My hair is longer.

Wrap up posts are always a bit tedious. Both to write and to read. But we write the equivalent of the mass mail out Christmas letter because we feel the need for a punctuation mark in this little written universe of ours. So here goes...

There were and are plenty of things I could write about, but the first thing that came to my very very tired mind tonight as I bullied myself into writing the sort of post I usually glaze over, was that my hair is longer than it was this time last year. Quite a bit actually. Sometimes, in the tedium of growing my hair and trying to keep it looking healthy, it has felt as if it's not growing at all. That I'm spending all this time pursuing something that's just not possible, and as far as poorly drawn metaphors go, that about sums up good portions of this year.

But whining is not attractive at the best of times, and even at the worst of times it's not really one of my defining characteristics, because no one ever achieved much whining, and I've always been an overachiever.

So here's a few things I actually achieved this year:

I started drawing again. I've talked about it and half heartedly tried to pretend I was making an effort, when in reality I wasn't doing much of anything. But this year I really did, and I was even brave enough to give some of it away to a friend who deserved something much more impressive, but who was properly appreciative of the effort and thus I love her to bits.

I started a training program for a Royal Australian and New Zealand medical college and got excellent reviews. I got referees to say wonderful things about me and make me cry (in the good way). And if I didn't pass my exam first go, that's ok, I can do it again.

I moved into my first house all on my own and not only survived, but enjoyed myself. I went to the beach after work and sat on the sand. I stopped and bought icecream just because I could. I stayed up to late and read crappy books to cure the insomnia. I got up too early and did yoga on my purple mat.

I came home to my beautiful family and never want to leave again. Though it would be nice to still be able to pop down to the beach after work, or to the top of the mountain. I'd still rather come home to a noisy house full of squabbles and laughter and hugs and tiny sunburned hands that grip my fingers and steal my pillow in the middle of the night. I sleep better here.

But in general , 2012 was far harder than I anticipated, and in ways I hadn't expected. It hasn't been so much about enjoying as surviving and it's not my favourite way to live. 2011 finished on such a high - home from Paris, a major life long dream fulfilled, succeeding at work, succeeding at home, loving my beautiful children and with dreams this year of saving for our first home together. And I think that has what has been hardest this year, not the long hours, though they have been longer than almost any other time I have worked, or the stress of Bingley's prolonged unemployment, or the financial difficulties, or my weight gain that has been enough that my beautiful clothes that I wore to Paris pinch and no longer drape as they're supposed to. No, what has been hardest of all is that it has seemed pointless to dream, for fear of disappointment, and with no tangible goals to work for, I have floundered.

So for 2013, my goals are these - to have goals again. To work for them, even if they are smaller than the dreams of a year ago, when circumstances were different. To feel beautiful again, and dress accordingly. To learn how to curl my hair in curls that last longer than the time it took to put them in. To pass my exam. To go on a holiday, booked and planned in advance, even if it's not as glamorous as Paris, and sit in the heat with Bingley with limp hair and drink mojitos in the sunset.

Sometimes, I forget I'm 31, and I want someone to swoop in and save me. To make me feel clever and fun and beautiful and to make it all easier for me. To not worry about money or learning or holding the steel that is pressed against a person's heart and controlling their fate. To wake up and worry only about doing my hair and  making breakfast for the family and planning dinner and listening to homework. To still feel like there is magic and joy in the world.

But it's not my job or my study that takes that away, and no Disney Prince could ever give it to me either. And there are moments of magic still, when I make someone laugh, while taking away the fear of the procedure I'm doing. Of being thanked by the big burly security guard when I've given him the joint injection that means his arms work like they're supposed to. Or the little old lady who tears up when I am the first person to explain what it is that she's doing in hospital and why I'm doing what I'm doing. Who holds my hand with frail paper skin that buckles under my blade and bruises at a whisper.

Little old ladies always comment on my hair too. My beautiful long hair. I guess that's another thing I achieved: I have my old hair back.

Sun setting on 2012

PS I want to write about Christmas
PPS I want to write more this year. And not just because Liss told me to.

