Beyond My Control

Oh dear, another project

To prove I am both learning and not learning the lessons of last year, I have sort of fallen into a new project for 2011.

Projects didn't turn out so well in 2010, with abandoned blogs and still unfinished crochet rugs. So that lesson is not learned.

Also in 2010 I did very little reading, comparitively, but that's a lesson I am planning on learning.

There were two main problems with reading last year:

1. I was exhausted most of the year and therefore frequently went straight to sleep at night without picking up a book, something which it used to be physically impossible for me to do. (I used to keep a borrowed book on the bedside table in the spare room at my friends' place so that when I crashed there I had something to read me to sleep even when I'd had far too much wine.)

2. It wasn't that I didn't want to read, it's that I frequently struggled to find the book I was in the mood for. There were a lot of half finished books in 2010.

Late last year - on the back of picking up a few Penguin classics in Auckland airport on my way to the States - I started to fall into a pattern of reading classics. Old books that have survived the test of time. And it's been satisfying, and for some reason doesn't seem to suffer so much at the whims of my reading moods.

So I've decided to go with it.

The arbitrary date is 1960 (because the last book I read over the weekend was written in 1958). I'm going to attempt to go through the year reading only books written before 1960, and trying to avoid re-reads unless it's something from years and years ago that I really didn't appreciate at the time. But really, there's not much need for re-reads given how many classics there are out there. So many that I haven't read. And I have a Lit degree in my past, so it's not as if I'm starting off a low base.

At the moment: Mansfield Park.

I know, I know, Austen: easy. Except I have a mental block with Mansfield Park. I've read all of Austen's other novels more than once - my copies of P&P and Emma are particularly battered - but I've never been able to get through Mansfield Park. Or even have it register at all, judging by my copy of the book. I must have owned it for at least 10 years, probably longer, and was convinced on picking it up this time that I had only even made it through a couple of chapters. The dog-ear on the page HALFWAY THROUGH would seem to indicate not, even though I still have no recollection of the book at all. On this current attempt at reading it I'm now several chapters in - and quite liking it - but none of it is ringing a bell at all. None. I think that dog-ear must have been accidental. (Aside: I dog-ear the pages on my own books, but never ever on borrowed books.)

We shall see how it goes. Next up perhaps some Dickens, or Moby Dick, or The Three Muskateers.

 

 

The Music of Failure

This was going to be a great, fabulous looking food post about how I cooked a fantastic roast chicken on my new barbeque.

I took preparatory photos of preparing the stuffing - lemons, garlic, onion, herbs - and of the BBQ. All that was left was the photo of the lovely crispy on the outside, moist on the inside chicken.

Ha!

I pulled the bird out of the BBQ too early, realized too late it wasn't cooked enough, then overdid it in finishing it off in the oven. I managed to salvage enough for a passable dinner, but there was certainly nothing worth capturing for posterity. Or even leftovers.

So, instead, the following is my playlist of 2010 - which I've been meaning to post before we get too far into 2011:

The Opener - The Courteeners

Trouble Comes Running - Spoon

The Ghost Inside - Broken Bells

Drunk Girls - LCD Soundsystem

Swim Until You Can't See Land - Frightened Rabbit

Bloodbuzz Ohio - The National

In Sleep - Lissie

Hustle & Cuss - The Dead Weather

Dilly - Band of Horses

Let's Get Lost - Beck & Bat for Lashes

Rocket - Goldfrapp

Crash Years - The New Pornographers

Hollywood - Marina & the Diamonds

Next Girl - The Black Keys

Scissor Runner - Jenny & Johnny

MoneyGrabber - Fitz & the Tantrums

Do-Wah-Do - Kate Nash

Barricade - Interpol

The Ghost Who Walks - Karen Elson

Come Undone - Isobel Campbell & Mark Lanegan

Fade Like A Shadow - KT Tunstall

Sunday Best - Washington

Coquet Coquette - Of Montreal

The Bike Song - Mark Ronson & the Business International

The Hair Song - Black Mountain

Sing Me To Sleep - Fran Healy (with Neko Case)

I bought a lot of music last year, and listened to a lot more, and I'm looking forward to keeping that up and hopefully seeing more live music in 2011.

My favorite albums of last year were definitely The Black Keys "Brothers" and Band of Horses "Infinite Arms", both of which are still on high rotation in my car.

See, that was a good way to forget about my failure as a cook, wasn't it?

