Happy New Year...

Well, for me, this hasn't been the best New Year's on record: I've been sick since Wednesday, and Justin and I decided to forgo any sort of festive celebration in favor of packing and getting ready for our move all weekend. It wasn't the most thrilling course of action, but Justin and I both have three days off of work, which is practically unprecedented given our divergent work schedules, and we felt that it would be the responsible thing to do to use that uninterrupted time to work towards our common goal of getting moved. Last night, we packed non-essential kitchen items, seasonal stuff, cleaned out the storage locker I keep at my current apartment building, and sorted a variety of other materials to figure out what's going with us, and what is staying at my parents' condo. We worked on it until about 11:30, and then had a lone celebratory cocktail to ring in 2012. Exciting stuff.

In a similar vein, my New Year's resolutions are pretty tame as well, and are focused on the new life that Justin and I are building, as opposed to scratching off items from an ambitious to-do list, like last year. In fact, I didn't even make a list this year. Instead, my goals for 2012 are twofold:

1. Finish moving. I dream of the day when all the boxes are moved, unpacked, and all of our belongings are merged, organized, and in their proper place. I want to be done painting, get our light fixtures swapped out, and the handful of carpentry projects completed. I'm looking forward to establishing new routines, and settling into life together. I'm ready for all this upheaval and stress in our lives to be behind us once and for all. I know that household projects never really end once you're a homeowner, but I'd like to have the majority of it finished. It's my single-biggest goal of 2012.
2. Cook more at home. Since Justin and I aren't currently living together, we tend to see each other most often when we are going out to do something, and that means eating out together. Once we're living together, our budget will be more restricted, and there will be a lot of quiet evenings spent together at home, so I resolve to cook more meals from scratch, together. In preparing to move, I've gone through years of back issues of Gourmet, Bon Appetit, Saveur, Everyday Food, and Food and Wine and pinned all the recipes that interested me to Pinterest so I could finally throw them away instead of hauling them all with me. I've got a seemingly endless queue of new recipes to try now, and I hope to make a huge dent in it.

I apologize, dear readers, but I believe my life is about to get a lot less glamorous. There will be less theater-going and more movies, especially movies watched at home on our new couch, via Netflix. All the bustle and activities of downtown will be further away, and more difficult to make time for. These are changes I'm willing to make to take this step with Justin, but the early stages of this new life may not exactly make for the most compelling reading material. Welcome to 2012 -- the year of quiet domesticity!