Curtain call for 2011

My facebook wall has exploded today, full of wishes and cheer and resolutions. Enigmatic and encouraging slogans, pictures of fitness and cheer and sparkling love in amongst the excitement of welcoming in a new year. It is a yearly tradition, and one I've participated in before. A new year, a new leaf, a new life journey to travel. Entreaties to positivity and something better these 366 days that will make up 2012.

Usually I'd be in the thick of it, grand declarations of plans and exciting resolutions. To be fitter, healthier, happier. Something more than the year before. Seeking, searching that golden year to fire the spirit, and knowing that while it may be very much like every other year that the optimism in approaching it allows for brief moments of hope and glee.

And instead I lie here in bed, unwilling to get up just yet, not because of a sore head or hangover or even misery. But just because I like lying in bed. And I have to go to work in an hour and though I don't want to I have to, because people have not ceased to become ill simply because it is Sunday.

Whether I make resolutions or not, 2012 will be a tough year. At the very least I will be studying again, and hard. I will be stressed and tired. In the second half of the year I have to leave home and work away - far away - for about 6 months. I am not looking forward to that.

I didn't make a resolution to read more in 2011, but I did anyway, and I want to keep that going. There's no resolution for that, just a quiet conviction that my life is better for books and a determination to keep it going. I learned to wear eyeliner in 2011 and wore it in Paris on top of the Eiffel Tower. And I wore it with a bright red dress to a ball. I bought a phenomenal amount of clothes in 2011, some because they were needed when the first half of the year made me so anxious that I lost a dress size, but some just because there was therapy in finally owning things that were pretty.

My resolution last year was to breathe and to go to Paris, and I did both. I breathed in Paris until the fine white dust coated the inside of all my veins and will never leave me even if I never see her again. It was my highlight, my pinnacle, my Gleam. I stood in the rain on the banks of the Seine and let it mist in my hair. I stood at the parapet of Renaissance castles and gazed out at the loveliness like princesses did centuries before. I sat on the steps of a tiny farmhouse in Versailles and watched the pigs in the garden. I ate a grape from the vine in Amboise and I climbed the steps of Montmartre all the way to the top of Sacre Coeur.

I sat in a tuktuk in Bangkok as we careened through traffic while disco lights above me danced in staccato blue and pink. I rode a bike through fruit plantations in Southern Thailand and ate hot and sour soup on the Mekong. My hands got burned because I forgot to put suncream on them, and I only noticed later as I was swimming in the pool on the 19th floor. I wore Louboutins to a famous roof top bar and I drank sunsets as the clouds turned gossamer pink after the rain. I ate street food picked from a sign and Pepsi from glass bottles.

I started doing yoga again, properly this time, and rediscovered my flexibility and strength. My standing strength that allows me to move into natarajasana fluidly and to arch more easily each time. The focus on my connectedness to Earth as all other thoughts and sensations flee, leaving a flood of warm breath instead.

I read more to the girls, and we started on a few of my favourite books. I cried while reading the sad parts of Harry Potter and cried more when the Elfling laughed out loud at the funny bits, so glad am I that she's starting to finally to enjoy the process of reading and the wonder of written worlds.

I read the Millennium Trilogy and Jane Eyre and Gatsby. I finally read Wuthering Heights and don't really get the fuss aside from this one line which I underlined in my book because I liked it so much*. I have decided that I"m going to do that with my books now and write freely in the margins. I used to hate finding defaced books in the library, but when they're MY books I want to be able to read my thoughts as I was reading. But some books will stay pristine, only yellow and love touching their leaves.

My hands are getting older and the skin is different. It's not as soft. It's not wrinkly or veiny but it's different and it's never going back. I like to sit sometimes and just look at it, these tiny, capable, inelegant hands of mine with the ragged nails that I can't stop biting again through anxiety or impatience or indolence or all of the above.

My hair is longer than last year and curling. It smells like coconut and I am better (though not good) at styling it. I have had 6 grey hairs. Except they're not grey, they're white and they glow. One day when my hair is all white it will look amazing.

