The Year in Review

It's time to evaluate how I did with last year's goals. I think all in all I had an excellent year, and I hope that reviewing these don't make me think otherwise!

Feed the Body:

• Master the art of Czech "kitchen". Armed with my copy of The Best Czech Recipes, I'll be turning out Moravian Sparrow and Stuffed Kohlrabi in no time. As soon as I find out what a kohlrabi is. (Update: German turnip). Nottttttt so much. Add this to 2013. 
• Stop just randomly pinning every nom-worthy thing that I see and actually make something. Two new recipes a month (though given how my shopping trips have been going, this is likely to be much higher simply due to the creativity needed when you can't find what you're looking for). This one I nailed. Tried out a whole slew of Pinterest recipes with resounding success.  Here are some of what I believe to be the best...
• Buttermilk Blueberry Breakfast Cake
• Lemon Brownies
• Cream of Mushroom Soup
• Spicy Thai Noodles
• Cheesey Mushroom Pull-Apart Bread
• Eat like an adult. It is no longer acceptable to eat Ramen for 5 days straight... for breakfast. It's time to get reacquainted with vegetables other than mushrooms and potatoes (usually in fry or pancake form), or eat 17 cookies in one sitting (unless it's Christmas. Then all bets are off.). Am I swearing off grilled cheese and chips forever? No. (In fact, think I may go make a grilled cheese sandwich right now.) But it's definitely time to step up the game and hit a little closer to that food pyramid.  Definitely got better at this one thanks to trying out new recipes. Still not the healthiest diet in the world, but one needs a bit of fat... staves off wrinkles. 
• Put those running shoes to use for something other than trotting over to the pizza place. Stick 'em on, lace 'em up, and get over to Stromovka for some less polluted than city center fresh air. Did very, very well with this for a while, until I went back to the US in the summer and then became a lazy bum again. But not completely as Donut will not let that happen. 
• Get more sleep. Teaching means you have a whacky schedule. There are days when I start at 7am, and days when I won't start until 3pm. Usually, this means that on the days when I have a 7am class, I am a zombie and dead on my feet for the rest of the (lonnnnnng, lonnnnnnnnnnng) day. We all know I am not a morning person; I will never be a shining ray of sunshine at that ungodly hour. But I do need to start turning out the lights earlier rather than staying up til the weeeeeee hours of the morning reading A Place of Yes. Done. Old lady bedtimes and all. 

Feed the Mind:

• Put that Rosetta Stone to good use. Brush up on my French & Spanish, and start learning German (and some important Czech. Pivo is not cutting it anymore.). Get a language buddy (bonus points if it happens to be a tall, hot German). Take a class through school. Use it. Be global and fabulous. Explain to me, language school that I work for, why you cannot offer language courses to your staff? Absurdities. Fear I cannot push off learning Czech much longer so this one will also have to join 2013's list. 
• Go somewhere new and cultural each month. Easy enough in a city like Prague, smack dab in the middle of Europe. (Must try to save harder so can actually leave the city!) And remember my camera, so you can actually see what I'm talking about.  Did fairly well with this one and crammed a lot of culture (outside of the pub!) into the past year. Check. 
• Put those charcoals and paints to good use and get creative. This is a beautiful city. My photography does not do it justice, but maybe I can make something that does. (Please note that hours after reading this, I did something cultural [yay, knocking that resolution outta the park] and of course, forgot my camera) Our apartment is now full of the "art" that is the result of painting Sundays with Peej. Now that I'm armed with my sewing machine, this will only get better. 
• Read the classics - Pride & Prejudice. Emma. Sense & Sensibility. Jane Eyre. Anything else people recommend. AKA, all the books that are on my Kindle because I got to download them for free, but have been put on the backburner so that I could read things like Spying in High Heels (excellent, by the way). Also, watch the classics. Casablanca. Breakfast at Tiffany's. The Godfather movies. Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Really, any movie where people look at me and go "Whaaaaaat? What's wrong with you? How have you not seen that movie?!?! It's, like, the greatest movie of all time." (Except for Sci-Fi. This is supposed to be enjoyable. I suffered through Avatar, and that was enough.) Negative. No time for movies, and much prefer my thrillers and chic lit. This is something I will just have to accept. 

The Social Network:

• Put myself out there. Get into one new social situation a month. Find out where the non-trolls are hiding. Report back to other Prague girls. Done - networking events, mingles, speed dating, supper clubs, life in general. This one was an easy one. 
• Join a club - drawing, books, volunteer stuff, whatever. But do something that is interesting. I absolutely love volunteering for Pink Crocodile. It's a great cause to work for and everyone is really lovely and I've gotten to do a lot of really cool stuff because of it. Wins all around. 
• Write more letters. Who doesn't love mail? I love mail. I can't seem to get mail, but it would be lovely if my mailman actually read the addresses on envelopes and I got some. So will write them instead. (Also, this gives me a perfectly valid excuse to go buy nice monogrammed stationary, which you all know I love.) I will say that I spent the year poking in and out of papirnictvis looking for stationary which I could not find, so that will be my excuse as to why no one other than my grandparents and my cousins got a handwritten postcard from me this year. 
• Keep a journal. I try to be fairly open on here, but let's be honest. There are just some things that I don't want to share with all of you. But this is going to be a fantastic year, and I really want an honest collection of all the craziness that's about to ensue, for my eyes only. This one I did try, but gave up when I realized that I only remembered to write in it after a few drinks and then couldn't understand anything anyway, so gave up on that one. 

Okay, so I think I did fairly well. Better to have a gazillion resolutions and succeed at a couple than make one blanket one such as "I will get healthy" and then retract that after one week at the gym. Feel fairly successful. Have a few ideas kicking around for 2013 ones, so I'll have to finalize them and get them out to you tomorrow (knowing how badly I've screwed up my sleep patterns in the last 48 hours, something tells me I will have a lot of time tonight to get it done!). 

So what are your resolutions? How did you do with yours last year? Success? Failure? Calling it a draw?