Paved in Gold

“London streets are paved in Gold”

I lived in London from the age of 7 and all the time I was there I never saw the streets paved in gold. In fact like most people that live in London, I didn’t see what was really going on or if I did, I just walked passed.

I have returned a number of times with my husband and children, but we are always on our way to somewhere else.  So seizing the opportunity with both hands I took the 3.06 to London, camera tucked under my arm and tripod thrown over my shoulder, I was ready for what the streets of London had to offer.  I just needed one more thing.  My best friend and partner in crime the lovely MP who still lives in London and has done ever since we were kids. 

We walked 4 hours and took photo’s as we went, we only covered a small section, but it was so lovely, to breath in the cold crisp air, watched as the tug boats silently glide down the river, even at 9 the streets of the city were so alive, they may not have been paved in Gold, but there was so much going on, the young lady with her running shoes on, Ipod music in her ears as she pounded the street with her secret smile that didn’t reveal her thoughts. The busy man in his pin stripe suit coming out of the office heading off for his weekend. The young couple snuggled on the step watching the world go by and even the tramp, housed in his newspaper home under the arches seemed to have a purpose.

It was the first time in about 15 years that I had actually stopped and watched what London had to offer and on this cold January evening the roads to me were indeed paved in gold. 

Christmas Cards

Each year we are very lucky, not only do we get a lot of Christmas cards at home but from work as well. Some of them are from the local shops and have just the normal sentiments but others have been handpicked but all have been sent with such love and care.  The same can be said of Anniversary cards, Valentines cards, Easter cards (but not so many now the kids have grown up) and of course the very worthy Birthday card (of which we have 5 birthdays each year in our house)

As I reclaimed the Christmas cards from the shelves, hanging off the banisters and of course the card garland, my mind began to wonder……… Instead of throwing these away (sorry recycle) what could I do with them?

When the boys were little, I was given a template of a Christmas/party hat made from Christmas cards – which was excellent and they loved helping cut out the shapes and gluing them together.  But now that they are grown up, what should I do with them this year?   This led me to searching and searching the internet for ideas, they came up with the same old ideas time and time again of turning them into gift tags for the following year (which I have done before, but ended up putting them somewhere and not finding them until the Christmas period was well and truly over). Sticking them into a book to look back on – which I have also done before, but then they just sit up in the loft to gather dust, and as I have promised the husband that I would reduce the clutter that sits in our loft this year, I didn’t feel I could create another book of cards.

One website did catch my eye “Major Inspirations” on Sunday November 14 2010 they had posted a suggestion that I had not thought of (and I do apologise to those that knew about this all along) The Holiday Wreath or in my words – the 2011 Christmas Wreath. 

Great Excitement….. All I needed to do now was to get my husband to draw a template of a holly leaf and I could begin.

However, my little girl thought it was a great idea the Christmas hat and promptly sat herself down on the floor with Christmas cards and started crafting the 2011 Christmas hat – I do have to say that she made a lovely job of it and now with what’s left we will start on the Christmas wreath. 

  

This all stands us in good stead for our Make Shift Christmas of 2012. The only thing I will need to think about is the crackers……. But thankfully 2012 Christmas is a long way off. 

Goals

Full stop – Here ends 2011 and 2012 is an open page that we are to write on.

As a child growing up the Christmas period was always such fun and the days between Boxing Day and New Year my mother would encourage me to sit down and think about what “ New Year Resolutions” I might make for the coming year.  I would do this with such promise and determination, however two or three days into the New Year I would have broken at least one of them and by the end of the month all hope had gone out of the window.  It wasn’t until I got much older that I realised that I wasn’t failing on purpose, but that I might need to be looking at these resolutions from a different perspective. 

So having spent the summer months reading “How To Do Everything and Be Happy” and going over the shrewd words of Peter Jones, I sat down and drew up 6 New Year’s resolutions that I felt would make improvements to myself and my family.  I then changed their name from Resolutions to Goals, which could be achieve throughout the year and as long as I didn’t give up on them, but kept trying, I should be successful.

1.   Get Family Sorted

2.   Lose Weight

3.   Decorate

4.   Work

5.   Photo’s

6.   More Time

But as you can see from my list they are a little ambiguous and could be a list of anything for anyone, and this is where Peter’s wise words came into practice – I needed to make each of the goals more personal, each goal needed a step by step achievement plan of its own and in this way when I felt that I failed my goals or that I might as well give up I could look back at what I had achieved and in doing so this would propel me forward to achieving the required end result.

So hopefully the fact that I have sat down with each of my resolutions and transformed them into goals with simple sections to achieve until the final result and that I had taken a couple of hours to hone them to my requirements and planned that once a month I will go over these goals and see how I am doing and what improvements I can make – I hope to find that in 366 days time I having achieved at least one of this year’s goals if not all of them.

To those of you that have set yourself your goals and resolutions I wish you all the success with them.