New Year Goals and Cranberry Coffee Cake for Breakfast (recipe)

Last New Year, I set myself a very simple, broad goal for the year. I'm feeling pretty confident I achieved it. This year, I'm going a little more in depth. The goals I set in September are still very much alive, but here are a few more.

In addition to (or in response to) all the fitness goals I have for myself, I signed up for #RunThisYear.

Basically, you sign up and work your hardest to run 2,014 miles this year. I set my goal a little lower for personal reasons, but if I meet my goal early - the plan is to double up and reach 2014 by the end of the year. So far this year, I've logged a whole mile. And it took me almost 20 minutes. I was with my favorite trainer (G). Running with a 5 year old is an awesome workout for a couch potato. Intervals. Serious intervals. We're talking anywhere from an 8 minute mile to a SLOW walk. And random jumping jacks thrown in occasionally, just because.

It was a great workout considering I haven't run since the end of October. I'm hoping this will be my jump-start back into things, and #RunThisYear is going to be absolutely an awesome way to help keep me motivated.


A lot of people have been talking about finding a word to motivate you for the year. A word. That's tough. I finally decided that mine will be UP. I almost went with "forward," but I felt like that wasn't quite right. I don't want to just be moving away from things, or moving on from things. I want to be uplifted and uplifting. I want my productivity to go up. I want my attitude to be up (ie. positive). I want my savings account to grow. (Ha!) There's a reason people say they're "moving up in the world." Up. Higher. I'm not looking to be rich, but I am wanting to be more successful - on my own terms - in parenting, in marriage, in home & family, in crafting, in sewing, in everything including blogging. My success will not be defined by fame or riches, but by the feelings of accomplishment.

A lot of my goals right now are pretty personal, so I'll share (like last year) some of my blogging related goals. I realized, after way too long, that the things I enjoy blogging about, where I enjoy putting the focus of this blog, is on Family, Fitness, and Food. Narrowing things down instead of feeling like I should blog about everything in the world has really brought me a lot of freedom in my blogging. And now I want to put that focus into action. That's not a very tangible goal, but here is something that will help me define what that will look like for ACL:

I will attend my first blogging conference. I haven't actually registered for one yet. Heck, I haven't even narrowed down if I want to go to Blogging Elevated, Type-A Parent, or BlogHer. I'll be honest, I'm sort of leaning toward BE. Since I actually won the scholarship last year (but was unable to attend), I've kept in touch with the community, and they have been an AWESOME resource. Plus, "elevated" and "up" right?

And just to really hit things home, I'm going to share this recipe for Cranberry Coffee Cake that I made for our New Year's breakfast today. It's too good to keep to myself.

Cranberry Coffee Cake for Breakfast
adapted from Alexandra Cooks

Ingredients:

1 cup butter (softened)
zest from one orange
1-1/2 cups + 4 Tbs sugar
2 large eggs
vanilla
1 cup vanilla greek yogurt
3-1/2 cups flour
4 tsp baking powder
2 tsp kosher salt
6 oz dried cranberries
2 Tbs raw sugar

Directions: 

Preheat oven to 350ºF

Cream butter, orange zest, and sugar.

Add eggs with a generous splash of vanilla, and mix well.

Add yogurt, and mix until well combined.

Stir flour, baking powder, and salt together in separate bowl. Slowly add to main bowl, mixing to combine.

Stir in dried cranberries.

Pour mixture into greased 9x13in pan, then sprinkle raw (or whatever kind you have) sugar over top. (The batter will be more like dough than cake batter.) Bake for 45 minutes. Let cool, then enjoy!

If you want, you can leave out the orange zest. I feel like it helps keep the cake a lighter breakfast-y taste without getting too sweet. It leaves me with less guilt feeding it to my kids for a meal. 


Have you made any New Year's goals for yourself? I'd love to hear about them! If you blogged about it, please share your links in the comments, too. And please let me know if you signed up for #RunThisYear with me! I'd love to have a little added support while I'm at it. Maybe tomorrow I can get out and run a full two miles. ;-P