Happy New Year

Happy New Year

I’m sure 2011 will be a good one, and if last year is any indication; it will be gone in a blink. Sometime this weekend I’d like to revisit the best pics I have from 2010 and do a little photo recap of the year. There have been so many gaps in my blogging.

I could write several entries on the last month alone: Christmas parties, Hollywood Toy Giveway, Christmas, our stay-at-home vacation, go carts with the kids, skiing with the family for the first time – riveting reading I’m sure.

But it’s not really for the readers. I have learned by now that blogging is for me to stop and recognize how wonderful our life is. But the problem is I have to take a pause from life to stop and write. And while it is easy to snap pictures, it’s harder for me to find time to write about them. Even to write this I have had to separate myself from the lively family action in the kitchen/living room and sequester myself in the back bedroom. Lonely is the life of a writer.

But my life isn’t too lonely and maybe that is why I am not really a writer.

But today is New Years and I have a guilty stack of half consumed journals, all started on New Years day years past, so I won’t waste any paper with this virtual, everyone-can-see journal entry. But I'll throw out some New Years resolutions.

Writing: This year I do want to write more. I want to finish the screenplay I started last January and I want to finish it by the end of this month, at least the first draft. And then I want to rewrite it a few times. I also want to journal offline more and blog more. Life is going by fast and I have so many thoughts on the moment that are gone the next moment.

Reading: I want to read a nonfiction book a month. I am going to give myself a little grace and include audio books that I listen to, because I seem to have a difficult time finishing books that sit beside my bed and help me fall asleep. But I won’t include the books I read the kids. There are too many of those.

BTW – right now I am reading our son Archimedes and the Door of Science and it is really fun. We took a break during our Christmas vacation, but I will read it to him every day when Kip goes back to work and our homeschool officially goes back in session next week.

Bible: I’m going to read it through this year. I haven’t tried to do that in a while.

Organization: We have lived in this apartment 5 and a half years and there are now multiple closet and drawer spaces that need to be organized and decluttered. I’m going to take one area on each week until I get it done. I’m going to start with the cabinet under my bathroom sink – next week.

Running: I want to run a marathon, probably the LA Marathon in March if I can keep up with the Students Run LA running schedule. They are pretty aggressive and it’s hard to make that much time for running, but on the other hand I can’t imagine running a marathon without the months of training. So I guess I had better just lace up and get out there. I'll start that tomorrow morning.

Spanish: I’m going to make a better effort to learn this year. We set up Rosetta Stone on the computer again and I’m going to try and use it for half an hour every day – on average – because somedays it is just hard to do everything.

So those are my thoughts for this next year. I'm sure it will be a good one.