Updates (It's a long one and not very funny)

I haven't posted here in a while. It seems that I may have too many blogs to keep up with but I am going to plug along. I thought I would take a second to give an update on some of the things I have been working on. This is the year about being a grownup and not in the bad way. I just have been feeling like I am in a rut and for all of the big ideas I have I don't actually do anything. I decided I wanted to form good habits that would make my life more manageable and still get everything I want done in a day. The way to do that was through exercise in the AM and creative pursuits in the PM (my work day sandwiched in the middle).

I am on the right track with creative pursuits. For those of you who are unsure if cooking is creative-- it is. Most of the recipes I have posted on my newest blog, Adventures in a Tiny Kitchen, are things I have come up with myself or modifications of dishes I have eaten out or seen in recipe magazines/blogs. I cook the way I sew-- I start with an idea, I get some instructions, and then I change it around to make it how I want it. So I definitely think I have been flexing my creative brain on that project.

My second creative project has been to make and sell things on Etsy.com. For those of you who don't know about Etsy, it is actually an amazing little website that makes it easy to sell homemade products. For a small fee per item you sell you can set up your own webshop that is easy to navigate and searchable. I love this site because you can do your own PR to spread the word about your shop, but you can also tag your items with key words, so if someone is looking for, say, placemats, they can search the Esty site for them and your listing will come up. It's basically an online craft fair.

My etsy shop is going to have the them of upcycling-- taking otherwise unusable things and making them usable again in a new way. I just came up with the name and logo design yesterday (after spending consideral time on another name previous and having a friend work in vain on another logo). The shop address is www.growlgrowl.etsy.com and if you go there you won't see any items for sale but you will see my logo. The growl growl doesn't actually refer to a grumbling dog-- but actually two different descriptions of an owl: green owl and grumpy owl-- gr_owl. Growl. I realize this is quite the breadcrumb to follow and it might be proof I am a little crazy in the head, but once the growl came to fruition I really loved it. I am not going to get into the details about what it all means right now, but check out the site to see my banner logo (still working on a condensed version for business cards/ icons/ etc).

On to exercising: I have done more thinking about exercising than actually exercising. That is all going to change, because I think I might run the Hartford Half Marathon and I need a full 7 months to train for it. Chris thinks he is going to do the full marathon and I have a few other people who might do the full/ half, so I think that is enough motivation for me to do it. In the meantime, I am going to try to sneak in a few other shorter races (with friends/ family) which will help me along that path.

I've also decided I want to take up Yoga. I am not ready to commit to classes yet (1 month membership at a Yoga studio is twice as much as a gym membership) but I have been doing this semi-cheesey workout called Yamaste Yoga and on FitTV. I didn't even know I got FitTV, but I started DVRing Namaste Yoga and I sort of like it. So--- running and Yoga, look out world, I'm going to be a changed person soon enough.

So I realize these were boring updates, but I needed to post them here so I could get all of that out of my system and actually make this stuff happen. Wish me luck!