It's that time of year again when we must all look to our lives, mutter a bit and then decide, for good or ill, to make some changes. And this, I am proud to announce, is the first anniversary of the day I gave up smoking - from 30 a day to 0 in one painful wrench - and I haven't smoked a single cigarette since. Not one!Which tells me that, if I put my mind to it, I can keep any resolution I care to, because anyone who knows me can tell you exactly how dedicated a smoker I was. I had set times, set places, set acceptable periods between nicotine hits. As Blanca put it, if I can does it, anyone can does it (she's Spanish).
So what should I set my sights on this year? At the risk of setting myself up for a fall, because I'm stupidly recording these in a public place, I shall list them and see how long they last.
1. To own my own home - I'm fed up of paying through the nose for a flat without a window, I want to set my feet on the lowly bottom rung of the property ladder. I don't care if it's a barn with a view, I want a place to call my own. And paint pink.
2. To get out more - of the country, I mean. I haven't been abroad since Cyprus, many moons ago, and Tim assures me it's not even a proper country (not one anyone cares about, anyway). I'm meant to be going to Las Vegas to see Vici next month but it's going to be a struggle to come up with the funds. Will I manage it? Watch this space...
3. To pay off my debts - maybe not completely, but I sure am bored of all the student crap hanging over my head. I'm 28, I shouldn't still be paying off my boozy years!
4. To learn at least one new skill - specifically, photography and html. In that order. My dear old dad has been a photographer for 50 years, time to leg it off with the torch, methinks.
5. To read better books - I read at such a ridiculous speed (so I'm told) that I really ought to start learning a few things from what my eyes are scanning. Enough trash, time to be a bit more discerning! Suggestions welcome...
And finally:
6. To Be Better - I was going to call this one something icky like reaching for my dreams, but my Entertainment Guru came up with this resolution and it's such a marvel I've decided to take it for myself. For me, though, it has a fairly specific meaning: moving closer to my personal goals. I want to finish the kids' book Bill (OYM's master illustrator and a man whose imagination makes me feel about 5 years old again) and I are working on, I want to expand my SL horizons (possibilities are opening with another news team), I want to try new things and write for more places I've always wanted to write for. And, most of all, I want to finish my bloody novel - the dust on it would choke a donkey.
So there we have six spanking new resolutions for the year. As far as I'm concerned, the more you make, the more likely you are to keep one and get to be smug about it at the end of the year.
11 comments:
/me claps :) Well done you!
Be better! Look, if this entertainment guru thing is going to pan out, I'm going to have to grow a bigger beard. And wear robes.
Or not.
Thank you Gillian :D
Tim, you can't do that, IDV would never recover from the disappointment. You could get a swanky cyber-setting and speak in a funny voice like Sir Patrick Moore in Gamesmaster, though.
YAY GOOD JOB! I'm so proud of you for quitting smoking!
I didn't know you were coming to the states?! You need to come visit me on the way! Just come to Illinois before running across to the west!
I could be like a shaman, and people would ask "yo, Tim, how do you hurl fireballs from your fingertips?"
Tim: You've been watching The Shat in the World of Warcraft adverts, haven't you?
Amanda: why thank you :D And erm...is Illinois on the way, is it?
No. No I haven't.
Yes.
YEAH! It's so on the way. But I don't know where you'd stay. I wish you could stay here, but my mom would flip.
You're right, WillowC.
The disappointment may be too much!
Although, robes blow open quite a lot in gusts of wind...
Oh good grief, not here as well!
Come to the bosom of photography mama. *hugs*! and as for paying off debts....? Youll do it just in time to afford more gigantic new ones. but good for you on the smoking and goals. My goal is to wake up without QWERTY printed on my face every morning.
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