exciting times ahead!

This year I will be embarking on several mini projects.  I will stop making excuses and will focus on making things happen.  Not that I have not achieved anything in my 31 years of existence...its just that this year, I want to have something tangible at the end of the year.  Something that everyone can see and acknowledge.  I don't make a habit of posting goals in public -- I suppose I've always been afraid that if I didn't achieve them, then people will be disappointed.  This year, I will make sure that I start and finish what I've told myself I would do.  So at the risk of embarassing myself, I am laying out my goals for the year, in no particular order:

1. Photo project. Those who know me also know that my hobby has become less of a hobby and more of a memory of something I used to do.  That stops this year.  I am putting Bear to good use and I will make Allan proud that he gave me such a wonderful gift.  At the end of the year, I will have something to compile and show family and friends.  
2. The "me" project.  Two years ago, I lost tons of weight.  How all of that happened and why it seems so easy now is still quite difficult to imagine.  This year, I will make it happen again, not just for health reasons but for *gasp* vanity as well.  I'm getting married and I will not pore over wedding photos and agonize about how I looked.  I will be thinner (note, "thinner" and not skinny, I am still being realistic anyway) and I will be absolutely perfect on my wedding day! 
3. Home Economics.  Budget and keeping house need to take priority.  I am a married woman now after all.  I must learn to cook decent, healthier, edible food.  Hand in hand with that would be organizing my grocery schedule and meal planning techniques.  Compared to the first two, this will be my biggest challenge I think.  See, even though I've been on my own for quite some time now, I don't always plan for myself.  I always just wing it and see where my mood takes me.  Well, that mood had better be "in the mood to cook/clean on a regular basis.  I will make my mom and my sister proud.
4. Bring back the music.  My playlist is full of old songs that I absolutely loved, but its time to learn more.  This year, I will find new artists to listen to and I will try and keep up with the new groups and new music that are springing up everywhere.
5. Power of the pen.  I love to blog, and I must make that more evident by bringing this blog back to life.  I did not start this blog years ago just to watch it distintegrate.  One blog entry a week at least!

So there.  Five things that I need to work on this year.  I know the list is not long, but what I lack in number, I will make up with in quality.  I'm throwing this out into the open and I'm hoping that going back to this list will help keep me motivated.

Happy 2010!

By the way, I write this after initial preparations for tomorrow's big day...I've laid the building blocks to tomorrow's diet and exercise routine --- Day 0 body measurements for the "Before" tally, and preps for tomorrow night's soup on the menu :)

thoughts on the past year

As I write this I am eating out by myself...it has been a while since I last dined out by myself. In fact, I can't even remember when the last time was. It must've been back in Manila because I don't remember eating out alone in Dublin.

This probably explains why I don't have decent blog entries. I think despite being alone, I haven't actually spent much time being by myself. Well, not the typical alone time that allows me to think and write.

So what has been happening to me in the past one year and (almost) one month? The obvious answer, I've lived in an apartment for one year, and I've moved out of that apartment into a new one. It's smaller and slightly cheaper but much nicer I think. It will be my home for the next year, after I which I'm pretty sure I'll be moving again...Allan and I would probably need more closet space.

Also an obvious answer, Allan and I are still in two different countries, despite the fact that we've gotten married. It was not easy last year and it's still not easy now. But we do what we have to do and we deal with the difficulties because, well, we have to.

The less obvious answer, and something that I've admitted to myself just now is that the past year has been struggling to force some sense of normalcy in my life. I've been trying to get a balance between working on weekdays and establishing a "life" for me here. I signed up for the gym in order to get me to do something other than work, but in the past month, that has blown up in my face. I've gotten frustrated over forcing myself to go. The fact that I tell myself to go makes me not want to go. I am a rebellious teenager rebelling against myself. In the past weeks though, I’ve been feeling a familiar restlessness come over me more and more. The “old” me who never stayed put on weekends is slowly making itself felt again. I hear that voice inside that says you should be out and about instead of moping around. I haven’t fully entertained that thought yet, but I think I will need to in the next year.

I guess that overall, while this past year has been extremely significant for me, it has put other pieces of my life on hold. I think most of the time I spent away from home, here in Dublin, seem like lost time. Nothing seemed to have happened, and I was functioning as though on auto pilot…..I want my life to start again.

one year later

One year ago today, I spent my first day in Dublin...and maybe a few more days before that, I may have written my last decent blog entry.  I've moved countries and lost the ability to blog.

Oh well, I think I'll post this photo instead (taken sometime January this year I think).