A New Year and a New Start

2009 wasn't a great blogging year for me. As I think back, maybe it's because not much seemed to happen and the things that did happen kept me from the computer. I seem to take on more and more projects and I wonder how I get anything done. Anyway, I'm not looking back right now, this is all about looking forward. There are so many things on my plate and the biggest challenge is going to be scheduling everything.

1. Community Service: There are some new jobs I need to learn. I'm a member of the Cultural Arts Society in town and only barely managed to avoid the position of president at our last annual general meeting. I ended up as vice-president. It was made quite clear that they are grooming me to take over. Hopefully that is several years away. I am also on the public library board and at our last meeting they asked me to take on the role of secretary as our old secretary is retiring. I tried to beg out of that one, but no one else would step forward, and the job needs to be done. Sometimes I want to walk away from both of these, but they've had so few volunteers in the last few years, and both are important to me and to the community. I guess I'm in for the long haul.

2. My family is also expecting more homemade bread and other goodies, thanks to the Bosch mixer that Santa brought. It is a huge step up from the old -fashioned egg beater I had been using. I made a couple loaves of whole wheat bread yesterday and couldn't believe how fast and easy it was. I'm excited to try new recipes and add all the fancy grains I love. I'm tired of paying so much at the store for a high fibre loaf of good bread.

3. I also signed up for Weight Watchers online a few months ago. It's been going really well (although Christmas really got me). I plan on hitting it hard this year and I can't wait to see the results. Already, I'm wearing a skirt I haven't been able to wear in two years.

4. Education: I took a huge leap and signed up for university. My husband and I have been having a lot of conversations about the future and my lack of education keeps bothering me. We finally decided going back to school is the right thing. I'll be doing most of it through distance education, which will give me the freedom to stay home with the family and take as few or as many courses as I can handle at one time. I've been wanting to do this for a long time, but now that I am actually looking at course manuals, I wonder if I have enough brain cells left to make it work.

5. Writing: I'm still working on the edits to my novel and hope to get it resubmitted very soon. The revisions are lengthy, but I can see how they are going to make the story better. I'm looking forward to the LDStorymakers conference in April and will likely be bringing a bunch of writing friends this time. This past year I started a critique group that has been valuable and a lot of fun. We kept things pretty casual, but with a rather large donation of funds, we had to go more official, so the group elected me Chairperson of the Southern Alberta Writer's Workshop. Should be another interesting learning experience.

6. And last but not least is family. Despite all the other things going on in my life, I need to spend more time with my family. I keep thinking about my oldest daughter and how she only has a year and a half before she heads off to university. It seems like it is coming too fast and I have to spend every moment with her that I can. Then I look at the other two and realize they aren't far behind. Every moment is precious. I'm especially grateful for my long-suffering husband who takes the pieces of me that are left and never complains. He needs more time too.

So with all that I am juggling, I don't know if this blog will be any more active. I'm not setting any concrete goals here. I'll just be here when I can and hope you will all continue to drop by once in a while.

Happy New Year!