Time for a little reflection

Today is my favourite day of the year. The last day of the current year. In Scotland there is a tradition where at the stroke of midnight you leave the house through the back door, which symbolizes taking out the old year, and enter through the front door, which symbolizes bringing in the new year. If you want to be really fancy, you leave a bucket filled with coal outside the front door, and each guest brings a lump of coal in with them, which symbolizes prosperity for the new year. Since coal is in short supply, it's been replaced with shortbread. You can buy shortbread at World Market. Walkers is the best. Also, it is considered especially lucky if a tall, dark, and handsome man is the first to enter your house after the new year is rung in.
So that's a little nugget of worldly trivia with which to impress your drunken friends.

My 2006 New Year's resolutions were as follows:

- boldly go where I have never gone before (mentally, emotionally, and physically) ;-)
- sing every day
- continue learning Spanish
- be a wonderful wife to Brian
- become a mother ;-)

SO how did I do?
boldly go where I have never gone before:
Well, this one's ambiguous, but I did challenge myself mentally last year by learning a new language, and taking on additional projects at work that I had no experience with. I'm claiming complete success here. Emotionally, I've grown as a person. I've learned to let go of things that aren't important, and learned to recognize feelings that I had traditionally supressed because I thought they made me weak, and embraced them instead, let myself feel them, process them, and move on from them. I feel great about that. Physically, I have challenged myself by committing to going to the gym and lifting weights. I've kept this up for more than a year now, and while I'm no American Gladiator, I was able to drop several percent in body fat and gain lean muscle, and maintain a healthy weight. My running has suffered a bit this year, though. I have'nt done many races, and I'm not training for anything. I have only ran for fitness/weight maintenance this year, and I'm ok with that.

sing every day:
That's easy. I did. In the car, in the shower, and to the cat, who loves when I sing to her and follows me around, climbing on things to try and reach me and put her little kitty paws around my neck and hug me and chew my hair. The downside of this is if I don't let her up, she bites my feet.

continue learning Spanish:
I failed here. I took spanish one, then I stopped. I will try again this year.

be a wonderful wife to Brian:
Brian would be a better judge than me as to whether I accomplished this goal. But I take comfort in the fact that I am the best wife he's ever had ;-) All kidding aside, I do feel like things between us are as great today as they were when we first met. I'm still crazy about him and have enjoyed the last 6 months of being Mrs. Brian Bauman.

become a mother:
Well, obviously I didn't accomplish this one this year. So I'll roll this one over into 2007.

So I've had some successes and some failures, but in all I'm pretty happy with 2006. I got married to the love of my life, surrounded by my best friends and family. I've lost family members, and deepened relationships with friends and other family members. I've gained a whole new family. I've fulfilled my dream of going to Asia. I've gotten over some disappointments with what I hope was a little grace. Now I'm looking forward to all the challenges that 2007 brings. And I know for sure that this coming year is going to be the biggest challenge of my life. So here's what I'm hoping to accomplish in 2007 (in no particular order):

Buy a new house
Become a mother
Maintain a healthy weight
Continue to go to the gym regularly
Continue to run
Learn to be more paitent (a major challenge)
Pick up where I left off on Spanish
Paint more (and perhaps paint for my friends, specifically, Tara)
Focus on the positive and take action to destroy the negative (when appropriate)
Allocate time to hanging out with friends
Balance work and life appropriately

Wish me luck!

This evening I plan to park myself in front of the web cam for a while and watch the festivities at Aunt Glenys and Uncle Terry's house in England as the Burton clan celebrates ringing in the new year. Listen to Big Ben chime 12, and hopefully sing Auld Lang Syne with them, before heading downtown to celebrate the new year in style with a big group of close friends and family.

I LOVE NEW YEAR'S EVE!

Happy Hogmanay everyone!