Resolutions again

We spent New Years around a table, just like the French like to do. Yes I suppose I'm gradually becoming one of them. It felt right though, just the four of us and me running up and down the steps to the kitchen cooking up a three star dinner. The kids decorated the table with leftover glitter from my friend Dee's Christmas table and we wished them both Happy New Year at nine o'clock, shhhh...don't tell,they're too small to know yet! Then Seb and I cuddled up on the sofa, champagne in hand to watch a Jason Bourne movie we totally forgot about buying in Mexico. I shielded my eyes a lot because I hate violent movies but I LOVE spy movies so I had to watch through parted fingers. Then we turned off the film and wrote out our resolutions and regrets. We both had a big pile of each.

My resolutions I wrote out on New Years were more like a list of *wishes* for the New Year, things I'd like to have happen without much work. This is just a little selfish list of things I'd like for ME to make me happier but that I'll definitley have to work at getting. Maybe there isn't much difference!:
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Make and buy better food for my family. I've started this week and it's really fun being back into cooking again even in my grungy underground kitchen.

Plan and take more vacations. Cheap vacations, dragging Seb kicking and screaming someplace. anyplace.

Work hard to help finish our house. I'm the resident painter but I need to learn to tape drywall so that's my next goal.

Do some nice things for my neighbors. I have such nice people living around me. It takes a huge crisis to see who you can count on and how much. It will be my turn to give back to them this year for sure.

Grow my garden! I can't wait to expand on what I started last year and wage slug warfare.

Sew and read and take photos of course...

Blog more about my day to day life. It seems a bit dull to me sometimes to write about my daily life but I think I'll appreciate it later. Sorry in advance to anyone reading!

The new year

Usually I have all these goals but this year I'm finding it difficult. It's no surprise to me. I'm still recovering from the tidal wave of last year. Last year was a doozie!

It was my experience in this past year that you can set goals for yourself but your life can change with the snap of a finger and a nod of a grumpy boss and your husband can be sent to Paris just like that. You can't fight change and most times you can't see it coming. You can't really plan your life and hey maybe you shouldn't! I don't think changes should be questioned. I like to think there is a reason for things changing, a reason we can't really see.

I have a crumpled piece of paper I keep in my jewelry box that Seb gave me the day we met. He was trying to say a word to me and with his heavy French accent I didn't understand him so he wrote it. It says destin. On New Years Eve day Little S and I were organizing my things and he unfolded the paper. I just thought how odd. How odd that he would be handing me that paper that I tucked in my wallet ten years ago for safe keeping.

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I do have a few things I hope for in the coming year. Of course life could throw a curveball and mock me but if things stay the way they are these are my hopes:

that I will...

find a place for little Charlotte in local daycare two mornings a week in September at the start of the next school year (and I hope it's a place where she can be happy)

have our house at least 50 percent finished and have a real bathroom.

do more art and nature projects with Little S.

sew more and have a place in the house to do it that doesn't create chaos (and have a sewing machine again--Seb said maybe I can convert mine, yay!)

get my kitchen (aka the worst room in the house) organized so that it functions with all my things in it. This is the worst kitchen I have ever had in my life and I'm determined to turn it around and make it the best.

spend one day a week in the city and maybe make a connection to finding a p.t. job that I love.

learn more handy-woman skills so I can do more projects on my own.

make a household budget and stick with it.

take more photos and do more photo projects (learning more about my camera along the way)

read more (is this ever not on my list?)

Resolutions -- end of month update for March & April

I was reviewing my wonderful New Years Resolutions 2008 list the other day and was wowed to realize that I have ... 1) accomplished only one of the things on the list ... 2) because our priorites have changed--it´s all about the priorities you know and ... 3) I am going to be forced to change my resolutions to some new ones. For now here's my quick update on my resolutions for the last two months.

1. Learn Spanish and study a lot (so I can stop pointing and rifling through the dictionary)

Priority change. I´m not thinking about this right now because so much else is going in. I´m taking this one off.

2. Lose 11 kilos (going from 61 to 50 kilos --my pre Little S weight)

Okay wait be right back...okay wow 56 kilos! I haven´t even been trying to lose. I think it´s all the feeding she´s been doing. And I remember that at 7 months with Little S I started to lose all the padding so it´s my metabolism´s way.

