Reflections and Resolutions

Happy New Year! With the new year upon us and last year's memories fresh in my mind, I have no regrets, only desires to improve. With 2011 I saw many a change; I traveled, I made new friends, I stayed in love, I got engaged, I got married to the love of my life. I became a proud Navy Wife. I had good times, I had rough times. But I feel like there is always room for improvement. With deployment in full force and being far from over, I deem it critical to maintain a certain level of being a busy-body. I decided to make my self-imposed activities productive and constructive.

Without further ado, my resolutions:
- Take one photo per day. Why? Because I believe it will help me focus on the positive aspects and/or beauty in life. Who takes a picture when they're in a bad mood?

Day 1. Orange infused creme brulee, made by yours truly.

- Make a bucket list. We've all had those "someday I will..." dreams. I figured I might as well make it an actual document and give me the satisfaction of being able to cross it off the list once it's been accomplished.

- Make AND finish our wedding album. We have so many amazing photos from the most beautiful day of our life. I have every intent of putting an album together so that we can look back on it whenever we want without having to scroll through all 1200+ photos. (It takes a while)

- Bake an awesome cake. I have baked a few favorites over the number of years that I've been a cake decorator (and that's been a pretty long time), but this year I want to make a cake that'll blow all my previous favorites out of the water. Maybe a homecoming cake? Maybe a super cute cake for someone's birthday... My grandpa does turn 90 this year! That's a great excuse to go all-out!! Maybe both.

- I have a number of projects that I've got in my queue. They usually include sewing projects like pillowcases and care package ideas to send to hubs. I haven't been bad so far at starting up projects but I plan to follow through with them.

- Take exercise classes. Now when I say room for improvement, I mean it! I intend to maintain some level of activity to stay fit and get in better shape.

Photo from wholeliving.com

- Think of 1 thing I'm grateful for each day. Today, I'm grateful for my husband. Although there are oceans between us, I am so lucky to have him in my life. I eagerly await his return.

Photo from photobucket

- Add more healthy foods to my diet. I don't eat badly at all-- I seldom eat processed foods, I make higher fiber, higher protein or lower fat substitutions everywhere I can. But I don't have a lot of fish in my diet, and the meats I do consume are not the best I can buy. I intend to make better efforts to buy from ethically friendly places. I found a website I really like called wholeliving.com, with great recipes and tips for living a healthier life. I will definitely check this site out on a regular basis.

Pantry staples to have on hand. From wholeliving.com

- Organize!! Yes, we all have clutter. I am following two decluttering sites. One offers one activity a day to maintain a clutter-free life. The other is a week-by-week list of sections of the house to focus on. I decided to follow both to maybe have the place tidied up sooner rather than later. Ambitious? Yes. But no harm in shooting for the moon!

One declutter calendar I'm following; see mysimplerlife.com

- Do at least one cool thing a month. Now that's vague, I know. But I want to keep it that way because I want to see an indie film, add a new item to my wardrobe every now and then, hop on a train and visit some not so far away town, go for a hike or a picnic, maybe even train for a half marathon (ok that one might be a stretch).

Seeing as how this is the first day of the new year, I decided to be off to a good start. Today I went with a few Navy wives to Coronado. We hit up dog beach and after the canines were wiped out we headed back. We soaked up some rays in the 70-something degree weather. Ya, first day of the year and it's in the 70s. Life doesn't get much better. I think I just found what to be grateful for tomorrow.

View of SD out of the car window on Coronado Bay Bridge.

We're Hitched! Yo ho, yo ho, it's a Navy life for me.

After four months of not blogging, which I blame fully on wedding planning, I am back! As stressful as most people convey wedding planning, it was a joy for me. It was super-exciting to see what was in my mind's eye come to fruition, and all within my tight budget. I believe I found my true calling in life!

We had a fairy tale wedding in a country club in August. Our colors were navy blue and green apple. We had green hydrangea, green cymbidium orchids, jade roses, every kind of green flower imaginable, were incorporated into our flowers. Our bridesmaids dresses were navy blue. People blew bubbles after we were pronounced husband and wife. The food (AND CAKE!!) was amazing. Our DJ gave the whole night such great energy. It was by far the most beautiful and emotional day of my life. I'm so happy to have found my partner-in-crime!

I have been debating for some time as to whether or not I should make the fact that I am now a Navy Wife an integral part of my blog. Seeing as how I will face many a deployment as a Navy wife, it's a lifestyle that not all can handle (I'm still learning the extent to which military spouses sacrifice, having already had a missed birthday and that our 1 month anniversary will be apart) and I plan on using my blog as a happy distraction, an outlet for my creativity and to pass time while I wait for my husband's return! I do want to give a shout-out to all the strong women (and men) out there who are Navy spouses. It's not always rainbows and butterflies in Marriedland; deployments, underways and duty certainly don't make it easier. Hats off to spouses, because we serve too.

I have lots of ideas for things to do while he's away. Getting back into my hobbies now that the wedding festivities are over would be one genre to get me going. Of course, spotlighting different parts of San Diego will keep me out and about as well. Great ideas for blog entries are not in short supply.

With fall already here (my, my how time does fly!), I am drawn to fancy coffee drinks (hello Pumpkin Spice Latte), blankets and caramel apples. I remember for years, my family used to ring in Fall with a trip to the apple orchards in Yucaipa. The last few times we went, we ended up going too late in the year to pick the apples ourselves, but that didn't stop us from having a huge picnic and buying freshly baked apple pies from the dozens of quaint little country store-esque bakeries lining the way out of the orchards. I would love to get everybody together again to do that, it's been ages.

This past weekend I woke up craving some freshly baked goodness for breakfast. It was still summer, yes, but the air was cool and the clouds were letting us know that Fall is on her way. I remembered I had thrown some ripe bananas in the freezer a couple weeks ago with every intent to use them. So that I did. With our eating habits as, um, extravagant as they've been, I decided to make a lowfat and somewhat healthy rendition of banana bread. Here's what I came up with:

**LOWFAT BANANA BREAD**
1.5 c wheat flour
1.5 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/8 tsp salt
1 egg
1 c mashed banana (I use frozen, just defrost the whole thing slightly and the peel comes right off, and it's already the right consistency too!)
1/2 c sugar
3 Tbls applesauce (I used no-sugar added applesauce NOT sugar-free, instead of oil, adds fiber and cuts out fat)
a pinch of citrus zest (for this last week's loaf I used lemon zest, but I think orange would be even better)
1/4 c chopped walnuts (I'm not a fan of walnuts, too strongly flavored in the banana bread, but that's just me)

Combine dry ingredients in a large bowl. In a medium bowl, stir in egg, sugar, banana, applesauce and zest. Add to the flour mixture until just combined, and if you'd like to add walnuts you may do so at this point.
Pour batter into a prepared (non-stick cooking spray) pan (you can use a loaf pan but I used a square pan as I have no more room to acquire a loaf pan, which also benefited me because it took less time to bake).
Bake at 350F until a wooden toothpick inserted at the center comes out clean. For the loaf pan it will be about 50 min, for the square pan I used, it took about half the time. Let cool before serving. Happy eats.

And Happy Fall!