a project & a single 'one word'

So I have an idea for the new year. I want to make this blog a better blog (says the girl who hasn't posted for a few days), and I want to challenge myself in areas where I relish a challenge. Thus, I came up with Project 100.

Project 100 has two different "branches": cooking and books/movies. 

I'll start with the latter. In the long gone year of Twenty-Eleven, I've seen a few different people read and review 100 books. That seems like a cool idea, and I want in on the fun. But I'm going to give it a little twist to include movies. A few rules: 

-I cannot have read them/watched them before. 

-They cannot be from school. (That would just make it too easy, right?) 

-I can't do a straight-forward review. 

The last rule needs some explanation, I know. What I mean is this. A lot of people review books and movies, and a lot of people do it better than I ever could. And so, I want to do it a bit differently. Maybe compare books from within a genre? Maybe talk about similar ideas from multiple books? Maybe have a showdown of favorites? Maybe talk about how the ideas in that book or movie move around in the atmosphere? 

I don't know. But not knowing is the fun part. 

Let's talk about the cooking bit of Project 100.

Confession: I'm not a reliable cook. 

Confession: I can cook complex things really well, but when I have to cook out of a box it's like my mind says "this is stupid" and then leaves. (Later: Mom: "Why is there cardboard in the oven?") So it's either complex things or salad. Nothing in between, sorry. 

Confession: I don't know how to cook a lot of the more complicated stuff. 

Confession: Thus, I really can't cook a lot. 

BREAKTHROUGH: And so, I've made myself a list of a 100+ different recipes from all sorts of different cookbooks. Game cookbooks, colonial cookbooks, Greek cookbooks, pan asian cookbooks, good ol' American cookbooks, pastry cookbooks, etc. I figure if I work through that list in a year (and it's not a huge commitment, since I can just cook about one recipe a week and still get through it), I'll learn to cook. 

And I'm going to take pictures and brag about or lament or threaten the food. I'll probably have a couple different recipe results in any recipe post so you're not getting a blow-by-blow account of my scatterbrainedness. Because that could get old. Ergo, contain the scatterbrainedness! Let it be confined!

But not to fear, there will still be plenty of This Solid Ground-iness. There are 365 days in a year, after all. 

Building a better blog sounds nice, but the idea of becoming a better person also has some appeal to me. Limited, maybe, but still. :P And so, I've decided to do this "One Word" thing. It's where you scrap all the resolutions and choose one word to focus on for the year. A word to think about. To ponder. To explore.

I chose the word "roam." I want to roam, and I want to always be roaming even when I'm sitting still. Roaming in the resting. Roaming, exploring this life, learning about God, not bowing to cultural stuffs and not always following the road signs to a t. Roaming through the many worlds of my stories, roaming through the worlds of other people's stories, and, most importantly, roaming farther and farther into God's world. Not roaming into shallowness because there's no space in shallowness. Not being afraid of confronting shallowness because, as with any true roamer, I've been places. I've been taken into the arms of God and shallowness has nothing on me now. Roaming because I can roam and because I don't have to be afraid because Jesus already blazed this trail. Roaming because life is for the taking. Roaming because life is art.

roam.

Erm. And about the word count. I don't even want to update because it's so pathetic. My mind was...well...roaming. But it was good roaming. Made-the-story-better kind of roaming. I guess it was okay, but still. The word count is pathetic.

So yes. I'll make a little page for Project 100. Be on the lookout.

Happy New Year.

Rose