Idea Notebooks

Ever since I was little, I've tried to keep a notebook with me at all times to write down random thoughts, ideas, song lyrics, or quotes I hear that I want to remember for the future. Sometimes I doodled, sometimes I wrote mini diary entries, and sometimes I just made grocery lists. Somehow, when I got to college, I kind of fell out of the habit of doing this, and my old notebooks are probably long gone after all the moving I've done since I graduated high school.

Now that summer is drawing to a close and first semester of 2L year is about to begin, I'm thinking of rediscovering the idea notebook. New Years has never been a big goal-setting time for me; the time of the year when I get the feeling of "new beginnings" has always been the beginning of the school year. Over New Years, the Christmas letdown still lingers, the weather has been frigid for months and will continue to be for months, and other than the date, nothing seems to really change. When school begins, though, it's time to buy fresh school supplies and pick up brand new books. The air itself begins to change: the smell of Autumn slowly drifts to the senses, the evenings and mornings become brisk. There is nothing more exciting than the feeling of being on the brink of a big change. Therefore, the beginning of the school year is when I evaluate my life. This year, I want to do so quite holistically. There is always room for improvement in all areas of life.

First things first: this blog. I created this blog to be an extension of my idea notebook ("IN"). (Sidenote: how law school was the short cite I just did? ;-).) The IN will serve as a place for drafts and brainstorming and the blog will be the final product. The nice thing about the blog is that I virtully can't lose it. Hopefully it will be a place to share my aspirations and plans- and if anyone reads it, it'll be motivation to stay on track. Sometimes life gets in the way of my great ideas- school, work, and social life are all important, and personal goals can often fall by the wayside. I want to try to have better follow through on my ideas and take the necessary time to put them into action.

I will probably do a post for each facet of my life to evaluate where I am now and where I want to be. I still need some time to consider these things, and I don't want to write prematurely. For now, though, I want to post some long-term goals that will be ongoing before and throughout the beginning of the semester.

• I read a wonderful idea in a magazine about indexing all your cookbooks. I cook quite a bit and from several different cookbooks, and I'm afraid at some point I will remember recipes but not remember where they are located. The suggestion I read involves getting one of those recipe boxes with index cards. You file the name of the recipe on an individual index card in alphabetical order, and on the index card you write the recipe name, the cookbook it came from, and the page of the cookbook. That way you keep track of everything you've cooked and where it came from.
• I also have a ton of recipes I've cut out from various magazines and printed from online. They're all stuffed in a notebook somewhere, and I rarely ever use them because they're so disorganized. I want to organize them into a binder (probably multiple binders) by category, and create a table of contents and index for them.
• Once school starts, I find it so easy to go eat something quick, and generally what I eat ends up being unhealthy. I want to spend a couple of days before school starts cooking things that freeze easily (lasagna, pesto, chicken stock, bread, etc.). I'll freeze these and other things into individual serving sizes and reheat as a meal or as the beginning of a quick meal. I also found a great recipe in my new Barefoot Contessa cookbook (Barefoot at Home) for orange marmalade that you can can yourself and keep up to 6 months. That might be a great breakfast staple.

On the topic of food, I also hope to have a few dinner parties this semester!

I'm going to call it quits for now- I think this post has become too long already. I guess I had more to say than I thought. If anyone has any suggestions about what I've written please share!