My eyes are mostly brown again, with gold flecks. Some days they're green but they rarely fire into proper gold. I am ok with this. The Monkey has dark brown eyes and the Elfling has gold flecks so I feel like I have both of them when I stare in the mirror and wonder at the colour that is so different than it was before.

I have become a better writer and a worse cynic. A smaller dreamer but a fiercer fighter. I have finally locked a door that swung and slammed with every breath of wind - and although I still have the key and can't bear to throw it away, the noise no longer startles me when I had thought I had forgotten it. I didn't dance enough wiht the Wind in 2011 and I did not look at the stars enough.

I have no especial resolutions for 2012, I am trusting it to happen regardless of plans, and for once I just want to face it, without any layers of anything else on top. It feels like a hard year. A gritty year. An honest year. I no longer believe in satellite parties or mystic things. But I believe in working hard to make things happen. Magic things. Epic things. Mountains to climb and flags to fly. There feels a great deal of Alpine Path climbing in 2012 to come. I will be stretched and pulled and I will hurt. But it will be the good hurt, that comes of working for something worthwhile.

And occasionally I want to sit on a swing and swing just for the joy of swinging. Of seeing my feet in the air and feeling the wind rush across my face. And forget all things and all hard work and ambition and just swing.

30 days has September

April, June and November. June is a special month for me, heralded by the birth of the beautiful Possum. It is the first delicious month of Winter when the skies are painfully blue and the air stretched and thin. It is the start of two doonas on the bed and the true apreciation of warmth when everything else is cold. I planned to celebrate June with a NaBloPoMo or at least following Averil's usurped 30 day photo meme, but Telstra thwarted my plans by "accidentally" unplugging us at the exchange, leaving me more free time than I realised, to read 2 books in 3 days.

It is surreal now to be siting here, curled up on a criminally beautiful day snuggled into my hooded grey cardigan with bare legs kissed cool by the gentle breeze and not be at work. I have not had a weekend at home in a month and there is something so incredibly lovely about just being at home. Being lazy, and writing or reading in bed. We have friends coming over later, and there will be drinks on the back deck as the sun comes down and heats up the verandah. We're making risotto for dinner and the girls will have a play mate for a few hours while we sit around and chat, the first time in months thanks to work schedules adn illness.

By my bed at the moment is a shelf of near to toppling books that is calling me to read, and I wish I had a month of sloth to read them all. I am steadily churning through them, but I miss that wonderful indulgence of lying in bed and finishing a whole book in one setting, of never having use for a bookmark and occasionally finishing at 2am blissfully sated from a well crafted story. It's always at 2am that I reconsider my career path and wonder at why I don't try writing instead, forgetful that even writing a blog takes more discipline than I have and that I frequently forget mid sentence where a paragraph was heading. But at 2am all things are possible.

I am now considering filling in the blog posts that should have started from the first, but am fighting off an overwhelming procrastinatory laziness at the same time. I have so many things to say but just can't find the words to say them at present. I am quieter, more introspective again, but also jumpy, and it's the jumpiness that makes it impossible to just sit. To just think of what I'm trying to say, and instead tempts me to flick through 3 other open Firefox tabs (of 12) or to update a message on MSN. Or to check a forum. It makes me feel scatty, and I hate feeling like pieces of me are strewn all over like careless discarded litter. I want to feel whole again.

Resolution time

I woke this morning with my eyes crusted shut and the Possum bellowing in the next room for milk. It was, as ever, before 5am and I waited the seconds that would tell me if he would settle. Or not. So without opening my eyes I rolled out of bed, stumbled to the kitchen, poured the bottle of milk and wandered into his room to thrust it into his impatient chubby hands before slipping back into bed.

By now my eyes were reluctantly peeling themselves open and as my head hit the pillow there was a flash of pain as radiant sunlight hit my retinas. For here, for the first time in months, I had over my pillow a shaft of uninterrupted sunlight. No rain clouds; no thunder clouds. No grey mist creeping up the hill to encase our verandah and ghost the entrance of day. Just brilliant, warming, golden light. I fell back to sleep with it on my face, thinking idly of new days, new light, and of course, new years.

