Welcome to 2012

That will take some getting used to – 2012. Although if I am honest I find that it takes longer and longer to get used to the new year, perhaps because I don’t work at the moment so don’t write the date.

Today is typically a day for taking stock, for thinking about what has gone before and what we want to change. I am not going to make any NY resolutions, but I did think that perhaps it would be a good time to review my Bucket List.

My Bucket List

1. Publish a novel

2.Do a patisserie course to learn how to make cakes. I can do the basics but would love to learn how make things like macaroons 

3. Take my daughter to Paris for a girls weekend

4. Stand at the top of the Empire State building and kiss my husband

5. Do an advanced training course with the ADAC

6. Have laser eye treatment so that I can throw away my glasses.

7. Get 1000 hits on ONE day on my blog

8. See my children graduate school, happy with their achievements

9. Go to New England in autumn

10. Get a job that I really enjoy doing

11. Live in Scotland again

This year will see me move to Scotland, albeit temporarily. It will be interesting to see how that goes. I haven’t lived there since I was 19 years old, so I have no idea how it will feel to do so as an adult, a mother, a wife. Totally different to my carefree life as a teenager.

The novel publishing dream is, if I am perfectly honest, far away at present. The past few months have been taken up with other things, and I have not had the time and the inclination to write. I may not have either in the next 6 months, so will content myself to blog writing both here and on Frothers.

The coming year will be my last year in my thirties. It never bothered me before, but as my 39th birthday approaches (hell, it is not approaching, it is knocking on the door, I turn 39 tomorrow!) I find myself thinking more about it. The turn of a decade, is it always greeted with soul searching? When I turned 30, I had just had my daughter and was sailing along on that wave of happiness that she brought. The birthday was celebrated like any other, and I was not unhappy about leaving my twenties. Perhaps because I felt so blessed.

I feel like my twenties belonged to me and my husband, my thirties belonged to my children and perhaps my forties will belong to me more than any decade ever has.

I feel optimistic, more than ever.

Despite the year that lies ahead being potentially the most challenging ever for our family, I know that it will be the stepping stone to a new life. The decisions that we make in this coming year will shape the decades to come. We have never lived apart, and I don’t know how we will cope with this. Our children have always spent a lot of time with their father, so this will be hard on them.

Now, more than ever, our family will be tested. We need to be strong, work together and keep our family motto in our heads, “As long as we are together, we will get through this”.

Hold tight, it may be a bumpy ride.