Just slightly late to the New Year’s Resolution party, but better late than never right?

The Year That Was

2009 was a year of firsts. Moving out of my parents place for the first time, moving in with my boyfriend, moving across the country, having to fend for ourselves for meals, dealing with household bills, starting a new business, making new friends, going to new places. It was scary, it wasn’t always easy, I didn’t always get it right, but looking back I think overall it was a great year. You learn so much faster when you have to strike out on your own – which is what I had to do with both my living situation and work – and even though it’s tough in parts, if you survive you come out with a ton of knowledge and confidence that you didn’t have before. And it’s exciting, especially when things work out right!

These were my resolutions from last year, and this is how I did:

• Get fit and healthy – Okay, failed and went backwards with this one. No wonder it’s always on my resolutions list.
• Learn to cook – I’m not going to claim to be a brilliant cook, but between Jeff and I we’ve been cooking and eating pretty well for the past year (with only the occasional instant ramen or baked beans on toast). It’s become more than just a necessity, and turned into a hobby that we both really enjoy.
• Run a successful business – While I earned a little less than I might in a full time job and didn’t save quite as much as I would have liked, I’m still going to call this one a success. I love the freelancing lifestyle, and now that I’ve gotten the hang of things I think things will be going up from here.
• Keep on top of paperwork - Sort of? I still hate paperwork and am incredibly happy with my decision to hire an accountant so I don’t have to deal with the complicated stuff, but the rest I have pretty much down.
• Keep improving – I think my design work, business skills, crafting skills and general interpersonal skills have improved last year, so gonna call this one a success too!

The Year That Will Be

While 2009 was a year of firsts, 2010 will be a bit of an in-between year. We’re spending another year in Canberra before moving back to Perth and getting hitched, which means that a big part of this year will be preparing for next year – saving money, working hard to build a solid business, planning a wedding… Doesn’t sound quite as exciting as last year, but you never know what life will throw at you.

Here’s some resolutions for this year:

• Be healthy, drop a couple of dress sizes and stay there – every year I aim to be more healthy, and every year I seem to get worse! This year I’ve joined a gym and have a more clearly defined goal than ‘be healthy’. I’m sure some people who know me might say I don’t need to drop any sizes, but the fact is that I’m 1) very unfit, 2) bordering on overweight and 3) not completely happy with my appearance. In the end it’s an incredibly personal thing, and I’m not at all judging people who are comfortable at a weight and size larger than mine – I’m just not happy with the way that I am, and the direction I appear to be heading in. Likewise I need to stop assuming that skinny people talking about losing weight are judging me!
• Eat fruit – yeah, I rarely eat fruit. It’s not that I don’t like fruit, I’m just… lazy? Undisciplined? I think mostly I need to get into the habit of eating fruit regulary.
• Save money - moving interstate, weddings (both our own and all our friends who seem to be getting married around now), going on holidays, buying a place and everything else costs money that we don’t currently have enough of. Just need to be more disciplined this year and save save save!
• Work more – to help with the above.
• Work and manage time more efficiently – again to help with the above.
• Keep improving – gotta keep improving!
• Get out more – because spending days at a time where your only communication with people is with your fiance whom you live with and a ‘hi’ to the check in lady at the gym is probably not healthy.
• Be awesome – I think this is self-explanatary.

2009 was a tough year for a lot of people that I know, so I really hope that 2010 treats you better!

I’ve set up a super quick little blog to put down my wedding related thoughts and ideas, to save anyone who may be reading ChiGarden and is completely uninterested in dresses and centerpieces! I’m determined to avoid a typical wedding and really put my own style into it, so if like me you’re a bit bored of the kind of weddings they show in bridal magazines you might find something interesting there :)

There are plenty of things that I love about Twitter – in fact, almost all of the freelance work I’ve gotten has been through Twitter in some way or another. But now that I’m getting a few new followers every day, certain things annoy me enough to decide to now follow back:

No bio/cryptic bio

The first thing I look at when I click on a new follower’s profile is their bio. If they look like they’re somehow related to something I’m interested in (and don’t fail in some other area), I’m likely to follow them back. If they have no bio it’s a bit harder to figure out if they’re interesting or not.

Longitude and latitude for location

The next thing I look at is location – if someone is local or from somewhere interesting, they might be worth following. If you have a bunch of numbers as your location I have no idea where the hell in the world you are, and generally don’t care enough to look it up. Sorry.

Only retweets

I think that retweeting is a fantastic idea, and have found some really interesting articles and sites through it. But if all you do is retweet links and never introduce anything of your own, it’s really hard to figure out your personality or anything about you.

In a bubble

Twitter is all about being social (for me anyway), so if all you have is post after post about your own little bubble without replying to or engaging anyone else that (to me) defeats the purpose.

Automated anything

Perhaps I’m not a unique and special snowflake, but I like to believe that I am anyway. So getting automated messages on Twitter annoys me because it makes me feel less special, less cared about and less of an individual. So your generic ‘thank you for following me, please check out my website :D’ DM doesn’t make me feel welcomed, just irritated and faceless. I (and most people, I think) check out a person’s website when deciding whether to follow them or not, so if you don’t need to make that push for attention.

Constantly mentioning follower count

I don’t want to feel like you just followed me so I’ll follow you back so you can have x number of followers. Snowflake, remember?

Protected updates

I can absolutely see why someone would want to protect their updates rather than having them all public, and have no problem with them doing so. It does make me wonder why I should follow you when I can’t see how you use Twitter though – especially when you have no bio and your location is a jumble of numbers. Give me a reason to care about you!

Ads

There’s a service or two out there that gives people money in exchange for allowing automated ads to be tweeted from their account at random intervals. Not cool. If you’re happy to inconvenience me for a few cents, why should I be following you?