It has been a strange year. A year of light and shadow for me. A difficult year. A rewarding year. A painful year. A happy year. It has not been a year that has sailed by without me noticing the passage of time. It is a year where every day has been measured, tallied, added to the whole that has formed 2010. It's not a year that will be lost in the middle of an epoch. It's not a year that we will sit back in years to come and wonder if itwas this or that year. And did this happen then or not? It is a year that ultimately I will be glad to finish the chapter because I am eagerly waiting the year (and years) that will come because of it.

It has not been a comfortable year for me to live. Nor have I been comfortable to live with. But I do not regret this year, because regret can only come if there was nothing to learn and nothing to gain from the experience. But I do feel safe in knowing that at least I will never live quite this year again.

As always when I realise that a new year is dawning I am making some resolutions, which are really just promises to myself that keep me ever aiming. Last year my resolutions were somewhat simple, but I followed through with them. I did get my haircut regularly, and although I am overdue now, part of that is because I am growing my hair again. I am sure I will cut it once I reach my mythical goal, but before I turn 30 I want the hair I turned 20 with again. Long, dark, almost black. But this time with style.

I did not moisturise every single day, because the truth is that I forgot. But most days I did. And many I wore make up as well. Not a full slap of coverage that I could hide behind. But it was an interesting experiment. If I was going to wear mascara then what was the point without having groomed eyebrows? And who wears make up with their hair pulled back in a messy oily pony tail? Oh no, once you start with this grooming stuff you have to follow through. And so I did, on more days than I did not. And I noticed something important. On the days when I groomed myself I stood taller. My back was straighter. My posture allowed me to breathe more easily. And the way that people interacted with me was different. I commanded more attention, more respect and greater self belief on those days that I bothered.

So in short, I plan to continue this one, without the need for a resolution to pull me through.

I've allowed myself to be in more photos in the last year than I have in the last decade. I have taken photos of myself and allowed Bingley or the kids or my parents to take them too. And in truth I have hated a lot of them. Shied from more and shuddered, literally, at others.  But I have also found those in amongst that I have liked, that have looked like me and I would never have seen them if I had, as in previous years, allowed none to be taken in the first place.

I like that there are pictures that chronicle that I've lived this year. Pictures taken spontaneously on mobile phones. Pictures Bingley has snapped while I've been distracted and pictures I've asked that he take. Pictures we posed for and pictures we didn't. I don't automatically love myself in them. At first I see only the flaws. The soft jaw, the bloated arms, the pigmentation on my nose. But the more those pictures flick through my screen saver and become part of the tapestry of the year the less I notice those things and the more I notice things like my expression. The emotion I felt at the moment of the photo. The ultimate gladness that for the first time in years I'm actually present in these pictorial chronicles. And I'm happy with that resolution.

My resolution for this year is simple. It is to take time every day to breathe. To stop. To take in a deep breath and to think about it as it filters down to the lowest alveoli and then as it slides back up, and out and mixes with all the other breaths.

I'm going to go to Paris, and I'm determined to take better care of myself and of Bingley. But most of all I just want to breathe. To find time each day to write, at least in my head, and to take deep breaths. Because I've hyperventilated too much this year. So I'm going to breathe. And write. And buy flowers. And take photos. And breathe and write and take photos in Paris.

Tired again

Rinse repeat. Very busy day. Nothing on tomorrow besides packing. The thought of it brings a lump to my throat so here are some things that take it away.

Yogi bear

There is a yoga class in 40 minutes at my gym and I'm contemplating going. Of course to get there I would need to actually get out of my pyjamas and brush my hair and probably take the Monkey with me. But I will contemplate it some more, until it inevitably gets too late to go.

I've been going to the gym regularly again now that I have the time and it feels wonderfully good. I love being virutously sweaty and sore. I love waking up the next morning and feeling my glutes and core muscles burning. But I love best of all how it affects my sleep and mood. I sleep so much better when I've exercised out my demons. An exorcism of sweat.

