth Godin : Out on a Limb

Seth Godin is one of my favorite thought leaders. If you have never heard of him, you should check out his books or at the very least, his blog. I am reposting this article today because I agree with him and I think it is an interesting point of view on creativity. To be creative and do it successfully, there are risks involved. If we do not take the risk, we will never reach our potential for creating or growing as an artist.

Out on a limb:

That's where artists do their work.

Not in the safe places, but out there, in a place where they might fail, where it might end badly, where connections might be lost, sensibilities might be offended, jokes might not be gotten.

If you work with artists, don't saw off the limb. Don't waste a lot of time explaining how dangerous it is, either. No, your job is to quietly support the limb at the same time you egg your team on, pushing them ever further out there.

My slight addiction to Pinterest

Alright, maybe "slight" is a bit of an understatement. Either way, I love Pinterest. It is really amazing, especially for ideas on projects and inspiration. If you are not familiar,  according to Mashable.com "The service enables users to create online bulletin boards, or “pinboards,” for popular categories such as home decor, food and wedding inspiration. Members can use Pinterest’s “Pin It” bookmarklet tool and iPhone app to save things they see online and offline, and explore and repin the images their friends collect via their personal newsfeeds." Pretty awesome, right?

This is how I feel about Pinterest:

It is becoming the next big thing in social media and brands are starting to pay attention. This infographic about Pinterest is from the same Mashable article.

As of right now I have 33 boards and 2240 pins and my URL is http://pinterest.com/jennagaylewade/. This number is consistently increasing. There are a bunch of projects I want to try out that I have come across and will hopefully be featured on this blog in the near future.

I am really hoping as I keep up with this blog, my creativity will keep up as well.

In there near future - like when I finally get around to moving (clearly I should get on this whole packing thing), I want to start on these projects for my first grown up apartment.

Have a happy Friday! :)
-Jenna

The First Post

Super creative name for my first post, I know. Anyway, I finally decided on my new years resolution. A little late into the game here on January 31st, but better late than never, right? My resolution is to post to this blog everyday. I have two other blogs as it is. One is my inspiration blog that I am usually pretty good about posting to expect for as of late. My other personal blog which started out as strictly my artist blog. My artist blog has been suffering an identity crisis on whether not it is a more professional artist blog or the blog to document my random musings and crafting whims. Therefore, I decided as crazy as it sounds, to separate the two out and create some differentiation between the two. I am thinking this decision will cause my artist blog to suffering. Recently, I graduated, got a job and found an apartment so I have been lacking on my creation of new art. Hopefully I can get back to that soon. I am excited to move so that I have an apartment I can decorate. I will be tracking my progress through my blog and hopefully sharing the things I have learned. I will be focusing this blog mainly on tracking my life and journey as an eccentric.

Why eccentric? Sometimes it maybe has a negative connotation but I like the word. I find it a good thing. According to the dictionary, an eccentric is a person who has an unusual, peculiar, or odd personality, set of beliefs, or behavior pattern. It also says that it is a person who deviates from normal. I think there are a lot of normal people out there in the world and it would be a pretty boring place if it was not for those of us who take it upon ourselves to liven it up. So to sign off of my first post, I will leave you with this last thought. Over the next year, I will attempt to continue this blog as a journal to those fun, quirky, and interesting things that happen or that I create.


Jenna

For reference-
Inspiration blog : somethingsarebeautiful.blogspot.com
Artist blog : jennagaylewade.blogspot.com