Three Little Words

I read someone else’s blog yesterday, someone who was listing what they’d done and achieved during 2010.  This included setting up a new business amongst other great things.  It got me thinking…

What have I done in 2010?

That’s the point I hit a brick wall.  A mild panic set in.  The year has just slipped through my fingers without me grasping a tight hold of it and doing something about it.  If I was writing a list of things I’d done/achieved it would consist of these:

•  Finally grown my finger nails
• Experienced my daughters 1^st birthday
• Been on a few great mini breaks and a villa holiday in Lanzarote
• Got fit and shed a few pounds (thanks to Jillian Michaels mainly)
• Started wearing leggings rather than jeans all the time – ha!
• Deactivated my Facebook account
• Re-activated my Twitter account
• Made a few great friends on Twitter
• Lost a few not so great ‘friends’ on Facebook
• Built (although not personally) a 2 room wooden cabin in the back garden
• Became a mystery shopper (but only actually did ONE shop!)

Hardly an inspiring list is it?  I was talking to Matt last night about New Year resolutions and about 2010 and he reminded me of an important point.  I’ve spent the last year caring for, loving and teaching our young daughter and that THAT was more important than anything. 

She’s so funny and intelligent she scares us sometimes, she’s got a massive vocabulary of words now aswell as signs and can link words to form ‘baby sentences’.  She doesn’t have tantrums as she can communicate well with us.  Now I’m not saying she’s not going to fall under the dreaded ‘terrible two’s’ category but hopefully the next couple of years will be easier as I’ve dedicated a lot of my time to her.  What sort of price do you put on that?  Yes, he made me feel better about everything but I still want to DO something in 2011.

I’ve never really done New Years resolutions before but I’ve decided I’m going to try and achieve a couple of quite major (for me!) things this year:

• Learn Spanish - it’s something I’ve wanted to do for the past 10 years but I keep putting it off
• Do more mystery shops – I signed up to mystery shopping about 8 months ago and only did my first shop at the beginning of December.  I loved it and more importantly, got paid for it..bonus!
• Not always put other people first to the detriment of myself

The last point is something I have always battled with but this year it really came and bit me hard on the backside.  I tried to cut a bad person out my life quietly to protect others but I was the one who ended up deeply hurt.  I didn’t sleep or eat properly for weeks and lost almost half a stone in weight in one week. Even when I did start to resume normal life the hurt was still there.  The experience took me a long while to get over (I guess in some ways I’m still coming to terms with it) and has made me quite guarded of who I let into my life now but this is a good thing in the long run.  I’m a mother now, I have someone who practically depends on me 24/7 – I can’t have people like that in my life.

It’s not a long list but personally I think it’s a good list.   Spanish, Mystery & Me – just 3 little words to keep me happy.  If I can get to 31^st December 2011 having achieved them I’ll be pleased and won’t look at other peoples lists and kick myself for wasting another year.

So, here's to 2011.  1 year, 3 little words and 1 stronger person.


Photographer: Filomena Scalise