Between the sun (the weather here consistently is at a balmy 27 degrees and sunny with light sea breezes), the sleep, the garden and the exercise and some very very deep soul searching I'm feeling more myself lately. I've balanced this with some meditation and my own yoga routines, focussing on my flexibility. I'm naturally quite flexible but haven't been keeping as limber as I normally am, and the creakiness in my joints matches the creakiness in my flexibility in life at the moment.

I'm finding as that I am more easily able to stretch I'm coping more easily with the things that are hapening in my own life. I'm also contemplating learning to play violin or piano. I have no doubt I will be terrible, but I have a compulsion. The need to create burns at the moment.

Addit:
I went to the class. I am happy with how flexible I still am. I am very unhappy with the shape that I'm in. I need to take this more seriously.

Resolution time

It's about the time of year that we make promises that never last and plan to do things with our fingers crossed tightly behind our backs. I make a swathe of them each year, and on the whole I'm not so bad at it. I keep the "spirit" of most even if the flesh is weak. I've been pretty good with the exercise thing this year and have really enjoyed going to the gym. I;m still married and the kids still speak to me, so that seems to be going ok as well.

So, with this being the dawn of the new decade (just not the same ring to it as the new millennium is it?) I've decided that 2010 is going to be about me. I'm going to start putting myself a little bit more up the priority list, get better at saying no, and enjoy being a 28 year old woman with a stupendous life in front of her.

That all sounds very earnest no? Well how about some mini goals?

First of all I'm going to keep getting my hair cut every 6 weeks or so. At a proper salon. Where I have my own preferred stylist and I'm not going on cheap student Tuesday. I'll even buy the recommended products occasionally even if I'm allergic to upselling.

Secondly, I'm going to buy a luxe moisturiser. When I was pregnant with the boy I had lush hair and skin and kind of got addicted to it. It's nice to glow instead of looking like an oil slick or the dessicated bit of your Mum's heel. I've never paid much attention to beauty products before, because me and beauty in the same sentence was a bit of an oxymoron. And like a moron, I hid in my ugly clothes, bad hair cut and terrible skin for most of this decade. BUT! No more!

I actually tried to buy one in the post Christmas sales the other day, but baulked at firstly the $140 pricetag at the Lancome counter, and secondly when she talked about my mid-30s, pre-ageing skin. I had better luck at the Shiseido counter where she talked about my "youthful skin" (I'm so fucking vain) but I ended up buying a cleanser instead because they had sample moisturisers in the "gift with" pack (I love these packs. I have about 12 mini mascaras).

Third one is a bit of a follow on from the above, in that I'm going to wear my makeup and perfume on days other than weddings/funerals/dates. I still can't abide foundation, but a sweep of mascara can make my eyes look awesome and they're my favourite feature so why not.

I can hear some of my low maintenance friends snickering into their coffees as I write this, but I've decided to give all this a go for at least a year. Try it out. I've allowed myself to be in photos this year too. Smiled for them. Let Bingley take pictures of me playing with the kids and documented my thrilledness with my corset. It's not all about the superficial here. It's also about how I feel about myself.

I've had years of congratulating myself on how low maintenance I am. About how I don't fall into those superficial traps of make up and "hair" and clothes. And I've not been scarred by the experience, but neither have I been empowered. It kind of sucks to go out at night looking like the poor country cousin being dragged along by their glamorous friend. To go to the shops and look like a harrassed mother of 3.

I like going out and being completely anonymous. Of being 28 and people not automatically being able to guess that I'm a SAHM with no time or inclination for herself. I love my children dearly. They inspire me and guide me and teach me every single day (and not just to drink wine). When I look like I could be anyone or do anything, I feel much the same way. Maybe I'm just superficial. I *do* love shiny things after all.

So anyhow, there's my pretty pathetic list. Of course world peace is in there too. I'll schedule it in once I've had my blowdry.

Rambling

I have an aversion to writing at the moment. A childish rebellion against the "shoulds" of record keeping instead of looking forward to my nightly catharsis. It makes me feel guilty and niggly, the exact same emotion I felt when I knew I was disappointing my parents, but I still haven't been able to muster enthusiasm.

