I totally dropped the ball on most of my goals for last year. It’s just the truth.

When Jeff and I decided to let me quit my marketing job, the agreement was that I would spend my time learning new skills to put toward a future career that I would make for myself. I know that I will never be happy working a regular job with regular hours for someone else, so I was excited to have the opportunity to work towards self-employment.  So, last year was about honing new skills and working on projects that may one day earn us a small income, namely through writing and photography.

I did not do the best job I could have of learning or using those skills last year. I’ve realized that my perfectionist mind has a way of stopping my progress completely if for some reason I feel that the work I’m doing isn’t perfect. I also have a bad habit of dooming myself with feelings of futility, that I’m doing months and months of work that will never pay off. And lastly, I’m realizing that I require a lot of unsolicited praise. If I’m not told that my work is good, I’ll just assume it isn’t.

In the last month or two I’ve finally started to pull out of that thought process. I’m starting to see value in my own work, to feel like it’s adding up to something worthwhile, and to accept that it won’t be perfect but that it will still be good. I wish that it hadn’t taken a year to feel that way, but I’m hopeful that I can do better to impress myself this year, to work hard to get the things I want, and to be who I want to be.

So maybe I should tell you exactly what has been causing me so much grief in the last year and what it is I’m finally excited to be working on. I’m writing a cookbook. It has been a ton of work but it’s finally coming together enough to see that all that work is adding up to something good. But not just that, I’ve also been learning how to take professional quality photos, for the book and also in the hopes of making a career out of photography some day.

Whew! I’ve waited so long to share that! Here’s a little sample of what you’ll find in the book…

Persimmon Walnut Breakfast Bread

Pork Katsu

I can’t wait to share the finished product with you! Cheers to a better 2012!

What is something that you hope to accomplish this year?

January 4, 2012 Alayna Discussion 21 comments

I’m kind of glad that I’ve waited this long to re-cap my Christmas festivities because I really just cannot bring myself to do all the “year in review” and “goals for 2012” posts that show up this time of year. I definitely have some goals for next year and some exciting things on the horizon, but I’ll save those things for another day.

This Christmas we drove up to the Chattanooga area to spend Christmas Eve with Jeff’s family.

The tree at his Papaw’s house was knee-deep in presents!

They got passed out rather quickly with the help of two “Santas.” Do you guys do that in your family? Someone, usually one of the kids gets to “play Santa” and hand out all the presents!

And in Jeff’s family everyone takes turns opening gifts one by one, so we all get to see what each person got and take pictures easily.

And when it’s not your turn to open one you can take turns snapping photos of each other instead!

After about 2 hours of unwrapping gifts (yes it takes that long but it’s part of the fun) we went into the kitchen for dessert. I brought a carrot cake because Jeff recently mentioned to me that carrot cake was his favorite, so I just had to make it for him.

Not just any carrot cake though, this was a carrot cake with a clementine cream cheese frosting! It might just be the best thing I’ve ever baked.

It makes me so happy when people like things I’ve cooked or baked, and everyone definitely loved the cake.

Carrot cake with clementine cream cheese frosting

A nutty spicy carrot cake with citrusy clementine cream cheese frosting.

Prep Time: 30 minutes

Cook Time: 55 minutes

Ingredients

• 1 and 1/4 cups softened butter
• 2 cups brown sugar
• 5 eggs (separated)
• zest and juice of one clementine
• 1 and 1/2 cups flour
• 1 heaping tsp. baking powder
• 1 cup ground almond meal
• 4 oz. crushed walnuts
• 1 heaping tsp. cinnamon
• a pinch each of clove and nutmeg
• 1/2 tsp. ground ginger
• 10 oz. finely shredded carrots
• pinch of salt
• And for the frosting:
• 8 oz. room temp. cream cheese
• 1 stick softened butter
• 1 cup powdered sugar
• zest and juice of one clementine
• 1 tbsp. honey
• 1/2 tsp. cinnamon
• 4 additional oz. of crush walnuts to top

Cooking Directions

1. For the cake:
2. Grease a 9-inch spring-form cake pan with butter and set aside.
3. Beat egg whites and salt in a large bowl until stiff peaks form.
4. In a stand mixer, cream together butter and brown sugar until light and fluffy.
5. Add eggs one at a time, mixing in between, then add clementine juice.
6. Mix together dry ingredients and zest in a separate bowl and add to wet mix in three installments, mixing completely in between each addition. Stir in walnuts and shredded carrot by hand.
7. Fold beaten egg whites into the batter gently and pour into cake pan.
8. Bake at 350 degrees for 55 minutes, then remove and let cool completely in cake pan.
9. For the frosting:
10. Beat together butter and cream cheese until light and fluffy.
11. Add zest, juice, honey, and cinnamon and mix in. Add sugar until desired consistency is achieved and frost over a completely cooled cake.
12. Top with 4 oz. of crushed walnuts to garnish.

After dessert we went back to Jeff’s parents house to spend the night so that we could leave from there to head to Hiawassee, GA the next morning. My Dad’s side of the family has moved up there in recent years and it’s a beautiful part of Georgia, even if it is 2 and a half hours away.

I was so done with snapping photos so I didn’t really take any that day except for this one of me and my Dad. Don’t we have the same eyes?

So you may have noticed that I haven’t told you what Jeff and I got for each other yet. We actually exchanged gifts the Friday before Christmas so that we’d have time to “play” with our new stuff before we had to head up to Chattanooga.

