New Year

And is it a new decade? I don't mean to be pedantic but I'm never sure exactly when a new decade starts - is 2010 the last year of the decade or the first year of a new one? There seemed to be much dissent about when the new millenium started - the end of 1999 or the end of 2000? Was there a year zero and if so, does this make any difference anyway? I'm rather confused. But, presuming it is a new decade, here's a quick resume of my decade, starting in 2000.

The new year of 2000 was memorable because me and my husband both had the worst flu we'd ever had and he had to delay starting a new job because of it. We had fairly recently adopted 2 cats, and I was working at a local FE College. During the year, I changed jobs to working for a charity which dealt with victims of medical accidents. I also started getting more involved with the local Pagan scene and with one specific group in particular.

In 2001 we bought our own flat and moved in in May. Towards the end of the year, I went part-time at work in order to be able to spend more time studying - I was coming to the end of my part-time degree. I started doing website moderating for the Pagan group I was involved with and also became their online agony aunt.

In 2002 I started the final year of my degree - it took me 6 years part-time altogether. I also started a new job for the government quango the Housing Corporation. It was another part-time job. I found out I was pregnant with my daughter within weeks of starting, and what with that and my degree I never really felt I got to grips with what I was supposed to be doing. I took my final exams at the end of the year while 6 months pregnant and stopped working at Christmas.

In February 2003 I gave birth to my eldest child, my daughter. Her planned homebirth went wrong and we ended up being transferred to hospital by ambulance and having an assisted birth which shocked us both with its brutality. Funnily enough, she took up the rest of the year. As planned, I didn't go back to work, and we were pretty much absorbed with her. We lost one of our cats, our beloved boy Sebastian to kidney failure.

In March 2004, we got married in a small, low-key but very enjoyable way and our daughter was the star of the show. At the end of the year, my book Solitary Eclectic Witchcraft was published. By the summer I was pregnant with my son and I spent most of the year being sick.

By the start of 2005 I was sick, shattered and depressed and ending up giving birth 3 weeks early in March. But it was a relatively peaceful homebirth as we had hoped and the rest of the year was spent adjusting to being a family of 4.

By 2006 we really needed to move out of our tiny flat but the process was not smooth and everything that had been planned since the spring of that year fell through just before Christmas, leaving us to start again the following year. I started self-publishing my writing, starting with a novel Towards The Sea, then my home education books Freya and Heath Are Home Educated and The Genie In The Teapot and then the follow-up to my previous book on Paganism, Thoughtful Pagan Living.

In 2007 I had a small article published in Green Parent magazine, then started writing for Hippyshopper, the green website. I also got published in Juno magazine and started the first of a series of articles published in The Mother. We finally managed to move house (and town) in July after a lot of stress. My brother-in-law got married the following weekend! It took me many months to settle into the new house and the new town, and I was still feeling upset and isolated at the end of 2007.

At the start of 2008, my job with Hippyshopper was cut and I started working for 63336 - a text-based question and answer company, where I've been working ever since. I also started meeting up with individual families in the local home education scene, culminating in co-starting a local meet-up in a park. I finished another novel, but have so far failed to get it published and am undecided about publishing it myself. I took over an overgrown allotment plot in May and we got our first crops from it in the autumn.

In the spring of 2009 we decided to formalise the home education group and moved it into a rented hall for weekly sessions in July, setting up our own bank account and getting our first funding shortly afterwards. I also joined a local fledgling Transition Group in the summer, but so far it doesn't really seem to be getting properly started. Our allotment was much more fruitful this year and we had onions for 4 months, potatoes for 6 months, and tons of carrots, swede, peas, and beetroot. We also had tomatoes, courgettes, strawberries, raspberries and French beans from the garden, and I made lots of jam from fruit either picked free locally or cheaply from the nearby Pick-Your-Own farm. I've also started work on a Young Adult novel. And started doing a course to learn to be a life coach.

And so, plans for 2010? My major plan for 2010 is to try and visualise in all areas of my life exactly what I'd like, ideally, and then try to make that happen, no matter how incrementally that might have to be. The dreams have to be as exact and ideal as possible, even if they are not practical or realistic, and only then must I sit down and work out in what ways I can achieve them. The dreaming is important, to give me the goal to aim for. I'm hoping to finish my course and start being a life coach. I'm hoping to finish my Young Adult novel and get it published. I'm hoping to continue working and running the Home Education Group and doing my allotment. I'm hoping to be inspired.