Cooking

Continuing with my challange to improve, I want to work on my cooking skills. I enjoy cooking and baking and would love to get better. This will require me to get out of my comfort zone and start making more then my 25ish dinner recipes that I make over and over again and stop making desserts that come in a box. 

Food just makes people more happy. For me cooking is relaxing and satisfying, especially when everyone loves the food and are vocal about it! :) The smell of something cooking brightens a home and makes it more of a welcoming and inviting place. Eating yummy food satisfies the hunger and the soul. 

Along with cooking, I love hosting. Having friends and family over, eating my cooking, playing games and laughing around the table. Eating together is a great way to bond, strengthen relationships and get to know new people. 

I want to strengthen relationships and make new friends eating yummy food and enjoying each others company. So I am on the look out for new recipes. I have a goal to make at least 5 new recipes a month, to grow my recipe book and better my cooking. 

If you have a great recipe that you would like to share, I would love that. 

A New Skill

So my last post I talked about needing more hobbies, to gain more skills and to better myself. So this post is about that. I want to have something I can do when Ollie is sleeping and the house is quiet. So this new skill is Sewing. I would love to be able to make curtains for my windows, Halloween costumes for my family, and other fun projects. I think this is a great new hobby for me. It will give me time for myself but it will also better my home and family. So I now have a sewing machine.

I grew up around sewers, my sister Jenessa is very crafty and is pretty amazing! If I ever need help with my projects it is her that I call (she has already helped me in getting started with my first project). I took some sewing classes in high school and learned to do the basics and how to read a pattern, so I have some basic knowledge on this topic. It's been about 7 years since I have done any sewing and don't really remember much, but I am hopeful that once I start it will all come back to me pretty quick.

I have a few fun projects that I think will be great starters for me and I really hope that I can pick it up. I am most nervous with reading the patterns and getting it right. I remember struggling with patterns when I was learning and now I am not sure that I really remember anything about it. This is the one I picked to do first, it's a sewing machine cover and organize pockets. I thought that if I did this first, then I would have them for the other projects that I do.

So wish me luck and hope that I don't ruin the lots of fabric needed for this project. I will keep you in the loop on how this all turns out and show you the finished works.

Balance

Okay so I have been thinking, I need to do something that will better myself, something that helps me feel like I am accomplishing something. I feel that through getting married and having a baby I do less things for myself, spending my time on everyone else or wasting it by doing a lot of nothings. 

In high school I was involved in sports and have always found ways to continue playing them, but I have relized I haven't played much sense being pregnant and having Ollie. I worked and now I stay home. I stayed up late hanging out with friends, reading or doing whatever and now I am lucky to make it to 11. I love being a stay at home mom, I love watching my 1 year old grow. It is one of the most amazing things to be a mom and I would never want anything different. 

I am a wife and a mother, but I am so much more. I need to take more time for myself, to find things that make me a better person. I compare myself to what I used to do, to what I do now and feel as though I am not fulfilling my full potential. 

So basically I am saying that I want to push myself to do more. To play sports, to cook more, to exercise, to keep up on cleaning the house, to gain more hobbies, making more friends and being more social, to get involved in the world around me and still be a great stay at home mom. 

I am not sure how I am going to do this yet but I am determined to find ways to make my life feel more balanced. Are there ways that you have found that help you feel more balanced? Well wish me luck!