A Belated - Happy New Year!

So a Happy New Year to all of you peoples out there. Hopefully you all found yourself in the company of good people in the countdown to 2009, and with a bit of luck hopefully you got to kiss at least one of those people. I got me a little New Years peck from an old school friend of my brothers which is not exactly what i had in mind, but hey - i'll take what i can get.

By far the highlight of my New Years was .... the birth of my neice! Welcome to the world little Isabella Grace. Yes, thats right regular blog followers, the impending new baby ( who was due on Christmas Eve/Christmas Day mind you.... ) finally arrived at 2:23am on New Years Day. Happy New Years to everyone in my family. And not only did she finally arrive, but she happened to be the first baby born in our region for 2009. How cool is that ? She gets to be in the local paper and, thus, will go down as part of local history. Bella is totally going to be famous when tomorrows addition comes out! Hopefully i'll be able to post a picture tomorrow, or at least give you a link to our local newspaper, if you want to check out my gorgeous new neice for yourself.

And now, for the part you've all been waiting for - or at least, the part you've been expecting: my resolutions. I've never been the type to sit and make a very specific list of what i want to achieve. I know some people think that putting your EXACT goals on paper and sticking them on your fridge/closet/bathroom mirror is a great way to self-motivate; I, however, am of the opinion that if you leave your goals as general as possible, you wont be disappointed if you couldnt do EXACTLY what you wanted, but you'll appreciate what you did do. Does that make sense ? For example, if you say " I want to save $5000 by the end of the year " and at the end of the year you only have $4500, you'd probably be a little letdown, wouldnt you ? But if you made your resolution " I'd like to save as much money as possible during the year " well, $4500 doesnt look so bad, does it ? So, in the spirit of leaving myself open to all possibilities and not tying myself to one specific thing, here are the three things i want to achieve during 2009:

1. I resolve to continue the gym and health routine I started in 2008. During the past year, I managed to not only start regularly going to the gym, but i kept it up. I've fallen off the wagon a little in the past two months, seeing as i've been a little under the weather, but i am pysched to get back into it. And, not only do i resolve to continue the gym going, but i also intend to push myself just that little bit harder when i can, instead of resting on my laurels.

2. I resolve to spend as much time as is possible with my neices. For the record, that would be H who is now 3, and the previously mentioned newborn Isabella. I like to think i'm a great aunty ( i was going to say good but you know what ? I'm actually GREAT ) already, but i know their have been times in the past year or so that i could have asked if H would like to do something with me, or times when we have been playing and i've given up the game just a little too early. I know she " loves my guts " - as she's just become fond of saying - and want little Bella to be the same way. I want to have the loving, nurturing , " My Aunty Amy is the bestest! " kind of relationship that i've never had with any of my aunts or uncles.

3. I resolve to say " yes " more often that I have done in the past. No, I havent been to see " Yes Man " with Jim Carrey. The truth is i've kind of come to this conclusion on my own - i've kind of missed out on a tonne of stuff because i said no. I said no because i didnt know anybody else who was going to be there; I said no because i was too tired or too lazy to make the effort to go; I said no because i was afraid how things would turn out in the end. Now i'm thinking even if things dont turn out all that fantastically, at least thats an experience right ? I've had a great 2 weeks over this holiday period because i've said " yes ", even when i would only know one person at birthday drinks, or two people out of 40 at a bbq - if i'd listened to the old me, i wouldnt have gone. And i wouldnt have rocked as hard as i did! I've made at least one new friend ( who may be a mother of 5 but she's pretty neat ) and a handful of acquaintances in only two weeks - imagine what i could do in a whole year of saying " yes " ?

And thats about it for now. I was thinking of doing a couple of " Best of " lists - say, my top 5 best movies of 2009, for example - but i've been too consumed by baby cuteness to think that much. Give me another week and i might have come up with them....