Hap hap happy new year!!! :-)

Happy new year, peoples!! I hope you all had a wonderful festive season! How did you bring in the new year? We toyed with the idea of going up to San Francisco again this year, but decided to stay home and have friends round instead - and I'm so glad we did as we had one of the best new year's eves ever!

The plan was simple - dress up like we were going to a really posh party, then eat, drink and be merry!

The girlies were all looking fabulous!








And the boys were looking terribly dapper! Hubby was particularly happy for an excuse to get his kilt out!






And I was happy for an excuse to get my posh dishes out and set the table up all fancy! I really don't do that as often as I should (what's the point in having a nice dinner set if you don't bloody use it?!?!) and have decided that this year I will be making more of an effort, but more about resolutions later ....

Heather brought some delicious crostini with avocado and bacon bits, and Cameron made his legendary jambalaya (which I was delighted to enjoy again for my lunch for the next couple of days!) I made a lemon tart but sadly it was a bit shit :-( It was really really bitter compared to the last time I made it, but most people ate up and claimed they enjoyed it. Thank you for lying!!

Heather was also in charge of champagne cocktails and much bubbly was consumed :-)

Midnight definitely did not find us setting off fireworks, singing Auld Lang Syne and generally being a public nuisance in the park at the end of the street. It was another group of piss heads - honestly  ...!! 

The drinking and nonsense continued back at the house, and we called it a night at a very civilized 2am.

A huge thank you to Katy, Cameron, Heather, Jared & Erin for joining us for the celebrations - you all helped make it a very memorable night!! :-)

And now to those pesky new year's resolutions .... I hate calling them resolutions! Lets call them my goals for the coming year :-) They're actually mostly the same as last year's, with a few updates and a couple of new ones.

1) Topping the list again is diet and exercise! From a health point of view, Hubby and I still have some work to do on our cholesterol so this will be a priority this year. Cutting back on the vino will also be up there! 

From a vanity point of view, I managed to lose about 15lbs last year and I am almost back to my happy size - hurrah!! I still have another 10-15lbs to go, and a lot of toning up, so hopefully this year I can crack it. No, wait, positive mental attitude, young lady!! This IS the year I will get to my goal!!

2) Up next is my cooking. Ive made a lot of progress this year and have really enjoyed making new stuff. I shall continue adding to my repertoire and try and make some more complex dishes. I will also be paying a lot more attention to presentation - my offerings may taste great, but they almost always look like they've been made a retarded monkey! 

We will also be aiming to have a lot of dinner parties this year to give me an excuse to challenge myself, and also to get my aforementioned fancy dishes out :-)

3) My guitar and sewing machine are still gathering dust, unfortunately, and I will try and do something about that. We will probably be moving house in April so I will try and find a guitar teacher in whatever area we end up in and get serious about learning as it really is something I have always wanted to do! The sewing machine will probably continue to gather dust ....

4) My blog entries are still a bit sporadic, and the silences are usually just because I'm lazy or I've got so much to say that I don't know where to start! I do really enjoy writing the blog, so perhaps I will set aside an hour a day to just sit and see if I have anything worth telling you about?

5) A new entry for this year is to be less anti-social. This may seem strange to some of you who may know me as the life and soul of the party (or perhaps the crazy bitch who wont shut up?) but aside from a select few people, I generally prefer to spend my time by myself - and the more and more time I spend by myself the less and less I want to socialise. Don't get me wrong, I love my quality me time and I have certainly not run out of ways to entertain myself!! But I do need to make more of an effort to catch up with my awesome friends more often - yet another excellent reason to start having those dinner parties!! :-)

6) The final goal is to be more organised. This is a bit of a general one as it covers many areas. I always seem to be running around at the last minute trying to get things done. If we go on vacation I'm always up til 2am packing. Too often I'm ironing a shirt at 7.30am because there's nothing hanging up in the closet. I throw too much food out that has gone bad because I forgot it was in the fridge or lacked the imagination to make it into something interesting. I could list another twenty things right now that drive me mad which could easily be avoided if I was just a little more organised, but I wont bore you - I will just do better!!

Well, I think that's enough to be getting on with for this year! If you have made your own resolutions or goals then I wish you all the best in making them happen! I'm off to follow up on goal #2 as I am making gnocchi for the first time tonight, and hopefully #4 tomorrow when I tell you how it went. I might even throw in a quick #6 and iron Hubby's shirt for the morning ........

Laters ..... x