I sent Jeff down to the basement to open his since I’d been storing it down there.

It’s a home beer brewing kit! We’ll both enjoy that one! 😉

He is so excited about it and has been spending the last week reading up on brewing techniques and shopping for the ingredients he’ll need to make his first batch!

He had also been dying for me to open his gift to me for all of December, and now I know why…

It’s a Cannon Rebel DSLR camera!!! Ahhhh!

I’ve been dying for a better camera for ages. I’m really starting to understand and enjoy photography and it was time to upgrade for sure. I absolutely love the Cannon PowerShot S90 Point and Shoot that I’ve been using for the last 2 years and I’ll definitely continue to use it, but a DSLR was necessary for me to be able to continue improving my photography skills and to take more professional quality photos.

It’s also going to be invaluable for a personal project I’ve been working on…….

Anyway, I hope your holiday season was wonderful too. See you all in the new year!

December 31, 2011 Alayna Discussion, Recipes 12 comments

Hey everyone! Jeff and I are heading up to the Chattanooga area for round one of our Christmas festivities. I’m leaving you guys with this cute Christmas quiz I’ve seen around the blog world…

1. Egg Nog or Hot Chocolate? Well, I hate egg nog, but your standard hot chocolate from a powder doesn’t cut it either. It’s gotta be real hot chocolate from melted shards of good quality chocolate shaved right off the bar. Nutella helps too.

2. Does Santa wrap presents or just sit them under the tree? We always had the presents from Santa sitting out where we could see them as soon as we ran into the living room. Santa and his team are way too busy to wrap presents.

3. Colored lights on tree/house or white? When I was young we used the colored lights and covered every inch of the house with them. That was magical to me and definitely my preference. We did the white lights when I was older and it just didn’t feel Christmas-y.

4. Do you hang mistletoe? Nah, I can find plenty of good reasons to kiss my husband without it. 😉

5. When do you hang your decorations up? I’m all for leaving the month of November for Thanksgiving, so when we decorate next year I’ll probably wait until the first week of December.

6. What is your favorite holiday dish (excluding dessert)? I live for the stuffing! And a good sweet potato souffle with the brown sugar and pecan crumble topping.

7. Favorite Holiday memory as a child? I remember one year my sister and I got bean bag chairs for Christmas. They were both wrapped in boxes bigger than we were and we spent the whole month of December trying to guess what was in them. The chairs were fun, but I think we had more fun playing in the empty boxes!

8. What is on your Christmas Wish list? Many things. You can always appease me with photography books and asian dishware.

9. Do you open a gift on Christmas Eve? We always got to open one gift each on Christmas Eve and it was usually pajamas. Anti-climactic.

10. How do you decorate your Christmas tree? We’ll be decorating for the first time next year and I know for sure that I want all of our ornaments to be either handmade or deeply personal, so I’ll make enough to get it going and we’ll add to it every year when we have kids.

11. Snow? Love it or dread it? I love the stuff. Something happens to the air after a snowfall, it’s still and quiet and empty-feeling. I really like that. However, the sound of snow compacting under your winter boots is like nails on a chalkboard to me.

12. Real tree or fake tree? We always had real growing up and I do love the smell, but I think we’ll be going with a fake one to be more environmentally friendly and so that we don’t have to spend money on a new one every year. We might get a real tree once or twice just for fun.

13. Do you remember your favorite gift? The first thing that popped into my head when I started thinking was a Caboodle makeup box that my aunt gave me as a young teen. Girls love boxes with lots of compartments.

14. What’s the most important thing about Christmas for you? Getting to see all of our family. Jeff and I are the only members of our families that live in Atlanta. His family is 2 hours north and mine is an hour+ south, so we can’t just pop over for tea whenever.

15. What is your favorite Holiday dessert? While I like all of the typical holiday desserts like pumpkin pie and pecan pie, none of them are really my favorites. I always want cake and there’s rarely cake.

16. What is your favorite tradition? We didn’t really have any traditions that I can think of. I would like to make handmade Christmas ornaments with our children every year when we’re parents though.

17. What tops your tree? I’ll probably make a fancy origami star.

18. Which do you prefer: giving or receiving? I am not afraid to say that I really enjoy receiving! Who doesn’t like getting stuff? I do get a thrill though when I pick out a gift for someone that perfectly suits them and they’re really excited about.

19. What is your favorite Christmas Song?  I like the more solemn songs sung by a full choir, can’t think of the names though.

20. Candy canes, yuck or yum? I’m not really a huge peppermint fan but I don’t think they’re gross.

21. Favorite Christmas Movie? I have probably seen The Santa Clause 50 times. Tim Allen is my Santa.

22. What do you leave for Santa? I always left chocolate chip cookies. I think our future kids should leave a wedge of cake though. 😉

23. Do you have a Christmas morning tradition? Not really. We always opened presents and ate sausage balls for breakfast and then hurried over to Granny’s to do it all over again.

24. Do you prefer to shop on-line or at the mall? I hate malls. Hate em’. We did about 80% of our shopping online this year and it was wonderful. I only had to step foot in a mall once.

25. Christmas letter or Christmas card?  I don’t think we’ll do either, I’ve never been a card person.

That was fun. Hope you all enjoy your holidays, talk to you afterwards!

December 24, 2011 Alayna Discussion 3 comments