So, I'm a Cliché

Here we are, the beginning of January, and I'm starting a blog. I'm starting a blog with a list of New Year's Resolutions. Could I be more of a cliché?

Well, we could add all manner of facts about my life to further cement my status but let's save that for another day, save for one, which will be the theme of this blog.  I am, sssshhh whisper it, a housewife.

Yes, that's right, I got married, worked for a while at a successful career and then gave it all up to stay at home with our baby.  I'm often asked (usually by strangers, who feel inexplicably entitled to question my life decisions in a way that my friends do not) whether I get bored and what on earth I do all day.  The one thing I never struggle with is occupying my time.  In fact, I often wish there were more hours in the day, or at least that I could figure out a way to eliminate the need for sleep (the sleep itself is often eliminated by the little one, but the need for it, sadly, remains).  So, when I'm not toddler-wrangling, I cook, knit, sew and spend more time than I ought contemplating whether I can make all manner of things that normal people would buy.  I'm also always on the look out for new learning opportunities, an impulse from my school-days that has never quite faded.

Which brings me to some more clichés.  How about beginning a new endeavour on 1st January (well, 2nd now, as I took a while to edit this post)? Obviously a cliché   How about beginning a blog at all?  No longer the preserve of the hip and trendy, blogging is now ubiquitous.  Blogging as a stay-at-home mum looking for a way to reconnect with the world outside her home, even more so (there's flipping hundreds of us!).  No doubt numerous blogs will have been started this weekend and many will have been abandoned before February. Maybe this one will have too.  However, clichéd or not, I'm going to give it a go.  I never said I was going to be original.  I just thought it might be fun: a bit like the diaries I always used to begin on 1st January as a teenager.  On second thoughts, that may not be the best omen... they were generally abandoned after a couple of weeks when I realised I wasn't all that interesting... Who knows, I'm keen to try.  I think it will be a great way to keep track of what I get up to, both with and, at times, in spite of, the little one, and, if I'm lucky, it may even turn into a proper conversation with other grown human beings...

Now for the final cliché of this dreadfully hackneyed start: I'm starting with my New Year's Resolutions.  This year, I'm trying to keep them achievable.  I'm also trying to focus on positives rather than negatives, so my resolutions don't involve not doing stuff, so much as on acquiring new skills and habits.  A good friend of mine blogged far more eloquently than I on this topic.  This year, I've taken inspiration from a number of places, including some of my favourite blogs, and I'll expand on the inspiration and the goals more later.  However, in the interests of getting something "on paper" for want of the right expression, and of getting to bed, here's a quick list:

1. Grow something in my garden that we can eat.
2. The 52 cookbook challenge - cook one recipe from a different one of my many, many cookbooks, each week this year.
3. Make chutney - this one is largely driven by the husband, who seems to have decided it is something I need to do.
4. Knit a cardigan for each month of the year for my daughter, including one that I design myself.
5. Read a book each month - shouldn't be a challenge but I only managed to read four books last year and seem to have forgotten how to make time for reading.
6. Think of three happy things each day - a shared challenge with my husband.

More on all of this, and hopefully much more, as the year goes on.  But for now, good night.