Update: The Great Alice Improvement Project

So, I vowed to be more creative and watch more movies and just be more positive in general. I couldn't stick with the Thing-A-Day thing because it honestly became too much to actually document the Thing I was making every day. For example, I make dinner almost every night and that seemed to count...so...I started to feel like the whole thing was a little redundant. I could have put restraints on myself, like, "making dinner doesn't count" but that's not very fair because I really consider cooking fabulous meals a creative outlet and I do it regularly.

For example, over this last weekend, I made:

Bread and butter pudding
Orange glazed tempeh, with kale and brown rice (I've made it twice now and I think it's one of my favourites, despite all the orange squeezing involved)
A lunch spread of pamboli, humus, olives and zata
Kale and feta salad with dill and spicy mustard dressing

I made stock yesterday and tomorrow's (Happy Birthday Ryan!) piece de resistance will be cake plus a similar setup to the above mentioned lunch spread.

I have started and frogged a project twice now and I have started writing a story that I will probably end up deleting.

Tomorrow, I will start volunteering at the front desk of a local organisation that is designed to help low-income people get back into the work force after a life changing event. While this isn't necessarily a "thing" or "creative" it is something I think will help me with some of the demons I have been dealing with since the move.

As far as seeing more good films, because I have do have some sort of regular form of cultural edification in addition to books, I have started watching things that have been on my "should watch that" list for years. For example:

Chinatown
Walkabout
The Machinist

And I've got copies of some others to watch including:

Badlands (Thanks Nina!)
The Fall (Thanks Nina!)

I have also started reading A History Of The Arab Peoples by Albert Hourani and made Ryan check out 2 books by George Bernard Shaw for me. I am also rereading The Orchid Thief, by Susan Orlean and making plans to accompany this with a purchase of an orchid. Seems to me that if the mold can continue to flourish on our window sills, despite frequent bleach baths, then an orchid would be quite happy here.

Okay, so I still haven't really made any local friends. Well, that's not true. I haven't made any come-over-to-my-house-in-your-pyjamas-let's-drink-a-bottle-of-wine-between-us-and-make-silly-jokes friends. I am working on this, however.

In OTHER NEWS: California is going bankrupt.