Just Don't Call Them Resolutions!

A new year. Again. Amazing, really.

I come into 2011 with mixed feelings.

On the one hand I feel quite blah because there are a range things going on with people close to me that aren't particularly cheering and accordingly it's just not possible to be totally rah-rah-2011! about the whole thing.

On the proverbial other hand, however, I am looking forward to a year with not quite so much physical upheaval - having moved house three times in 2010 it would hardly be possible for there to be more - as an opportunity to just get on with things. Get things done. Not waste so much time. Savour things more. Enjoy.

The art of getting things done does, of course, start with a list. A list I refuse to call my new year's resolutions because it came together more organically and actually well before the beginning of the new year. And I don't believe in resolutions and never keep them.

On the list, in no particular order:

- blog more. I have had this blog for 7 and a half years, and probably posted less in 2010 than in any other year before. It's no coincidence that I also wrote very little at all (other than for work) in 2010. I still have posts and comments and stories spinning around in my head, but none ever seemed to make it to paper in 2010. I also read less last year, having struggled to find things I was in the right mood for - therefore reading little bits of lots and finishing very little - and for the first time I can remember, regularly falling asleep without even picking up a book. It was a combination of working, moving, laziness and lack of any kind of discipline (all to be common themes throughout the list). At the same time that lack of discipline also had me starting 2 other blogs in 2010, one about food, which died when selling and buying property took over my year, and one about fashion, which died with too much work. And lack of discipline. The thing with those was, though, why did I bother? I can blog about those things here. As such I've now imported the posts from those ill-fated diversions here and will make a concerted effort blog about all the things I'm interested in here instead of launching new ventures I don't have time for. I imagine some more themed posts, food, fashion, travel, music, house, all the things I've always blogged about, but with more focus and dedication. I also want to get back to reading and interacting with everyone else's blogs as well, something I've drifted away from for all those same reasons. And writing more, for myself if not for publication.

- exercise. Oh yes, that again. Let's be honest, in the last year and a half I've put on a lot of weight. I don't want to, and never will, be skinny. But I love clothes and at the moment I can't fit into a lot of mine. For all those same reasons mentioned above. Mainly the laziness and lack of discipline. I need to drop a few kilos. A dress size. Get back to normal me. Not size 10 stressed out not eating me, not size 14 lazy-arse me. Just regular size 12 me. And I'm getting older, there's no denying, so the more I let myself go the harder it is to get it back. So, exercise. More of it, more regularly. Both to lose some weight and then to keep a healthy balance with the next point...

- eating better. This is actually a two-fold goal. There's the flip-side to the exercise bit above, the needing to get healthier and lose some weight, which is obvious. But I'm not on a 'diet'. I just want to eat better in every sense of the word. Healthier, more interesting food, different food, great restaurants, good home cooking, grow my own herbs finally, all that good stuff. I want the taking up of the exercise to balance out the rich good stuff. I'm not going on a diet, I'm not giving up bread (impossible!), I'm not doing those things which I'll never stick to for long, but I am instituting three rules: 1. eat fresh whenever possible; 2. learn, for the first time in my life, portion control; and most importantly 3. don't 'waste' calories on the cheap easy crap, i.e. eat goat cheese slathered on crusty bread, not a takeaway burger.

- drink less booze. I know. This is about breaking bad habits, as much as anything else. I've fallen into bad habits, drinking too fast, drinking too regularly, drinking as a default. None of those are good for my health or general well being. Not least because it leads me to get dehydrated and sleep badly, and I need my sleep. I'm not setting any hard rules or limits on this, other than to always think about whether I actually want that glass of wine, instead of just pouring it out of habit, and then drinking it like wine, not water. And then I need to apply the same as rule number 3 for food above, don't waste time on the cheap crap. I am already being aided in this by having acquired the car and therefore now frequently being the designated driver (of myself) that I haven't been in years. Plus it'll help with the weight thing.

- get better at detaching myself from work when I'm not in the office. This is hard. But if I want time to exercise and write and go to good restaurants and get more of a life, then I need to practice doing it whenever possible. It's not always going to be possible given I co-run a business and cannot ever turn off my Responsibility Gene, but I'm going to try. I'm going to do my best to have a holiday in each half of 2011, rather than, as in the last couple of years, squeezing in a week when I'm about to keel over at the end of the year.

I think that's it.

I admit there is a touch of the eau de resolution about the whole thing.

I blame the time of the year.