Spring Cleaning

Today Spring seemed to give us an early peek at her splendor. The weather was mild and the sun was shining. The sense of new beginnings that accompanies spring inspired me to take a look at what potential new adventures are on my own horizon.

Last summer I asked the question: "Can I craft a life full of friends, adventure, passion and excitement on the salary of an executive assistant in only 5 weeks, oh, and figure out what to do with my life?" Shockingly, I did just that.

My culinary club is still going strong, despite a bit of a winter lull, we still have events frequently and several of the members have become true friends. My social calendar is full when I want it to be, my "Rolodex" containing women whom I can arrange outings with at my leisure. After some major upheaval, my life is fairly stable. My jobs both suck, but they are bearable! I finally know beyond a shadow of a doubt which direction I want to take career wise; passion winning out over pretension and money. I create little adventures in the city I adore, and my life is rather good. The question now is what to do next.

Some of my original weekly checklist items need to be maintained; I need to continue to fight my inner hermit (though this has become much easier!), continue taking care of myself in the gym, continue maintaining my blogs, expand my culinary repertoire and try to do at least one thing every week to push myself. I think my next set of goals need to be based on focusing my passion. Like I said, I know the direction I want to take, but I really don't know the destination and the only way to find out is to dabble in a bit of this and that.

I know I want to work in the culinary field, but doing what? I have no doubt that life has some interesting possibilities that I could not even imagine, so I am going to stay open to whatever comes my way! I need to start testing the waters though. With that in mind, I want to start writing restaurant reviews, possibly linked to yet another blog! The Treasure Hunt, will chronicle the gastronomical adventures of a young, broke woman in Manhattan. I think it could be really good. After many conversations, damning the new NY Times food critic Sam Sifton, I have realized that good reviews are not about scientific accuracy, but about telling a good story. I think I can do that! I will at least try and find out.

I also have some interesting food projects brewing; I was asked to conduct some kind of culinary class at the VA vet center in Brooklyn and one of my girlfriends is working on a culinary tours business idea and invited me to join her team. I need to dedicate some time each week to New Culinary Projects.

I have roughly six months before I could potentially be starting my master's degree program at NYU. I want to spend those six months enjoying everyday adventures, enjoying my interesting friends and meeting new ones, honing my culinary passion and making my life even more fulfilling. I don't know what my destination looks like, but I know I am on the right track. It will not be perfect, because life never is. There are more ups and downs coming my way, but as long as I can maintain my sense of wonder and adventure, I know everything will come together for me.

Here's to the next evolution of the experiment; crafting the career of my dreams. I'm in New York City, land of dreams and giants, if I can make it here I can make it anywhere.