Wishing you a Happy New Year!

If you've been following my twitter feed (if you don't, and have a wish to hear super random thoughts on life, I'm @keshetstarr), you know I've been cooking a lot this week.

Why all the cooking, you may ask?

This Wednesday is Rosh Hashana--the Jewish New Year! Also the Jewish equivalent of a triathlon cooking-wise. Instead of cooking one or two Thanksgiving-sized meals, I'm cooking five. Luckily, I like to cook:) Oh, and I have a very helpful hubby!

There are so many fun details about Rosh Hashana I could tell you about! Since it's the new year (we like to get it started in September instead of January, according to the Jewish calendar), it's a custom to have sweet foods for a "sweet year." That means apples and honey (the classic), challah and honey (best thing EVER. trust me), and lots of sweet foods. And extra dessert, naturally. Another custom is to have a food you haven't eaten all year, so you can make a special blessing on it. So my fruit bowl is now filled with pomegranates, starfruit, and some strange fruit that look like sweet potatoes but have horns on them? That was S's pick, if you're wondering.

The customs are all really fun, but the real point of Rosh Hashana is that in Judaism, we believe it's the time where G-d makes major decisions for the future year and judges us on our actions. It's sort of like a "tax day for the soul" where we stop and think about who we are, where we're going, and what we need to work on. I find that for myself, it's so easy to think that I'm doing enough. I'm nice enough, I give enough charity, I think of other people enough. But in reality, the good things I may do don't erase the many mistakes I've made or areas I need to grow in. And even if I'm not failing horribly at something (like speaking nicely to telemarketers, for example--ahem), there's always room to grow.

I don't want to just do enough. I want to do my best. Especially now that I'm going to have a little person to raise soon, G-d willing, I want to pay close attention to the areas of myself that need work, and get cracking.

And on a less serious note, it wouldn't be a holiday post without a Maccabeats video!

What's one thing YOU want to work on this year?