It’s hard to believe that it’s almost the end of the year! I kind of feel like I blinked and missed it, even if a heck of a lot happened this year.

So, as usual, this is the time of year when lots of us sit back and think about what we want to achieve next year. Call them goals or resolutions or whatever you like, but here’s the list of stuff I want to do next week.

1. Get my foot working again and get an exercise routine happening. The exact timing of this, and how it will work is somewhat dependent on what happens at my appointment next week (i.e. has my ankle done the right thing and healed or does it require some sort of intervention aka surgery…everyone cross fingers for the former please) but as soon as I can there will be physio and whatever exercise I’m able to do.  Three months of limited mobility is enough! (And yes, I know I’m lucky it’s only been three months and I have great sympathy for anyone who has an ongoing issue!)

2. Get the writing routine nailed down more firmly.  2011 was always going to be a learning curve year as I went through the process of everything that goes along with getting a book publication-ready and doing promo for the very first time.  Throw in two overseas trips, one new cat, one old cat dying (and another late last year) and then to top it all off, busting my ankle and my writing routine has been all over the shop.  So I need to get the balance back (killing book three will help given it’s being all sorts of difficult) and make the new words thing tick along nicely around everything else.

3. Take more photos! I finally have the DSLR I’ve wanted for ages and I have, I think, five other cameras (though two are film) and another two on top of that if you count the iThings. So more making pictures.  To which end, I think I’m going to implement a pic of the week feature on the blog.  Just one shot I like each week taken with whichever camera it happens to be.  I promise there won’t be 52 pictures of the cat (or cats if a new number two feline is acquired). Just 52 little pics of the life of Mel.

4. Keep doing the craft (longing to spin when my foot is back in order…sadly my spinning wheel is double treadle so can’t use it left footed). There is much yarn in the house to be turned into things.

5. Do whatever else the writer brain seizes upon as interesting and/or muse-sustaining.  Right now, that seems to be getting back into music in a teeny tiny way.  I played oboe in high school and did a lot of dance and I love love love listening to music and I need it to write (and exercise usually).  For a while now, I’ve had a vague inkling in the back of my mind that I’d like to play something again. I didn’t know exactly what and knew I didn’t exactly have oodles of spare time in the schedule to take up something like cello (which I’ve always loved) or piano (don’t have the space for one either). But my inner musician has been obviously waiting for an opportune moment to pounce. And pounce she did the other night at the Neil Gaiman gig at the Athenaeum when Amanda Palmer jumped up on the bar at interval and did a ninja performance of her “ukulele anthem” on a teeny tiny red ukulele.  Hey, said inner musician, that looks like fun. At which point I shushed her.

But apparently she would not be shushed as I found myself humming the song a lot and thinking “can’t be that hard, surely” and surfing the net looking at ukuleles. Now, don’t get my wrong, my talent for music is largely in the appreciation arena.  I was an okay player of the oboe and did a little guitar when younger and I can sing a bit but I have played with and been around enough people with real musical talent to know the difference between me and them (which is fine as I do the making up stories thing instead). But music does make me happy. So now I own a very very cheap blue (naturally) ukulele (though I did spring for some good strings) and a tuner (cheap ukuleles with new strings go out of tune A LOTTY LOT LOT) and am slowly futzing around learning some chords. So far, the chords are easier than strumming but I’ll figure it out eventually. And tonight I have been making myself giggle playing a very slow and terrible verison of Ukulele Anthem which is kind of the whole point. For me to have fun. If I stick to it I may buy a better uke  that doesn’t require quite as much tuning every 30 seconds but don’t expect me to pop up on YouTube any time soon!

We’ll see what other weird things the brain latches onto during the year.

So there you go, the plan for 2012. Hopefully it will be a little more even-keeled than this year! So what’s everyone else got planned? Anything exciting?

While you’re thinking about it, here’s Amanda singing her song. Maybe it will make you giggle (plus it has bonus Neil)!