The New Year starts here!

The thing I like best about New Year is starting a new diary.

When I am Rich I suppose I could have expensive diaries: beautifully bound books with my name embossed on the covers, gilt-edged pages of the finest handmade paper … 

But what’s the point? I don’t use a diary to record my daily thoughts and actions. It’s not something I want to pass on to my heirs or use as reference material if I ever write my autobiography. All I need is a plain and simple diary to help me plan what I’m going to do for the next 12 months.

I start by entering all the important dates – birthdays, anniversaries etc. – and any appointments and writing deadlines that need to be carried over from the old diary.

Next, I check the list of goals I set myself for the past year. I cross off those I achieved (hooray!) and decide whether to abandon or persevere with those I didn’t manage.

Finally, I write a new goal list in the notes section of my new diary, work out what I need to do to achieve each one, and fill in some reminders and deadlines to keep me on track. This gives me a framework to which I can add new tasks as they arise throughout the year.

It’s a good plan – except that it didn’t work out this year.

I bought my 2011 diary at the beginning of December and wrote prepare new diary on the December 30th page in my 2010 diary. This was the day after I was due to return from my Christmas break and would ensure the new diary was ready and waiting to get me off to a good start on January 1^st.

What I hadn’t anticipated was coming home to find water dripping through the bedroom ceiling! Or some urgent paid work that had to be given priority. Or the muddled weeks, filled with interruptions and minor but time-consuming problems, that followed.

I didn’t get around to starting my new diary until January 30^th.

But, at last, I have it: my blueprint to guide me through 2011. Except that it’s February already and the work I was optimistically hoping to get done in 12 months now has to be crammed into 11 months!

Do you keep a diary? What sort? Does it help or hinder you?

Christmas visits

When I am Rich I will have a house with lots of guest rooms – no, make that guest suites – and I’ll invite all my friends and family to spend Christmas with me.

But until then …

… it’s me who’ll be doing the visiting (if we don’t have any more snow!)

Merry Christmas! Happy Holidays!

See you in the New Year! 

Diamonds under the soles of my shoes

When I am Rich I suppose I could have the drive to my house paved with gold, but might that be a little too ostentatious? I think I’ll settle for a subtle sprinkling of diamonds. Much more tasteful.

Plenty of pretty sparkles around today but I’m being careful about walking on them!

 

Fleeting glories

It’s been a good year for the morning glories. I only had room to squeeze in four morning glory plants (Heavenly Blue) between the sweet peas that I also wanted to grow up the short length of trellis, but each one produced plenty of flowers. There are still more small buds on them but we had our first frost here a few nights ago so I don’t know if they’ll survive long enough to open.

I did think about adding 100’s or even 1000’s of these lovely flowers to the garden I’m planning to have When I am Rich, but there’s a problem … As each flower lasts for less than a day I might miss some of them. With only four plants, I was able to see and enjoy every bloom from my kitchen window.

Back to New!

Do you know the story about the old woman who boasted that, apart from two new handles and four new heads, she’d had the same broom for 50 years? I’m feeling like that with my computer …

After two weeks of ‘repair’ it was returned to me with more faults than it had before. So, it was sent away for another ten days and this time came back with a new hard drive, a new motherboard, more memory installed and some different software.

It’s working beautifully (I’m touching wood) but it’s like starting with a new computer again. I’ve had to adjust settings and rearrange everything so it looks something like my old, familiar computer.

Oh, well, it keeps the brain working – but I wish I could have some more memory added too!

Logging on

When I am Rich I will have a spare computer – no, make that half a dozen spare computers – so that when my main machine has to go for repair I won’t feel quite so bereft.

I thought I was only going to be computerless for a couple of days but it’s stretched to nearly 2 weeks now. The withdrawal symptoms aren’t getting any easier, but there are some compensations:

I’ve rediscovered the joys of writing with pen and paper
I’ve talked to people instead of emailing
I’ve spent more time in the garden
I’ve gathered my news from the radio instead of the Internet
I’ve done research in a real library - with books!
Even so, many, many thanks to the generous person who has let me borrow his laptop!

A Special Day

It’s our anniversary, what shall we do to celebrate?

If we were Rich we could give each other expensive presents, dine in a posh restaurant, perhaps spend the day in some exclusive, tropical paradise …

Or, we could go and watch the boats,












say hello to the ducks,

















find a coot on her nest,

and have a home-made picnic while enjoying the view.

You can find romance anywhere – with the right person.