I need to do a week long fast to cleanse all those leftover fertility and birthing drugs out of my system and that will also help get me to my target weight. I have to wait though because of breastfeeding the little biquette. It probably won´t happen this year. I´ll keep this resolution on here.

3. Read 1 book a month and organize books (Dewey decimal system most likely)

This makes me sad when I read this. There´s not so much time at night to read unless you count kids books. When can I read again? I try to read on car trips but that´s impossible because I get car sick when I read. I hope I´ll find time to read eventually.

4. Organize the office (scary place where we can never find anything).

This will never happen. I´m taking this one off. Hopeless.

5. Start scrapbooking for the kids (I have all the stuff just never had time--it´s important because I´m going to lose all the trinkets I´ve saved)

I have this great idea for making little picture books which I will try to start soon and share. I am really excited about this project. So yeah I hope to get a bunch of this type of stuff done over the summer.

6. Stop shopping at Walmart, ugh! (it´s a hypermarché here and right up the street from us so I´ve become lazy about my principles)

It´s an awful, evil place with an awful lot of plastic. I´m taking this one off because I won´t have to worry about this much longer now will I?

7. Learn to sew (I bought the machine...it´s a start)

It´s alllllll about the sewing here. I have four or five really fun projects in the works right now and so many more in my head. I am finally able to sew some straight lines and let me tell you it´s a matter of practice just like anything. I sew every single day now. It´s my ritual.

I´m inching into working with pattern pieces and I hope to actually do this when I stay with mom this July. I´m even thinking of taking my machine and leaving it with her so I can have my own machine to work on when I visit each year.

8. Start or join a bookclub (I may have to start one because I haven´t heard of any--it will be hard to order books too so I´m not sure how it will work)

No time to read but I´d still like to start one in France. This one will have to come off. I think maybe next year is a better target.

9. Work with Little S on his English one afternoon a week (so he learns to spell with phonics)

This has changed too because I´m not so much into FOnIKs but more into getting him to love books more and more. Lots of philosophical meanderings about education going on here at our house, all for another blog post. So I will be taking this off the list.

10. Learn to bake bread and make tortillas (our household help may be able to teach me to make the tortillas)

I still would like to do this before we leave. I have been buying my tortillas from the bakery and they are so wonderful that I´m spoiled (flavored with green chilies...yummm). I´ll have to learn to make them so I can have the same kind in France and feed my little addiction.

So as you can see there is a lot of room for new resolutions just in time for the six month mark. I´m really into this idea of projects after reading reviews of this book (hey we don´t get to order books around here so much--it´s an old book from a few years ago). Project building has become a huge priority for me. I will talk about this too because they are kind of like resolutions only more important. My idea book is plein, plein, plein.

Resolutions -- end of month update for February

Oh dear, I have to apologize in advance for boring blog readers with the "laundry list" updates on my mundane resolutions. It's really just for me all this. A list of a person's resolutions and how they handle them over the year is pretty telling though, --what are their (superficial) priorities and how lazy are they from month to month. So yes a highlight of how unmotivated I am will follow!

I'm giving myself some leeway for doing many of these things. We're moving house in the middle of this year after all! Hey come to think of it when aren't we moving house? I guess really I have no excuses now do I?

1. Learn Spanish and study a lot (so I can stop pointing and rifling through the dictionary)

Still learning even though we plan on leaving. We had to drop our instructor though because we're so busy right now with moving. One of the hardest parts about leaving is losing our language skills. I love learning languages.

2. Lose 11 kilos (going from 61 to 50 kilos --my pre Little S weight)

I´m at about 59 kilos today meaning I gained a kilo recently. With Little S I didn't lose the weight until one month after he started solids. Going through his baby book you could see a marked difference in the photos taken of me from six months on. I'm hoping the same thing happens because I can't really diet before the baby stops breastfeeding! (a very good excuse that I will announce to anyone within earshot of me cramming a brownie in my mouth)

3. Read 1 book a month and organize books (Dewey decimal system most likely)

I often think of the character in The Hours, the mother, who checks in to a hotel and in the book you think "okay she's going to kill herself" but all she wants to do is read in peace. I feel the same way. It's a wonderful literary passage showing how you can at once love your children but still resent the time they take away from you and your own thoughts. Like the character in the book, what I wouldn't give for some time to myself to simply read, unbothered by anyone or anything.