In some moments I've felt magnanimous and deigned to open the link to post a new blog and trailed off, bored, uninspired or simply just feeling narky at the requirement. Which is an unhealthy thing to feel and it always reflects in my writing. The words become clunky, the similes vulgar and the prose flows like rapidly setting concrete. Which is unforgivable as my life is anything but prose at present, but I always write the dream better than the reality.

Things are hectic at the moment as we get ready to move, complicated by the constant night wakings and the joys of dealing with the attitudes and fragile rationality of preschoolers. I had had enough this morning at 5am after being awake for several hours and thrust the wriggling, non-sleeping, babbling Possum at Bingley and asked him to deal with it and please let me sleep... my usually benign husband however SUCKS at predawn gallantry and proceeded to put the Possum in his bed - an action which resulted in his babbling/grizzling morphing into angry wails of protest. Soothing n'est-ce pas? Especially when his hammock is literally a foot from my head. After about 2 minutes of the cacophony it was clear that the snoring Bingley was nto going to come to my aid and I got up and watched morning TV with my eyes hanging out of my head.

By 3pm this afternoon I was absolutely ragged, and glancing at myself in a shop window as I picked up bread while the Elfling did ballet, the Monkey running in circles around my feet and the Possum again squalling, I was embarrassed to be out in public. With my bloodshot eyes, undone bra (really not a good look to have lopsided boobs), haphazard hair and mismatched clothes I could have auditioned convincingly as a troll at any dirty bridge near you. I was also in a FOUL temper as I drove home with the girls having a whining argument in the back seat. I had a target for all my tired, bottled up petulance though: Bingley. Bingley who gets to run out the door every morning at a ridiculous hour leaving me in the chaos. Bingley who had not saved me in my moment of distress in the predawn hour. Bingley who impregnated me 3 times! Blast him.

I started plotting my ice queen passive aggressive steeliness for the evening, what I was going to say/not say etc (oh yes, I can be incredibly vindictive with my adored one, if one is taken to the land of hysterical tiredness). How I was going to be aloof and cool and not be anything like the sweet little wife he is used to coming home to... Right up until I pulled the car into the drive way and saw the giant Roses Only box on the doorstep. Red Ones AND with chocolate... Touché Bingley, touché.

So here I sit now, still needing to write about milestones and happiness and rainbows and bitching instead. It's sad but true that I write so much more easily when vexed. The Possum is not himself and I can't work out if it's just because he is due for his weekly ablutions or if he's unwell, or if it's just one of those post-newborn serendipities. The problem is that for every fit of pique, of genuine outrage, there is an eye scrunching smile and a dopey cuddle that takes the wind out of my sails and reduces me to a quivering puddle of goo. I do wish he would poo though.

I've also been feeling fidgety and in need of a creative outlet. I read voraciously at the moment and crave the clever and the beautiful and piquant and the erotic when it is captured in prose. I love blogs and secrets and lies and reading the innermost thoughts of others - like Post Secret and Melissa and Mary's secret blog (though no one is submitting any more... Come on people, surely you have a secret! At this rate I'll have to write something!). I'm also tinkering with the ideas of writing something else, something a little less self indulgent than a blog and something more along the lines of proper fiction. And maybe, um, seeing if other people would like to read it (please don't shoot this shattered little ego monkey down in flames just yet!).

Anyhow, that is quite enough rambling for tonight. I'll try and get my mojo back, even I'm beginning to miss me a little bit.

Faking it

Going to enjoy today and get myself out of this self piteous rut.

First step though is buying this CD on the way home from daycare drop off... so I can blast it loud and tidy up/cook/bake/knit/dance/play Pollyanna while singing. Have I told y'all I like to sing? I'm actually relatively good at it. Or was once. Still in denial that I will never release a record lol. When I was little I used to write my own songs. 8 year olds can be heartwrenching with their stories of unrequited love.

Symptoms of insanity

This week I lost 3+ kilograms, cut off my hair and streaked it with copper (it has never in my life been this short aside from ages 1-18 months) wore makeup some days and did not go to the gym once. I'm unduer 70 again, my hair looks fan-freaking-tastic and I am starting to come down from my full moon speeding. Life is very interesting at the moment.

