Hey guys!

Hope you all had a happy holiday and a great start to the year. 🙂

Since it’s a new year, I figured it was time to update the look of the blog. It’s probably been more than a year since I last changed it and I spent a good 40 minutes today trying to find a new theme I like. I think this one suits my blog well! Here’s hoping the new look makes me want to blog more 😉

I love making goals and the start of a new year is the best time to make some new ones or renew some old ones. As you guys might remember from my 2015 recap, last year was a tough one for me. With so many changes in my life, so many things fell by the wayside and a lot of my goals went unaccomplished. But I’m ready to get back on my feet now! There’s still so many things I want to do and accomplish, and I really want to get back into the groove of things and get back to pursuing my dreams. So here are some of my goals:

WRITE

This is probably the biggest goal. I’ve left my writing for quite some time and my fingers (and the rest of my body, tbh) are ITCHING to write and my brain is full of new and old ideas that I’m dying to pursue! I have 2 story ideas percolating in my head, one old and one new. The new one was inspired by a dream that I had just a few weeks ago but it’s blossoming into a full-fledged story very quickly! My notebook has returned to my side and I can’t stop brainstorming various plot lines and character sketches. It’s been awhile since I’ve been gripped by a story like this, and so I am SO excited to sketch it out and start writing!

I’m not sure when I’ll get to actually start writing this new story since the plot is quite raw and full of holes, but regardless, I want to start writing again. Even if it’s short stories, poems, little pieces of prose thoughts, anything! I recently realised how much I’ve missed creatively expressing myself and so it’s time to get back to it!

BLOG

This goal applies to both this blog and my other. Both pretty much fell by the wayside this year, especially the other one which I used to post at least 2 times a week on! I got into a funk over the past four months and was down to blogging only once a month. Not good for business at all. 🙁 But it’s time for me to get out of my funk and get back into it. I started that blog with so much passion and excitement and it makes me sad that I’ve lost some of that passion. I want to go back to the place where the idea of the blog began and reignite my passion so I can feel excited about blogging for it, instead of feeling like it’s a chore (which it feels like now).

This blog has always been my escape from all those expectations because I’ve never had any sort of schedule or blogging rules. I blogged when I felt like it, but that began to happen less and less as life and responsibilities caught up with me. But I realise I miss this blog as an outlet for random thoughts and poems that I used to just down or even random updates into my life. It isn’t much, but it was some type of writing, and that was better than nothing. So my goal is to blog at least once a week on here. Feel free to badger me in the comments if it’s been more than a week!

BAKE

This is a goal that coincides with the one above it. I miss baking and sharing new recipes with you guys. Even though I don’t run this blog like a business, I still miss all the creative elements of trying out a new recipe, planning a photoshoot, arranging everything, and then sharing the whole process with you. It was another creative outlet for me, and also a great way to destress.

So I’ve made a list of some new recipes I’m dying to try out. It’s time for me to up my baking game and move beyond the same six/seven recipes I rotate between and get something new going! Hopefully they turn out well and I can share them with you all 🙂

LEARN SOMETHING NEW

I have a lot of hobbies (see the above three goals), but there’s still so many other things I want to do! You guys might know that I recently bought a DSLR camera. I’m still in the process of learning how to use it and it’s something I really want to get better at. I’ve loved photography for a long time (as the forgotten photography tab on this blog might indicate) but haven’t really cultivated it in awhile. I got a DSLR camera primarily for my food photography on this blog but want to use it for other photography too. Once I get the hang of it, that is!

Knitting is another skill I want to pick up. I kind of already know how to sew (basic skills really), but knitting is a whole other field! I’ve heard it’s a therapeutic hobby that yields beautiful results. There’s classes at Michaels that offer basic knitting so I might take one of those to get started.

READING

In previous years, I would be racing to meet my 90 to 100 book a year Goodreads challenge, but last year I fell short (by a lot). It’s not that I didn’t feel like reading, but more that I couldn’t squeeze it into my new schedule.

I still remember being baffled by the people who would ask me how I had time to read, when they barely had time to do their course reading during uni. Reading and books were such an integral part of my everyday routine and schedule; I couldn’t fall asleep until I read and I couldn’t eat a meal without a book in hand. I had a stack of cooking magazines that I kept around for this purpose because I just couldn’t eat without reading. But this has changed a lot with my new schedule and I can’t spend whole chunks of the day just reading like I used to. But I still vow to squeeze it in wherever I can, because I miss it like crazy and there’s so many books on my to-read list that sound AMAZING.

FAITH

So this is probably the most important, but most personal one. It’s safe to say that I need to reconnect with my faith this year. It’s a daily goal, but it deserves its own heading because it’s the one I need to work the hardest on.

So those are my 2016 goals! Pretty similar to my goals from previous years but I’m pretty determined to accomplish them since I kind of fell short last year and am behind on pursuing my life’s goals and dreams. Something else I want to start working on is making monthly/weekly goals. I’m pretty good at making big goals for the year and to-do lists for the day, but not so good at connecting the two to accomplish the big goals. So I want to try and make monthly and weekly to do lists so that I can turn my goals into manageable chunks. So what are your goals for this year? Do let me know in the comments below! And hopefully I’ll see you guys here soon 🙂

Thanks for reading,

Ikhlas