And yes the books are very beautifully organized. They'll all go in little boxes soon and travel back from whence they came. The thought of doing an over-the-border book run has crossed my mind a few times but without a passport/birthright Charlotte cannot enter the USA. If she gets her passport soon I'm headed to a Texas Barnes and Nobels with credit card in hand and returning with about twenty titles.

4. Organize the office (scary place where we can never find anything).

I've begun to think that it's perfectly okay to have a messy desk. I bet all the best writers had messy desks that they just cleaned up right before those photo essays done by Life Magazine and Esquire.

5. Start scrapbooking for the kids (I have all the stuff just never had time--it´s important because I´m going to lose all the trinkets I´ve saved)

No but I have a lot of inspiration. It will come soon. I swear I'll do the first page before we move if it kills me.

6. Stop shopping at Walmart, ugh! (it´s a hypermarché here and right up the street from us so I´ve become lazy about my principles)

Walmart and I are breaking up like teenage lovers whose parents moved cross country. Unless Walmart comes to France (ewwww) we are splitsville! Funny story is that I started taking my cloth grocery bags in there last month and they didn't know what to do with them. They wanted to know what aisle I bought them in and I said in broken Spanish that they were for the groceries. The bagger put about two things in each one but I said "no, fill 'em up!" and he did with my help. Will Walmart ever use recyclable grocery bags? Will Mexico ever recycle? I wonder.

Judge me not lest you have strolled past an aisle of hand painted Oaxacan bowls priced at mere pesos and not been tempted. Yes it's clear that I will be shopping here right up until the day we leave.

7. Learn to sew (I bought the machine...it´s a start)

I am indeed a sewing demon! I've made curtains, a baby duvet, a pillow and several toys for Little S. One thing I just recently discovered in all of this is that kids love toys you make for them. I am really surprised by that because my first efforts have been well, lame. Everything is crooked and missing stitches. It looks like I was half drunk when I made some of it. Little S treats them like an YSL couture gown though. He asks for these toys every single night and first thing in the morning. I suddenly recalled MY favorite toy as a child, --a Pippi Longstocking doll handmade by my mother. Make toys for your kids. It's such a nice way to tell them how much you love them (I sound like a Hallmark ad--what a cornball)

Sewing is probably the place where I've blossomed the most. I don't care if my sewing machine won't convert I am bringing it with me! I hope I can run it on an adapter or something. I am so in love with this thing.

8. Start or join a bookclub (I may have to start one because I haven´t heard of any--it will be hard to order books too so I´m not sure how it will work)

I hope to do this when we get settled in Paris. It will definitely be one of the perks of living there. And I can order from Amazon again! Hooray!

9. Work with Little S on his English one afternoon a week (so he learns to spell with phonics)

We have been doing so much reading lately it's crazy. When we read he has started identifying characters and letters spontaneously. Little S is generally behind in all things linguistic and he has a very rudimentary speech level (around age 1.5 or 2 rather than 3.5). He really needs a lot of extra help and we are doing it together, lovingly through books. I so want him to love language and reading like I do. I want him to discover it on his own though and not have it force fed so I'm treading slowly.

10. Learn to bake bread and make tortillas (our household help may be able to teach me to make the tortillas)

Okay I have to chuckle about the household help. We never got quite that far. My neighbor said she'd show me how to make the tortillas and I'm going to invite her over for a glass of French wine and a lesson so we can bond one last time before I tell her that we'll be leaving (which I am dreading).

Resolutions -- end of month update for January

1. Learn Spanish and study a lot (so I can stop pointing and rifling through the dictionary)

Yes. We now have lessons weeknights at our home from 9-10:30pm. I am trying to study during the day a little too. I´m buried in flashcards at the moment trying to memorise the majority of the verbs. Seb is still a better student than me which bugs me--he always had to memorise things in school in France and he is good at retention. We Americans are not so good at that sort of thing.

