Happy New Year!

Well, hello friends! Long time no talk. I guess you've heard by now...it's a new year. We brought in the new year with friends and it was such a great time. The food was amazing and the good times even better!

My friend Nayoung always puts out a great spread of food! We also had vegetarian chili and beef stew!

I brought some of my gluten free angel food cake with seven minute icing for late night treats!

I will tell you that the crazy xbox dance party we had until 4am left me a little on the exhausted side on Sunday. While we did not take the tree down, we did have our traditional New Years dinner. That is a must no matter how tired we are. I seared and roasted pork tenderloin served with black eyed peas and steamed cabbage. I always find it interesting to hear about others' traditions for holidays and since I grew up with the pork, beans and greens tradition, I am happy to pass it on to my boys. We all look forward to this meal! Do you have a traditional New Years meal or New Years eve dish you have to have?

To tell you the truth, I'm pretty excited about 2012. I've had my good years and I've had my bad. 2011 was definitely an odd year for me and sadly not good for some of my close friends. I had my share of lows this year, but I really tried to see through those and grow from them. That's definitely a hard thing for me to do, especially when it comes to personal pain, but I would like to think I grew from those experiences (which I consider my good for the year). I had to make some really hard decisions, but they were my decisions and I'm standing by them.

Professionally, I feel like I've really grown and am continuing to grow it! I'm working on some pretty great things for me right now. I'm doing my case study for my Specialist in Fitness Nutrition Certification and then I will be done with that course (cross your fingers all will be good on that end). I hit my goal of finishing the course before the new year, now I'm giving myself one more week to complete everything. I've also decided to go for my Personal Training Certification right after that. I know, crazy. My brain is like a sponge right now! I have a feeling getting certifications is gonna be a crazy addiction for me...but a good one for sure. I want to combine my career as a chef with those certifications to really put my focus on helping other's achieve there health goals. The kitchen seems to be such an intimidating part of changing peoples' health and it happens to be my favorite part! I want to write more and I want to be in the kitchen more. I really miss my kitchen lately, but I know me not being in it so much right now is a good thing. I guess working on being more patient is something I need to work on too.

Speaking of which, do you do resolutions? I HATE resolutions. I feel like I'm setting myself up for failure with resolutions. I'm a goal person, but I like making specific goals that are things I can actually achieve with a plan. Making unrealistic resolutions with no plan of action sets me up for failure fast. I have a lot of plans for change this year. I will go into detail once I take the time to figure out how to achieve these changes. I'm really excited though! For now, I have to focus on my course and then I can put my plan into action!

To all of you out there (my friends), I really appreciate your support and encouragement this past year. I look forward to a great year with all of you! I wish you all an incredibly health and happy New Year!