Good intentions

 every day I wake up with such good intentions for all the things I am going to do that day, and all the amazing things I will achieve. Most include (but are not limited to) finally adding some more chapters to the book I've been writing for the past 20 years - yes, really, that long. Finishing the cross stitch I treated myself to for my 40th birthday, promising to have it completed, framed and on the wall by the time I turned 41 - we all know that never happened, although "thank you" to those of you sitting there now saying to yourselves "I thought she said she turned 37 this year?"!!

I tell myself I am going to update all the social media I have (and those for my business) along with tidying my shop to within an inch of it's life - it really is so very untidy, and whilst I can use the excuse I have been exceptionally busy just recently, unless things change in the next couple of weeks I don't have much work on so will have no excuses to not get off my fat, lazy arse and do it; how can I ever talk my business partner into allowing me to spend some money on new shelves and decorating bits if I can't keep what I currently have tidy? I'm there pretty much 9 hours each day, so no idea why I struggle not to get things done.

I start each week promising myself I will have read a book from cover-to-cover before the same day the following week rolls around (so far this year I have managed to read 2 books in total - in my younger days I would read that many in a week). 

I'm going to finish typing up my holiday diaries from the 2 fabulous trips I was blessed, and extremely lucky to have been able to go on last year (I've got one typed up) along with printing the photo's to coincide with them. I want to make a macrame hanger for my bedroom, one for the garden (in my defence on that one, I've not been able to source the waterproof cord I need). 

I bought a sketch pad and set of different thickness pencils about 5 years ago; I was going to spend some time doing some sketching. I signed up to some online classes; one in astronomy which I did sit down and work on once-a-week, then some maths came into it and that was me done - never was any good at maths and those figures and things I needed to know for it totally confused the shit out of me. However, I can add, subtract, multiply, divide in my head without the need for paper and I definitely don't need a calculator. I am also good at fractions and percentages; all the basics. Sadly I know people with A* A levels in maths who can't even add up basic numbers without a calculator, so I don't beat myself up too badly when it comes to being shit at all the other stuff. I also signed up for a writers course (figuring it might help me to finish the book!) and another course that I cannot even remember, although I'm going to assume it was something I am interested in. 

Since I was 16 years old I've promised myself I will learn to speak basic German. I can just about say "Hello" and "Goodbye". When I found out my great grandparents were Polish and that I still have family there I thought that would be another good language to learn. Not because I am ever going to use it in a conversation; it would just be nice to keep my brain active and be able to speak a little more than just the one language, although as someone said the other week I am half bilingual, so it's not all bad. 

I want to write a blog entry at least once-a-week, whether it gets read, or not. No point in paying for my own domain if I never use it. I joined our local library - still waiting for them to contact me to tell me that my card is ready for collection - and was going to find something I might be interested in that needed researching, in the "old fashioned way". Google is great, but you can't beat that challenge of rifling through a book; plus google doesn't always have the answer. I've spent an hour today trying to find if there is any info on when a pub I visited last year was built, and also if it may have had any residents that are no longer of this world (I almost had my thoughts on such things changed for me last week). 

I want to actually live and do something with my life, yet I just never seem to be able to find the time to do any of it, and I have no idea why that is. Last week I was on holiday with my family; now, I did spend 2 hours one day sitting in a rocking chair with my camera in my hands snapping off as many shots as I could, of the birds visiting the tree by where I was sitting. One evening I spent 30 minutes taking some long exposure shots of the clouds (the one below being my favourite of them all). The rest of the time though, other than a few trips out, I didn't seem to find the chance to read any of the books I took with me, and I have absolutely no idea why? I feel as though I blinked and another hour had passed by. 

We've been having a sort out at home and I have a load of stuff which needs to be sold - ebay, here I come, yet everything is still sat in a pile waiting for me to put it on ebay. It's never going to make any money just sitting around - waiting, and money is something I could really do with right now. The overdraft is getting a little out-of-control, the credit card is the highest it's ever been (gutted when this-time-last-year both were clear) and my car has developed a bit of an issue in the same week it needs to be MOT'd and taxed. All of this going on, and yet the bits are still sat there, waiting for me to put them out there for sale. 

I don't know when I got so lazy, or at least so bad at managing my time. 20 years ago I ran a house, saw my bestie pretty much every day, my family a couple of times each week. I read, I cross stitched, I walked the dog, I socialised. I did so much in each 24 hour section and yet here I am now; no bestie (so inconsiderate of her to die). No home of my own, no dog any more (she too died :( ) and yet I don't find time to read, cross stitch or do any of the things which have always brought me some joy in life. 

The worst part is I'm feeling this way, angry at myself for not doing anything about it, yet know that come tomorrow when I wake up with those great intentions, by the time I go to bed I'll be telling myself the same thing I tell myself when I go to bed every night "Don't beat yourself up about it; there's always tomorrow', yet one day there won't be a tomorrow, and then I'll spend an eternity sitting on my cloud being angry at myself for not doing more when I had the chance. How am I ever going to start my own podcast if I can't spare myself just 60 minutes in a day? 

Ahh well. Roll on tomorrow!