To resolve or not to resolve?

I wonder if I am getting too old, too lazy or too awkward for New Year's Resolutions.  The beauty of writing a blog for quite a long time (since 2007! how amazing is that?) is that you can go back and check and see what was happening in your life in earlier Januaries.  Pottering back through the New Year entries I see that some years I have made resolutions and some years I have not.  One year I see that I resolved to be more glamorous on Thursdays.  I think we can safely say that did not happen.  On other years I have blithely ignored the very idea.  I see that I have however kept the resolution to stop resolving to eat less, drink less and exercise more.  I haven't done any of those things but at least I have stopped boringly girding myself up to do them and then berating myself for failing yet again.

We have had a challenging few months to finish off 2010 and this morning I learned that my much loved younger brother is ill.  This is not a year for making life any harder with worthy exhortations and rafts of negatives.  So here are some resolutions which might make life easier, funnier, happier, healthier; little ones  which I hope can be slotted in to full days.

1. I will make more time with friends and, if going away from home is a bit tricky just now, more invitations for people to come here.  This is such a good one that I am going to pick the phone up just as soon as I finish writing this blog.
2. I will do something every day that is just for me: a bath, a glass of good wine, half an hour upstairs on the bed with a book.
3. I will do something every day that is just for Ian.  This is harder than it sounds.  He is a great one for sorting everything out for himself and looking after other people all the time.
4. I will take the time every day to listen to my FIL, just to sit and chat for half an hour without trying to fill the time with jobs and chores.  I am getting my ear in now, beginning to understand both the strong regional accent and his own idiolect which means that he can expect you to fill in missing words and translate phrases.  Soon I may even always understand the meaning of "the old one, two", a phrase which slides around with, as far as I can tell, an entirely variable meaning, often tripping me up and leaving me grasping at empty air.  I will slow down and, for some time every day, let him set the pace.
5. I will buy and wear some clothes in gorgeous colours.  I fancy a singing blue and green like the peacock feathers in the vase behind me.
6. I will go to yoga every week and become a truly bendy person.
7. I think I might join a choir.
8. I think I might get a dog, maybe not right this minute though.
9. I will plant yet more flowers for butterflies and bees in the field around the fruit trees.
10. I will ensure that I see all the blogging friends I have been lucky enough to meet so far and also add some new ones to the "met in real life" tag.
11. I will paint my toenails, even though it is winter.