New Year's Resolution

I don’t make make resolutions generally at this time of the year, although I do think about things I’d like to concentrate on, which in some ways is the same thing I guess, but without the pressure from when things go awry.

I am going to be more organized. Now from a week to week I am very organized. My bestest friend, who is also the least organized domestic goddess I know, laughs at how organized I am. Normally at this stage I have all the kids’ school uniforms ironed - well before term starts, actually last year I had them all done before Christmas!! She laughs when I tell her that I have my meals worked out, working with my latest food magazine (A good Taste, or Good Food Ideas). I go to bed at night and get everything ready for the next day. Cereal bowls, spoons, cereal container out, lunch boxes out with biscuits and stuff already packed. The lunches are made up a week ahead and frozen and Billy-Joe gets them out in the morning. If I know I am working, I organize my lunch too, and get my plunger and travel mug ready, so I can drink decent coffee on the way to work. I try to do most of my housework during the week, so that I don’t have it all for the weekends. I try to do half of the ironing during the latter part of the week, so I don’t have to do it all on the weekend. I hate knowing I have to iron on a Sunday.

So, today, I bought a new ‘We are waiting for Santa’ sign, as our original one, rotted -and they were half price at the junk shop. I also got wrapping paper for next Christmas too. I also bought dh’s Valentine’s Day card already, as I try to make them but that doesn’t always happen, and then I end up picking one which is the best of a bad bunch. At least today I got a beautiful card with many many to choose from. I wanted to buy a new diary too. I got a lovely one for Christmas, but it’s not practical for me, as I like a week for view, and this is two days per view. (A page per day), and I need to be able to see the whole week. I wanted to have a look at the Women’s Weekly diary, but it was sold out before Christmas............who is that organized that they buy them before the year end??? I did see a couple that I liked, but I will wait. Thankfully they are not as dear as they once were either. I can remember paying around $30 for a diary in the early 90’s. The one’s I liked to day were around $7-$15 - pretty cheap.

The kidlets are at holiday care today, much against their chagrin. I disdecorated the Christmas tree this morning, so now my lounge is back to normal. Hopefully said kidlets won’t protest overly much. They weren’t putting the lights on anymore, and my cramped lounge was becoming annoyingly so, so I decided it was time to put it away.

I bought some chicken thigh fillets today, and have a Yellow Curry in the crock pot. It’s so cool here, (while my southern counterparts are stewing!!) so I have decided to cook a meal usually saved for a winter’s night. I have bought some pappadums too.

I have spent some time, working out how to get my delicious Prison Break DVDs onto my ipod. This whole mac thing changes everything, but that was something I’d never tried before, as I don’t own anything that I’d care to watch on my ipod. That is until now. I downloaded a program called ‘Handbrake’. Three hours later, and voila I had a version I could import into my itunes. After I deleted a few songs to make room for the DVD so it could fit lol....... I sat and watched a bit and was amazed at the clarity of video and sound - fantastic. I have already watched the first episode and its’ starting to fill in some gaps already.

As I am very sad that I don’t have access to Photoshop Elements on my new computer, I have decided to hunt around for something temporary. I downloaded Apple’s Aperture.........accckkkkkk, pity I didn’t check to see how much it would cost after the trial finished before I downloaded it and put strain on my already high usage for this month’s broadband!!! It looks like a program I could like to use, but at $450 it’s not that good. I will hang out for Elements. I did download a program called Acorn, which looks fantastic, so might help me out until I can get organized properly. I want to get started editing all my Christmas photos, otherwise they will pile up too quickly.