The Resolution Wrangle.

It’s time to talk about resolutions. Now that all those madcap New Years’ this-year-I-am-going-to-change-my-world-and-never-drink-Mojitos-again Resolutions have come and gone it is time to think about actual goals for the year ahead. Each time I buy a diary for the new year I flip to December, stare at the empty pages, and wonder. In my pre-kids life I used sit in January and look at December wondering who I would have met by then, what I would be feeling, and how much time I would be able to get off work.

Now I stare at those dates at the end of the year and make them promise me the lines will not be filled with something too awful to bear. I plead with them to be kind to me and give me another year of healthy, beautiful, growing children. I just want December days to say things like 'playdate at a friends house' and 'bush walk in John Forrest'. I beg it not to say 'chemotherapy starts for my big girl' or 'the accident happened today'...or worse.

In the biggest possible way my resolution each year is for nothing to change, for everything to stay just as it is. In the smallest possible way, I set myself some goals.

This year they are few but varied. They are in no way ‘resolutions’ - a quick forced decision rarely precedes long term change – but rather using an opportunity in time to think about what I want from the near future. Even ‘goals’ might be too strong a definition for what I do, it is more like ‘vague new themes’. I know, it’s weaker than piss, but that’s how I roll. It was my New Year’s Resolution in 1988 to keep the bar low. That one I really committed to.

They say telling people your goals helps you stick to them and in my case, remember them. So here goes…

This is the superficial home stuff: 2014 is the year of storage (2013 was the year of colour). Look out IKEA.

This is the me stuff: move more (no one else has ever thought of that one) and read more (actual mind expanding novels, not other people's blogs). Get to the Dentist, mammogramographer, and pap smearologist. Get the surgery I need. Don’t give up on the new plan. And do something about this atrocious posture of mine.

This is the being-a-mum stuff: keep them alive and safe, keep them strong, keep them laughing, keep them challenged, make sure they feel loved every minute of every day, and let them go…just a wee bit.

This is the wife stuff: be loving, talk less, communicate more (I know what I mean).

This is the wider world stuff: I am still working on this one. I don’t want to do some grand gesture of philanthropy that is just that, a gesture. We already do the most convenient kind of giving - money to charities, food for collections and so on - and we help the people around us that need help, but I want to give something more back. For the moment however (there is the but) I do feel like I give so much to my kids, my husband, family and friends that I don’t have that much left. I used to have none left. Now that the kids are getting older and my little one starts kindy tomorrow (*sniff sniff*) I have a tiny bit left. And I need to use it for myself, for now. Soon there will be more to give, so I will give back in the best way I can. Just leave that one with me for now.

In the meantime I will continue to give one of the best gifts to the world a mum can give: kids who appreciate their own life and the lives of their fellow humans. My kids and I talk in some small way every day about tolerance and rights, about being thankful for what we have and giving what we can to others who don’t. We talk about being kind when others are not, and being strong when others can't be. We talk about caring for and being responsible for each other, the world, and ourselves. And we don’t just talk, we do, with our actions, every day. If I don’t get a chance to ‘give back’ with some gesture of community and charity this year, I feel like I am at least doing my best to raise two humans who will tread lightly and sweetly on this earth, and will give more to the world in their life than what they will take.

Of course that bit is not a goal, just a hope. In reality it is their life and they will end up doing whatever the f*ck they like. They may well snort half of the world's cocaine up their nose and ride naked on a camel into the desert. But I won't have led them there. Maybe Miley Cyrus will.

Sadly this pic just makes me want to make sarcastic comments about kids in turtlenecks...

Back to the 'goals' of 2014. Lately I have been asked two questions: What are you doing with your blog? and What are you doing with your hair? OK, now we getting to the important business of life.

This is the blog stuff: well according to this post I am going to trial being a philosophising serious sopsack of love and all things Life Appreciation so we shall see how that kumbaya sh*t goes down. Otherwise I am not sure, all ideas welcome.

This is the hair stuff: Last year I tried out all the hairstyles of the One Direction members in alphabetical order. This year I am going vintage, maybe N’Sync style. 2015 I am already thinking Spice Girls. Or ZZ Top.

There it is and I’m wrapping it up. I have actually begun my ‘read more’ vague new theme, and need to get my fingers off the tapping and on to the page turning.