I know that there’s nothing special about January 1. I know that you can make resolutions anytime, and turn over new leaves whenever you want to. I know all this. Really, I do.
But there’s just something about a new year…
Big things happening in January:
Nothing?
Our calendar is oddly — and pleasantly? — empty in January. No birthdays. No family events. No holidays. No travel. I think we all need a bit of this after the hustle and bustle of the last few months.
January goals:
+ Wipe the slate clean at work. The holiday break has been a nice reset, and I’m looking forward to leaving behind a few career-related feelings and self-induced head games that weighed me down last year. Contrived or not, I am ready for a fresh start.
+ Try Blue Apron. Our beloved Plated went out of business. They offered a coupon for Sunbasket so we tried a few weeks of that, but felt so-so about it. (The meals were a bit bland, and the delivery options were more limited.) So Blue Apron is up next.
+ Finish my Broken Zig Zag pattern revamp. I updated the construction method for my Christmas quilt, and want to get the pattern rewritten and in my shop by the end of the month.
+ Install new shelves in the art cabinet. Last weekend I finally got 2 roll-out shelves for the bottom of our disaster of an art cabinet. I don’t want to let them sit uninstalled for too long! If they work well, I plan to buy 2 more for the top part of the cabinet.
Looking forward to you, 2020!
So, we are pretty strategic in our blue apron orders, especially after we unlocked the ability to select any 3 of 8 meals. I am not sure how this goes with kids. But just my two cents:
(1) Always get their Asian food (particularly if one of the ingredients in ginger); also Medit. food (especially if it has chickpeas or farros)
(2) Always get any food with a bread product (sandwiches, dough, empanadas, tortillas, pizza, quiche)
(3) Avoid any “meat and potatoes” meals (e.g. “grilled salmon with potato hash” or “chicken breast and greens”) – if you get these you will find they are very boring and bland, so have a plan to significantly spice them up in some way by either mixing in more flavorful vegetables or pulling out your spice rack (at minimum, add garlic and maybe crushed red pepper.. the primary blue apron spice for these is salt.)
The Byron rule, which I don’t agree with, is “never get the hamburgers, they are a waste of money when you can just get hamburger stuff at the grocery store.” (But i like their hamburgers, they frequently have fun toppings, etc.)
Oh, also, read the whole recipes. BA recipe makers seem to believe you can’t do two things at once, so the recipes all go in a serial order (e.g. cook main first, then side dish second), and they take longer to cook that way.
I liked your “New Parent Vortex”—that’s exactly what I should have put on mine!