2 sisters 2 cities Archives - 2 Sisters 2 Cities

Posted by 2 Sisters 2 Cities on January 3, 2013

goals for 2013

It’s now an annual tradition to share my goals for the year on this blog (Here were my goals for 2010 and 2012…apparently having a newborn baby made me less goal-oriented in 2011.) Instead of drafting lofty resolutions, I always like to break it down into smaller goals that I’m more likely to accomplish throughout the year. I don’t always follow up on all of them, but it’s nice to sit down and prioritize how I want to focus my life. Here are some of my goals for 2013:

Read 26 books in 2013. Last year, I set 26 books as my Goodreads 2012 reading challenge number, but I fell short by 14 books…oops. I’m hoping to try to reach this challenge this year by skipping the tv more often each evening and reading instead.
Try yoga again. Since moving to the ‘burbs, I haven’t belonged to a gym or any kind of fitness studio. I recently bought a 10-pack of yoga classes through one of those group coupon deals and I’m hoping to incorporate more fitness into my weekly schedule.
Focus on eating more “real” breakfasts and lunches. I’m pretty good at making a “real” dinner each night for our family, but often I find myself just grabbing whatever throughout the day whenever I’m hungry. I made this Greek Veggie Wrap yesterday for lunch and it was so good (and healthy!) I’m hoping to try a lot more smoothie recipes for breakfast as well.
Keep organizing! Even though we have lived in our home for over a year now, I still find there are spots that I haven’t touched since I initially unpacked them. I’m planning on doing some major basement reorganizing this winter and some garage projects this spring when it starts to warm up a bit.
Grow 2 Sisters 2 Cities. While K and I are very proud how much our little blog has grown in the past few years, we want to keep growing and improving it every day. I want to try many new recipes this year and also continue to work on my food photography and editing skills.

What are you hoping to accomplish in this upcoming year?

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Posted by 2 Sisters 2 Cities on January 3, 2013

Continuing along with M’s Favorite Posts from this year, I have a few posts to add that were my favorite. We appreciate all our dedicated readers and I am excited about all the projects and recipes that I will get to share with you in 2013. Here are my top five favorite posts of 2012:

1. Earlier this year I threw my boyfriend’s Mom a pink-themed 60th birthday party. I used all different shades of pink for all the decorations. It was a lot of fun to go to various stores to find things that would work with my theme. Even though the party was just a small and intimate gathering, putting in the extra time and effort in planning a theme turned out really well.

2. The Jalapeño Popper Stuffed Chicken is one of my favorite meals to make. It is so delicious and so easy to make.

3. I love these Garlicky Meatballs. These make it into our menu rotation once every few weeks. They are really easy to make as a quick weeknight meal. I make a whole batch and freeze half of them for another time. I usually make a batch of quick pasta sauce and pasta to serve with the meatballs.

4. My Trip to Costa Rica last Spring was my main vacation for the year. It was definitely an experience to remember and I love all the photos I took of the breathtaking views of the volcanoes, beaches, and wild life. My boyfriend and I also got really great pictures of us together that we have since printed and now hang in our home.

5. For my family’s Fourth of July party this year, my sisters, Mom, and I pulled together our creativeness while throwing our annual family reunion wiffle ball tournament and lunch. I was inspired by Pinterest for a lot of the ideas and had a lot of fun coming up with decorating ideas. We also got to try out a lot of fantastic recipes from fellow food bloggers!

2012 was a great year for 2 Sisters 2 Cities. I can’t wait to share more with you all in 2013!

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Posted by 2 Sisters 2 Cities on December 31, 2012

I can’t believe the sun is setting on what is the final day of 2012…what a blur of a year! We are also celebrating the third anniversary of 2 Sisters 2 Cities this month. To wrap up the year, K and I have decided to each highlight our top five favorite posts from this past year. (She will be listing hers in a separate post.)

2012 was a great year for 2 Sisters 2 Cities with over 200 posts! This past year, we’ve really focused on growing 2S2C with more frequent posts and better quality content and photos. In addition, we rolled out our new logo and theme this past year. We are happy to report that we are already seeing results- our visitor traffic is now ten times higher than it was last December! A huge thanks to all our loyal readers who read our blog so faithfully for the past three years. Now, moving on to my top five posts of 2012…

1. We were very excited to kick-off 2012 with a New England vs New York Super Bowl. K and I decided to have a little competition of our own and had a Super Bowl recipe throwdown. I came up with a recipe for Lobster Nachos, while K whipped up some Buffalo Chicken Bites with Zesty Blue Cheese. Unfortunately New York won both events, but we had a great time coming up with regionally-themed appetizers.

2. While this was actually a series of 15 posts, I tried a lot of new fruits and vegetable recipes over the course of spring and summer with my Fresh Produce Tuesday series. It gave me some great ideas for recipes to make with fresh, local produce. I’m already counting down the days until the opening day for farmers markets!

3. In September, I wrote this post for an Apple, Walnut, and Blue Cheese Salad with Dried Cherries while I was visiting my parents. It was so hard to narrow down a particular favorite recipe from the year, but I adore how the photos of this salad turned out. It also helped that I made this recipe countless times afterwards.

4. This fall, I did a post with a tutorial on how to make your own Rolling Storage Crate. I’m happy to report that we love using it for T’s ever growing book collection in his room. This ended up being our most popular post of the year and was even featured on Knock Off Decor.

5. In November, I threw a Mickey Mouse-themed party for T’s 2nd birthday. I had a great time pulling this together for my little guy’s special day. I think I may have overdid it on the Mickey Mouse birthday and Halloween costume though as T suddenly went cold turkey with Mickey Mouse Clubhouse and will only watch Curious George now (monkey party next year anyone?)

Again, thanks so much to all our wonderful readers who helped us grow so much this past year. Cheers to a memorable 2012 and another cheers to a fresh start for 2013!

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