May Your Shirts All Be Pocketed!

IMAGE : THE MOTHER LOAD | Shirts Be Pocketed

As we skid across the line from one year to the next tonight, the usual amount of yearly reflection saw some family members and I sitting around the kitchen bench last night, chatting about the woes of recent years gone by. (I know, right? We're a barrel of laughs).

As generally lucky and blessed as we are, we've seen our fair share of shit on the shovel in the last two years. There have definitely been some dodgy times through 2014 and 2015 and as it turns out, our family has a tendency to toss those various woes around in conversation like deflated footballs, comparing one to the other.  Our discussion is not a competition about who had it the worst but rather more a bit of a therapy session knowing that at a certain point it's good to download and discuss these challenges particularly when you're on the tail end of them. It seems to make everyone feel as though they've conquered and survived their own little Everest or something. So we say, "Remember this one? But don't forget this! Or that - what about that! That was terrible!" Etc. etc. and then everyone feels a little better about the past and about looking forward into the new year.

Welcome 2014 - Are You Diving In Or Are You Treading Lightly?

IMAGE : THE MOTHER LOAD | Welcome 2014

Happy New Year! How did you ring in 2014? Did you welcome it with wide open arms, great gusto and copious amounts of champagne?  We did it small but laughed until our stomachs ached - hopefully it's a sign of things to come this year.  Quite amazingly, I made it to midnight! I learned that if you say enough times that you have no intention of getting there, you seem to have a greater chance of reaching it without realising. Miraculous. In other news, I managed to have kids in bed by 10.30pm which in itself is monumental and perhaps a little cruel on NYE but holiday exhaustion had officially set in so they were ushered to bed without a huge amount of argument. Again, miraculous.

So farewell, 2013.

Making A List, Checking It Twice - 2014 Resolutions

IMAGE : WWW. MORGUEFILE.COM | Making A List, Checking It Twice

I've come to realise that I'm a big fan of setting goals and resolutions.

In fact, I'm SUCH a fan that often the setting of the goal gives me more satisfaction than actually reaching it (yep, I'm weird but I'm thinking that perhaps you should have realised that by now?).  So that being said, I've decided I'm going to give the whole New Years' resolution thing a bit of a run up this year. Currently, it's the first week in December and I figure that's more than enough time for me to set decent realistic resolutions that aren't made in painful shoes, with a gullet of champagne on board, five minutes before midnight clicks over into the New Year.