HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

Happy New Year!!
I appreciate your stopping by over the past year, and especially those who leave a comment or send an E-mail.
My User ID for my blogs has been very confusing this year, and I am surprised when anyone finds me - so thanks.

I don't make New Years' resolutions. I don't want the stress I would put on myself if I made a resolution to loose X amount of weight. I work on that problem all the time, so why make a resolution. That is just a never-ending issue.

I do set goals each year. I open my new calendar and see January as a clean slate, a chance for me to, once again, try to get my priorities in order. Yes, that has been a big problem for me for years. I hope to balance my time between work and play.

I hope this year to open my calendar and when I look at a page with a month laid out before me, I will see more days with NOTHING planned.
My 2010 calendar was filled to overflowing and it overwhelmed me to read the things listed. But 2011, I hope, will hold much more free time. My friend Mike said to me that she did not like it when her had to do list was larger than her want to do list. In her free time, she paints, researches her genealogy, visits flea markets and thrift shops where she finds interesting things she can fix up or write about or wear.

As I say that I am slowing down, I am scheduling Coffee with the Poets which meets the second Wednesday of each month. I am making the schedule for Writers Circle, and we have a full spring session. I am also refining my lesson plans for a four session class at the Institute of Continuing Learning which takes place beginning in February. Some of us will be involved with Blue Ridge Author and Book fest in Hendersonville in May. I will be putting some time into that event.

However, I want more days when I am free to visit out of town friends, go up to Sylva for Coffee with the Poets at City Lights Books, attend Conferences and workshops. I enjoyed several free days while staying with my sister in Roswell the last two weeks of December. Some of that time was spent in Barnes and Noble where I lingered until I couldn't stand any longer.

A cousin from Utah contacted me recently with more information on one of my great grandmothers and that sparked my interest in genealogy again. Gosh, we just need about three more days in each week, don't we?

I want to plan a "writing retreat" here at home. Why do I have to leave home to find the time to write? I can turn off my telephone, lock my doors, and refuse to look at my e-mail. I can lock myself downstairs in my studio where I can't see the dirty dishes in the sink or the laundry piled up. But, can I stop my mind from thinking about those things and feeling guilty? That is the real question.

What about you? Got any resolutions or goals for the new year?