SOME WISHFUL THINKING

I have long stopped making new year’s resolutions because I’d forget about them soon after I made them. That I do not make any resolution, however, does not mean that I have no desire to make myself or my life better. It is best not to wait a year before one takes stock of one’s situation, personal or otherwise. A daily examination of conscience is best to check bad habits and nip any in the bud.

Yet, be that as it may, the new year is a specially good day to take stock of things – those that have been accomplished or neglected in the last year – and to set a direction.

Most of my hopes and dreams revolve around my being a mother and wife.   Therefore, all of my desire for self-improvement aim to serve my vocation as mother and wife. At least, I hope so.

For this post, I wish to focus on a couple of interests that I wish to continue and/or work on this year.   I don’t know how these  personal interests jive with the general direction that I mentioned earlier.  However,  if I go with my husband’s logic that  a satisfying hobby makes me a happier and  easier one to live with, these goals are well-within my life mission.

The first area that I wish to focus on is writing.   As you may well know by now, one of the reasons I blog is to learn and improve my writing skills.  I have always wanted to write poems and stories; I have wanted to record family stories, but I did not know how to.  After a year of blogging, I know that my work has improved and I am happy about that.  I will never be in any Bestseller list or have any writing prize (HA! HA! HA!), but I am glad to know that there are a few poems and stories  (quality or lack thereof notwithstanding)  in my archive.  This year, I wish to continue learning and improving and writing.  I will continue participating in writing link-ups even when my work sticks out like a sore thumb.

This is my draft for the poem “Life Music”.

Another area that I wish to work on is photography.   I like recording those fleeting moments of beauty.  I like to record beauty as I see it and share with you.   Based on my works over the past years, I am happy to note that I have improved in this area too.  Thanks to digital cameras.  I do not have to worry that I am taking too many pictures of the same subject in the hope that I can come up with one passable photo.   I am also very grateful to the photographers out there  who generously share their knowledge and photos and to you who tell me what work worked and why.   To  improve some more in this area, I wish to participate in as many photo challenge as is reasonable for me and to take more  pictures of anything and everything to see how photography elements work.   One day, I may even try to learn how to use photoshop, or gimp, maybe.

Then, there is the violin.  It always calls to me.  I like music, I like to play the violin.   But I have neglected learning and practicing.  I did not want to play because the noise would wake up the sleeping children.  I did not want to play because I need to be able to concentrate.  The children almost always interrupted my playing if I happened to play during the day.  They wanted to touch the bow or pluck the strings or what have you.

I should go back before my fingers get gnarled from housework and age. It is starting to happen.  My left index finger looks slightly bent and twisted from all the dish washing that I have been doing all these years.  I knew I should have gotten that  insurance!

Now that my youngest is no longer a baby, perhaps I can start playing for ten minutes or so at night once a week.   For that one night, I should will myself away from any blog-related thing until I am done with practicing.   I guess that’s workable.

And just to give myself something concrete to look forward to, I will focus on learning to play once again that piece of music that I have learned more than ten years ago.  My mind remembers the tune but my fingers could not produce the notes.  I’d be really happy if I could play  this reasonably and relatively well again.

Thank you Jake and DP Weekly Photo Challenge for making me think about goals and ‘compelling’ me to put them in writing.  Visit their pages for more responses.  Thank you for coming by.

Best regards,

Imelda