This is our makeshift classroom we have set up in our dining room

2. Lose 11 kilos (going from 61 to 50 kilos --my pre Little S weight)

Yes. Going well thanks to The Maneater. I´m at about 58 kilos today and my clothing options have really expanded. Last month when I traveled to France I had to wear maternity jeans! Thank god those are history.



3. Read 1 book a month and organize books (Dewey decimal system most likely)

No for the reading. I haven´t been reading any books but parenting books lately. The book organizing went really well though. It´s not dewey but it´s by categories. I have caegories for history/biography, new age and philosophy, geography and travel, fiction, art, language, language dictionaries, and French literature (in French). We painted these ugly cherry-colored bookshelves a nice flat, black. They were in the house when we moved in.





4. Organize the office (scary place where we can never find anything).

Yes this is coming along well. We still have some storage issues on the desktop. It´s a magnet for junk.

desk in the office...why is it always a mess here? I can never get the bad energy out of here.

5. Start scrapbooking for the kids (I have all the stuff just never had time--it´s important because I´m going to lose all the trinkets I´ve saved)

Sort of. My first step has been to stock the majority of the photos in an album marked "First Year." Both Charlotte and Little S will have their own photo books. The scrapbooking will come after this.

this is baby Charlotte´s photo book--it´s nearly full and she isn´t even three months old yet

6. Stop shopping at Walmart, ugh! (it´s a hypermarché here and right up the street from us so I´ve become lazy about my principles)

Nope. No progress on this whatsoever. It´s so damn convenient. I´m drowning in plastic bags though. Walmart and I definitely have a love-hate relationship.

this is a little bag to store all those plastic bags in that you get from Walmart--a thing bought ironically at...um, Walmart

7. Learn to sew (I bought the machine...it´s a start)

No progress. My first project will probably be a draft guard filled with beans to put in front of our front door.



8. Start or join a bookclub (I may have to start one because I haven´t heard of any--it will be hard to order books too so I´m not sure how it will work)

No. I´ve asked around about how it could work and how we could get our books. That´s the only progress I´ve made.


9. Work with Little S on his English one afternoon a week (so he learns to spell with phonics)

Not really. We´ve been doing some alphabet puzzles together. And actually some bilingual kids mom´s have advised me that we NOT work on any English reading while he´s immersed in Spanish but I´m not so sure about this. They feel it only serves to confuse them. I tend to think kids are sponges at this age and you should begin helping them read in all languages when they´re young. Thoughts? Opinions?



10. Learn to bake bread and make tortillas (our household help may be able to teach me to make the tortillas)

No. I have oven issues. The oven turns off after 20 minutes and goes on this wild "beep" fest. It won´t come back on for another hour. It´s weird. I´m afraid to try my hand at bread baking only to have my results fall flat because my oven conked out. Okay that´s my excuse. As for the tortillas I have no excuse other than that we haven´t yet found a housekeeper.

Resolutions

On New Years Eve in a little apartment overlooking Lac Léman we made a list of resolutions on paper (to tuck away and laugh at in the coming years). I won´t share Seb´s list because it´s personal and mostly had to do with avoiding snacks and managing the entire plant where he works, but I´ll share mine as proof next year that I actually did accomplish each thing I set out to at the beginning of the year:

1. Learn Spanish and study a lot (so I can stop pointing and rifling through the dictionary)
2. Lose 11 kilos (going from 61 to 50 kilos --my pre Little S weight)
3. read 1 book a month and organize books (Dewey decimal system most likely)
4. organize the office (scary place where we can never find anything)
5. start scrapbooking for the kids (I have all the stuff just never had time--it´s important because I´m going to lose all the trinkets I´ve saved)
6. stop shopping at Walmart, ugh! (it´s a hypermarché here and right up the street from us so I´ve become lazy about my principles)
7. learn to sew (I bought the machine...it´s a start)
8. start or join a bookclub (I may have to start one because I haven´t heard of any--it will be hard to order books too so I´m not sure how it will work)
9. work with Little S on his English one afternoon a week (so he learns to spell with phonics)
10. learn to bake bread and make tortillas (our household help may be able to teach me to make the tortillas)

Seb pointed out "tu a vraiment rien a faire...hein" (you really have nothing to do all day, huh?).

I guess I am a lady of leisure these days.