A new year...

I love resolutions. When I was 22 I wrote two pages of resolutions, sorted into categories, and spent the good part of five years working hard to reach them. The financial, home, career and health categories I belted through, but it took me a lot, lot longer to get stuck into the deeper, behavioural elements of myself that I wanted to change. Blah, blah, blah. Fast forward almost fifteen years and my priorities have not just shifted, they've shattered.

In broad terms, this is what I want for 2010:

• I want to be an active, engaged participator in my cherubs' lives, not just a spectator. I want the four of us to have more fun as a family and have lots of adventures together. I also want more active outside play with the cherubs beyond our walks. I'm talking treasure hunts, mucking around with sand and water, chasing bubbles and nature wanders around the back yard.
• I want to work towards raising two confident, happy, healthy and emotionally intelligent girls. I want to keep applying the positive parenting principles in our day-to-day lives, and I want to work ridiculously hard to be the best mother to these two angels that I possibly can be.
• I want to fully utilise this time I have with my cherubs, to facilitate a childhood they will cherish. I want to celebrate every moment with them; both the ordinary and extraordinary.
• I want to keep playing with this blog, and keep playing with words, because that is the only way Mama will keep from rocking in the corner throwing breadcrumbs at herself. Following on from this, I want my family to know that while they are the most important thing in my life, they're not the only thing I care about.
• I want to be a better friend. I want regular catch ups with my friends. Proper, face-to-face catch ups with some bottles of bubbly thrown in for good measure.
• I want to be better to the planet and be Green Mama and not slightly khaki mama. I want to keep giving my worms love and affection so in turn they give our plants some good lovin'. This year I want to build the cherubs a vegie garden, not for any dreams of self-sufficiency (have we met?) but because it makes sense. I want to use the car only when absolutely necessary.
• I want a better body, inside and outside. I want to eat well, and back off on the black tea and chocolate. I want to keep doing the 1000 steps with Emma, not twice a week as I did last year because I can't really afford the two half days it takes me from door to door time-wise, but at least weekly.
• I want to continue to develop our garden into a sanctuary for the four of us as well as our broader family and our friends.
• I want to cook feasts, again, and again, and again.
• I want to learn how to use my camera properly. I want images, not just happy snaps.

And that's about it!