Blah blah blah

Haven't been up to much so not much to tell. Back at uni on obstetrics rotation which should be interesting (with my ambivalent cluckiness) but showing my true colours by skipping lectures already. In my defence I have downloaded and read through them though so not so bad. I don't atually like obstetrics as a specialty and it's back on my offlist again. Finding some of it frustrating already but looking forward to being in birth suite again (this weekend).

The Elfling has spent the last couple of days with my Mum and Dad and is apparently having a ball - it's the first real solo holiday she's been on and I think she's lapping up the undivided attention. I worry about her a lot but am also enjoying getting to spend complete one on one time with the Monkey as well. It just seems strange that she's so big now. I wonder what happened to my little baby.

The LH's job is going pretty well and he seems to be enjoying himself. Or at least not hating it which is a major step up from last time. I just hope he can maintain some enthusiasm as nothing stresses me out mroe than him feeling he has to drag himself to a job he hates to support us.

I'm OK but weirding myself out at the moment. Just doing odd things for me, and feeling unsettled. I usually do this sort of boundary pushing of a full moon, but seem to be peaking early at the moment. Have already smashed some of my resolutions (#5 was the first to go lol), but have been losing weight again even with being very inconsistent with the gym. Am very happy at the moment aside from slight weirdness though and relationship with the husband in all senses is going very well. Too easy actually if there can be such a thing.

Resolutions

I thought I posted them in the last post - but I actually didn't. Well I put in about the needing to lose weight, but I might as well have written *breathe* because it's a given. Gym tonight though! AND I went twice in the last week already, even with a myriad of social engagements (complete with new and pretty shoes - all with ridiculous impractical heels = podiatry perfection).

So here's the list - naked, bald and with a few prickly bits like a half grown out wax... ok so maybe not like that at all

1. Listen to music as much as possible. Turn off the TV and put on a CD or a playlist. Turn on the radio. Continue listening to Triple J and know the artist and band of almost every song when it's on. Know who new Australian bands are and what they're about.

2. Go to live music events. Get tickets to at least one random offbeat band as well as the populist stuff. (We're going to FooFighters in ?April)

3. Have solo outings with the Elfling for appropriate "bonding" and memory making. Go to a movie, the park or to the forest to hunt fairies.

4. Have more sex. Yes look I know the "S" word is gross, and that it's entirely possible that relatives are reading this but well, my blog so there *tongue sticking out*. Twice a week may be average but I've never wanted to be average. Plus it's good exercise.

5. Keep the house clean mostly. Try and do that flylady bird's trick of at least having the sink clean every night... can't be *that* hard surely?

6. Go out with husband more (should be easy with the Opera, FF and Phantom tickets we have for this year!)

7. Enjoy uni, relish the fact that it's the last year ever (well until next time lol)

8. Book and take a REAL holiday with the girls, and one with just hte husband

9. Throw out every item of Size 14 clothing

10. Be happy.

OK so it's taken a full week of January for me to write a cohesive list, but it's there now. Let's see how long it lasts (I'm willing to bet 5 goes first)

I haven't forgotten...

But I've been busy doing, well not much really, aside from relaxing and mucking around with the girls and playing computer games with the husband. Just fun and non thinking stuff really and it's been great.

I am feeling both excited and apprehensive about 2008; there is just so much that needs to be done this year. I have 5 more units and then I will be a doctor - how trippy is that? It is going to be a massively hard slog to get there though and it curdles in my belly whenever I think of it. I have put a ticker over yonder so that I can see how long it is until I graduate and it seems so far off still.

I have also (if you divert your gaze to the right) added a ticker for weightloss so that I can motivate mysefl again. As you can see I have jumped impressively over the 70kg mark again thanks to a long lazy December filled with food, treats, and very little exercise. I am refusing to feel too guilty for it though as I have loved my lazy holiday. Perhaps a little less alcohol and fudge would have been a good plan though. Oops.

They are my two primary goals for this year. There are the obvious ones - like staying happily married and being a good Mum, but they are constants.

