2009

I had a remarkably non-awful 2008. I take that as something of a personal triumph, since 2007 was, realistically, probably the worst year of my slightly non-eventful life. I can think of whole slews of gratuitously horrible events that have happened to me, but being realistic, the death of my Dad, and the ensuing depression / grief related direness made 2007 a year that I would rather wipe from the face of the planet. That's not to say that great things didn't happen in 2007, mostly kid related, but really... not one to be repeated.

Any year, in comparison to that would seem a spectacular success. I didn't lose my job (always a bonus), we've still got the flat, we're not in terribly spectacular amounts of debt, the kids are awesome and we managed to see two absolutely fantastic Shakespeare adaptations during the year. The Olympics were amazing, a joyous celebration of humanity; the American primaries and then election were astonishing; I learned to love Jon Stewart; I saw Ben Folds live twice; I cycled to work from September and rediscovered my actual body, emerging from lard accumulated over nearly 2 years of resigned depression; we got a composter and are now enthusiastically making compost; un-protected market capitalism was shown to be the fucked up disaster area that it has always been...

So what am I looking to try and do in 2009:

Get involved - I have to be more active in Green .... "stuff". Doing stuff. What this may mean is getting to grips with the entire Green Party manifesto and then getting involved there. It also definitely means doing more at work, and introducing them to the different incredible and committed people I know (and yes, I am talking about you, Gavin, obviously).

Work more during the day and less at home if at all possible  - this is a real problem for me. I tend to work in a long drift throughout a day and evening after the kids have gone to bed, periodically checking my mail, Twitter etc but... hold on, I also have terrible, brain aching whole weeks of over tiredness and 1am finishes which I really shouldn't be doing, and are totally exhausting. The answer can only be to fight, fight fight - not for Nigel Barton, but for my right to try to get to bed at a reasonable time. Self discipline is the answer. Not something I'm terribly good at.

Try to decorate the bathroom and get the plumber round. It is purely procrastination / rubbishness that stops this from happening. Our bathroom is a disaster area. I have to force myself on this one.

More boring, practical actions that need to be done, so they might as well be resolutions:

-clear the sewing / mending backlog
-take sewing machine to menders
-finish pigwolf
-Make Bad Teeth for Yatima :)
-Put toe clips on bike
-make bike cover for James' new bicycle
- drill air vent holes in damp built-in wardrobe and buy water-soaker gel stuff that isn't an environmental / toxic disaster to have around the house (our bedroom is a damp filled nightmare)
-Get "Muzzy" French videos for the kids. Just spend the bloody money and stop putting it off

I would say "start your Economics degree" this year but since I wouldn't be able to in September, and I have no idea whether I'll have the time. Everything in my common sense screams "Are you insane?" when I think about my economics degree, but then my non-common sense says, well, I did an MBA in two years, part time, and that nearly killed me. This is a degree in 4. Surely it'll be a piece of piss in comparison? One 5 year old and one 3 year old, and a full time job. Hmmm.

....and the perennial thing:

READ MORE BOOKS.

It's the interweb that screws it for me. Hours and hours reading bollocks. Having said that though, most of it is bollocks emanating from people that I know, most of whom I consider to be lovely mates. So in that respect, I add another, and most important resolution:

See more of my friends in actual, real live close up.

That's it. Oh and win the Euro Millions jackpot. Although I never enter it, so that might be difficult.