Happy New Year from Perth, Western Australia!
New Year is a time to look back on the past year and forward to the next. What have you achieved in the last twelve months? What do you want to achieve in the next twelve? The Christmas orgy of food and presents is finally over and it's time to look to the future and figure out what we're all doing with our lives.
While other people have grandiose bucket lists that involve kayaking down the Zambezi or climbing Mt Everest our goals are a little more humble. All of them are, however, very do-able.
Here is what we hope to achieve in 2013 in the order in which we scribbled them on a note pad:
Study for ourselves. Both of us are now participating in online courses in things that we find interesting. Keep it up.
Exercise more. We have Christmas bellies to burn off.
Learn to speak more than 30 words in another language. While we can say hello in a bunch of languages we're not even close to being conversationally fluent in anything but English.
Earn some money through Magic Travel Blog. Running this site is fun and all but we do have bills to pay so it would be nice if Magic Travel Blog could pitch in.
Spend more time with family.
Spend less time with family.
Learn to take better food photos. We take lots of photos of food. Most of them aren't great.
Find a home base outside of Australia
Be in a resort for our anniversary.
Keep House-Sitting. We've discovered house sitting in 2012 and want to make a point of continuing it.
Return to Kuching, Malaysia. We went there as part of our honeymoon and have always meant to go back.
Get an unrestricted motorcycle license. Andrew has an R-E motorcycle license which limits the power of motorcycles he is allowed to legally ride in Australia. While this isn't really a problem he should probably get around to getting his unrestricted license.
Actually finish one of our many half written books. Google Docs contains a number of unfinished masterpieces that we should complete and unleash upon the world.
We have the right to not achieve any of these as our lives change. Who knows what will happen! For example, by the end of 2013, we may have a child or three or have developed an all consuming love of cross-stitch. As events unfold some items may become less likely while new items will be added. The most important thing is that we stay happy and healthy and in love.
Happy 2013 everybody. May your dreams continue coming true this year. And if you haven't written down some goals for the new year, go do that. Do it now.