Well Youtube of course! And of course I dove head on and made my own channel and started experimenting with filming.
Alas over the past year I have lost a lot of desire and creativity for this goal. I started it with a lot of hopes and aspirations, but just this past year of dealing with a pandemic and working at my families businesses everyday to keep them a float I really felt like I couldn’t spend time on this hobby.
I do hope that eventually I will pick up a camera again and actually dive back into videos because when I first started, even though they weren’t good and were super dorky; I did really enjoy myself.
I wanted to have a full collection of videos to show my improvement over time and maybe one day I will, but for now I set off with the intention to learn film in some way and I did.
I was really hard on myself whether I should have this count as a completed goal and I feel that I went out there and tried something new and did something out of my comfort zone. That alone should be rewarded. Plus I did in fact learn video editing and confidently make a home video, so I will take it!
Immediately I knew I wanted to make it. Luckily for me it also consisted on some leather work and therefore lines up with my goals list. Which gave me the perfect excuse to make this tome of a book.
Now mine is nowhere near as incredible as this girl’s, but mine is something I’m proud of for it’s simplicity and the fact that I sat down and just made a book by hand! That right there has got to give me some bragging rights.
There were a few things I did differently (read: wrong), but I think mine turned out alright.
Pic montage!
Though mine is simple and isn’t quite right I’m proud of it’s quirkiness and even though I don’t know when I will ever use this I’m happy I made it! The leather work on mine isn’t nearly complex as what I was hoping for, but to be honest I’m not that artsy or crafty so when it came down to trying to design something with the leather I came up blank as to what I should do. I could have copied the video, but even that was kind of complex for me and just finding leather and getting it on the book and staining it was a bit harder than I was expecting. It kind of felt like I was struggling more than I should have, but I didn’t know what I was doing and by the time I finally got near a finished product I was already super happy with it from where I started.
So there is my book! I’m still trying to decide what to do with it, or if I should just leave it on my mantle as decorations of something. Perfect timing for me to finish this up since spooky season is upon us!
Ladies and Gentlemen the girl who does not drink is now a bartender.
Yes you have read that right. Me and alcohol are a no go. All of it smells and tastes the same to me. Which kind of makes being a bartender a smidge difficult, as far as trying to give recommendations and such. I’ve been getting by surprisingly well off just with cleverly named beers (such as Spaceman and Jetman Jimmy) and interesting bottle names (such as Hoover’s Revenge).
This goal wasn’t initially on the list, but I decided to change one of the items to Bartending because an opportunity came (more like thrown at me like a curve ball) for me to learn how to bartend.
Let’s rewind 2 weeks ago when my brother had sprung it on me that he would need me to cover his bar shift for a weekend so that he could go on his anniversary. Okay can’t really argue with him for missing work cause that stuff is important, but why leave me with a bar! I didn’t know how to make cocktails, couldn’t tell the difference between vodka and gin, not to mention I could not for the life of me pour a beer, oh and the most obvious being that I don’t even drink!
So with all that panic happening in my head I changed one of my skill goals to Bartending to motivate me into getting serious about being a bartender.
The Bar
Que a training montage everyday that week with my brother at the bar where he showed me that I just wasn’t pulling the beer tap handle far enough, so it was just coming out foamy. So thank goodness I figured out that one, cause I was getting a lot of flack for not being able to pour a beer. Any way once we figured out my beer problem we decided to practice my 4 count for pouring liquor. Had that down no problem and then he focused on teaching me some cocktails specific to the menu. Which I did not feel super confident in, but he said all I had to do was look at the menu if I needed help and it wouldn’t be a problem.
After that he focused my attentions on the wine list. The wine list consists of over 50 wines and I had to figure out where each one was stored and which ones were already open. Had to study up on a lot of wines very quickly and the problem even more so with wine is that wine has a whole culture with it, there is more descriptions, more everything when it comes to wine. Did I remember any of these things? No.
By the weekend I still had absolutely no idea what I was doing and then it hit me that we had practiced cocktails on the menu, not basic cocktails that any regular person would know ie. margaritas, martinis, manhattans (for some reason I can only remember drinks that star with m). So about an hour and a half in I had a mini panic attack once I got an order that was different than mimosas or bloody mary’s (thank you brunch people for easy drinks!). After stumbling through a cocktail that I am not really sure was correct I started to realize that it was just a drink.
I know this sounds dumb, but it hit me that if it was really bad they would complain to the server and I’d just remake it. Sure it wouldn’t be great to waste alcohol, but I was learning and I didn’t know what I was doing. I just gotta make the drinks the way the customers like them and no harm in asking if they want me to remake it or try something new. That was when I learned that a lot of bar customers really do enjoy teaching a new bartender their favorite drinks and their favorite bar tricks.
I spent that weekend learning the ins and outs of certain cocktails and generally learning the area of the bar (plus I had one guy stay at the bar for a few hours teaching me bar magic tricks!). I had spent a full 5 days freaking out trying to learn everything without just jumping in and that was dumb. You learn how to make drinks, just by doing it and if you screw up you just fix it and move on to the next drink.
Do I know every drink of all time? No not one bit. But with my new found bar knowledge and knowing the basics I feel confident in being able to figure out how to make any drink.
I was never born with a green thumb. Killing things has been more my area of expertise…. And wow that’s the start of a terrible young adult novel. My bad.
Anyway! I took upon me the challenge of learning how to garden. Courtesy of my dear friend Ashley whom bought me herbs to start off my gardening (and became my go to gardening guru). Cause I believe if it’s an herb that I will be using for cooking and such that I will be less likely to kill it. Hopefully.
Here is Ashley being my gardening guru and teaching me how to pot my herbs and such. Giving me the full basic breakdown cause lord knows I need any and all the help I can get.
Oh and my brother’s dog Diesel is sniffing the soil hoping that it’s a snack. (Spoiler: It is not.)
Anyway it’s been 2 months now and I just wanna say they all were alive! They really were and I was so proud of myself.
Look at em all alive!
See y’all look how content and proud I am of my herbs!
Let me tell you the story of my herbs. I have Spearmint, Rosemary, Thyme, Cilantro, Basil, and some Marigold to keep the bugs away. Perfect simple set up for me! All things I would care about and I did!
But tragedy struck.
THE CILANTRO AND BASIL WERE MURDERED!
And I loved them the most.
You see a bear resides near my house and he (or she I don’t really know, but from here on out I’m referencing the bear as Mr. Bear) climbed onto my deck at around 9pm and stole my basil that was in the center of the cilantro. Mr. Bear did not care for the cilantro, but he went after the basil and the cilantro became a causality because of it.
Am I getting a bit to over dramatic about this?
No! NEVER!
Y’all I am saddened by my loss, but I still have successfully taken care of plants and even thought it’s only been 2 months I am counting that as a win because I fear for the next plant Mr. Bear goes after. Also I did acquire some gardening skills, which was the main point of this (not emotional attachments to herbs).
Commit and Venture 