Anyhow I thought I'd follow this up with a meme shamelessly "borrowed" from Melissa and Sundry Mourning

1. What did you do in 2007 that you'd never done before?
I went to the gym regularly and enjoyed it

2. Did you keep your new year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
I think most of my resolutions were about being happy and losing weight and I did both though not as much weight as I would have liked (well it was until I went on my December binge!)

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
Yes my best friend had her first baby

4. Did anyone close to you die?
Yes my grandmother died earlier this year. I have no surviving grandmothers.

5. What countries did you visit?
Sadly none. Travel is a resolution for the end of this year and compulsory for every year from here on out!

6. What would you like to have in 2008 that you lacked in 2007?
Organisational skills! Ambition.

7. What dates from 2007 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
Birthdays, anniversaries, deaths. Mostly this last year was pretty good to me (though incredibly stressful) and I feel positive. John Howard being booted out on DHs birthday celebration was pretty awesome though.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
Passing third year well while staying happily married and mothering my children mostly pretty well.

9. What was your biggest failure?
Cleaning the house, I am an abysmal failure. I was also not as good at the parenting thing as I would like to be.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
2007 was my year of illness. Gastro, influenza, pneumonia, sinusitis, headcolds galore, a weird and debilitating neck/shoulder injury... I should be completely primed for an illness free 08 now!

11. What was the best thing you bought?
Size 12 clothes!

12. Whose behavior merited celebration?
My husband as always for being the fabulous husband, father and man that he is. We celebrated in style and decadence in November and I'm so glad that I did.

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?
Elections bring out the worst in parties and 2007 didn't disappoint.

14. Where did most of your money go?
The girls, petrol, frittering, buying gifts, food...

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
The 2007 Election, passing another year of uni, my family, DHs new job

16. What song will always remind you of 2007?
Soko I'll Kill Her or Silverchair's Straight Lines

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:
a) happier or sadder? about the same I think, I am usually a happy person, especially on holidays
b) thinner or fatter? thinner definitely
c) richer or poorer? richer, though conversely more debt sadly. Could pay it off quickly if needed though.

18. What do you wish you'd done more of?
Eating better, going out with LH and just mucking around with the girls

19. What do you wish you'd done less of?
Stressing, eating, playing on the computer!

20. How will you be spending Christmas?
Hopefully as we did in 2007!

21. Did you fall in love in 2004?
I fell head over heels for my girls again and am daily reminded of how much I adore my husband

22. How many one-night stands?
HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA

23. What was your favorite TV program?
The Chaser!

24. Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time last year?
No, I don't hate anyone, even posters on forums that make my eyes bleed. I have learned to just avoid them and then I can feel the love lol

25. What was the best book you read?
Blind Faith by Ben Elton. His style irritates me but he makes me think which is good.

26. What was your greatest musical discovery?
Hmmm, I made a bit of a resolution last year to listen to more music and have had a year of Triple J reminding me of why I loved music so much at college. Coming back has reawakened something in me and has reminded me of how much LH and I have in common.

27. What did you want and get?
More PJs for Christmas! To drop a dress size

28. What did you want and not get?
Diamonds and a trip round the world. Sadly hehe

29. What was your favorite film of this year?
Ratatouille?

30. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
October, I was 26 and we did nothing on the day. I felt quite sad on my birthday and had a sooky meltdown to the husband. Will hopefully not do that this year.

31.What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
Winning lotto?

32. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2004?
Tailored and professional.

33. What kept you sane?
My family.

34. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
I have never got celebrities at all, (even used to manufacture crushes in highschool to fit in) but this picture of Orlando Bloom gives me butterflies!

35. What political issue stirred you the most?
Education and human rights issues.

36. Who did you miss?
My med friends who all graduated this year without me :(

37. Who was the best new person you met?
Probably my future BIL - though I have also "met" a lot of people online this past year who are kind of cool.

38. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2007.
That I am my best when I plan, but mostly just go with the flow, sticking my rudder in occasionally to head more in one direction, but never fight the current.

39. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year.
Can't think of one, but it would probably be cheesy...