Here comes another one

I'm sitting on my couch deliberating whether or not to go to the dump. Wow, NYE is going to be thrilling this year. I still haven't decided whether or not to drive the 100+ miles to my parents' bichin' new year's eve party (which would have been a nice surprise for them if HF hadn't told them last week that we might be coming) or to stay here and drink champagne. In fairness, both courses of action probably involve champagne.

But before I make any such decisions, I think it's time to take stock. Last year I wrote this re: New Year's Resolutions: -

I'm going to reiterate my intentions to lose weight (Yes! nearly two stones worth at last count) and find some job satisfaction...either where I am now or elsewhere (Oxford job starts on January 15, I'm so not prepared) and add a couple.

• I will make my gym membership worth paying £28 a month for (which means I only need to go twice a week and I already do yoga once a week so it can't be that hard). I've been going spinning up to three times a week so yes, I think this was money well spent.
  
• I will start learning to speak Arabic (an invaluable skill, I feel, for journalists today) I can say thank you and be quiet but I could do that before so, no, not really.
  
• I will start taking dance classes so I actually look those bods of Strictly Come Dancing instead of imagining that I do. Err, not so much, but I did do that one pole-dancing class. Hmm, less said about that the better.
  

And some hopes for the new year...

• Go to Thailand (Yes, we went, we swam, we snorkelled. Oh yeah, and I got slightly proposed to.)
  
• That some of the people in my life who have had a very bad year for one reason or another have good times ahead. (My friend who I asked people to pray for last Christmas has found a new job, love and happiness and is getting married next year. I couldn't be more happy for him).
  
• I finally have the courage to start writing one of the many books I have stored not very safely up in my head. (Alright I didn't start the book. But I've written several short stories, one of which will be published in an anthology in March, so I think that deseves a big WOOHOO.)

I also printed some of the highlights of 2005.

Here are some of mine...

• Winning a writing award (no fear, it wasn't for blogging)
  
• Spending two weeks travelling in Israel with my best friend
  
• Getting wet, loud and joyful at Glastonbury festival
  
• A night spent with my two gay best friends at Heaven, the biggest gay nightclub in the world (apparently)
  

I suppose I should follow with some highlights of 2006. I think the simplest way of describing the highlights is to say finding happiness being myself. And the proposal. And also, probably, when I saw my best friend's mum for the first time in nearly a year and she said she almost wouldn't have recognised me, I'd lost so much weight. Also, my masked ball was pretty bitchin' as parties go.

Anyway, enough of all this taking stock, I think it's about time to decide what needs to go to the dump. And about the rest of the plans for the evening.

Refreshing, though, to have to think just about plans for the evening when plans for, well, the rest of my life, seem to be getting along so well.

Have a Happy New Year folks.