Happy New Year

So a very Happy New Year to you all! Mr W and I went to bed at the usual time on NYE where I was then kept awake by his dreadful cold but we set off early in the morning for Brighton to spend New Year's Day. Awful rain yesterday but we saw the Pavilion which is pretty fantastic, had interesting experiences at both the hotel (first room had no natural light, second had only hot water out of the taps) and the restaurant we went to for dinner (gluten free pasta was made with ordinary pasta the first time and then the second time it arrived it was crunchy (third time was very tasty and we got our drinks for free). Woke up to a beautiful morning so I went in the sea - I would have gone in properly but the pebbles were very sore on my feet and I was a bit scared by the enormous waves! We then went on the pier and rode on a lovely carousel and went on a fantastic ghost train before having some Brighton Rock!




Now I'm back at home and thinking about work tomorrow, the bag is packed, and I'm really hoping I can shake off my tiredness and cope with the 6am start! The car journey to Brighton gave me a lot of time to think about new year goals - I was also prompted by a facebook status from a friend asking what one would want to have achieved in a year's time and this is what I have come up with.

Professionally
Things are potentially a little uncertain at work, but I still have some professional goals. It will be three years in April since I achieved my Chartered Membership of the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals and I will be eligible to revalidate it - I've diligently done my yearly progress reports but now I need to think about compiling another portfolio, so this is a big goal.
Secondly, it is 5 years since I completed the research for my Library Masters Dissertation which was then published in an academic journal. The research lends itself rather well to being repeated and compared, so I am investigating whether the journal I was published in before would be interested in another article, and will then consider carrying out the research. I very much enjoyed the research that I did and would welcome the intellectual challenge of doing some more. I looked up my article on Google Scholar this afternoon and it has been cited in 6 other pieces of research which is exciting!

Sporting
My big goal for the year is to swim 3.8km (ironman distance) in an openwater race in under 1 hour or to swim 10k in an openwater race in under 3 hours. I hope that my swim camp in Tenerife in February will help me to achieve this goal!
I have entered my first triathlon at Blenheim in June - I'm just doing it for a bit of fun rather than competitively. I will be swimming 750m, cycling 20km and then running 5km as it is a sprint distance triathlon.
I am also hoping to run the Brighton Marathon in April, however I have had a lot of problems with my ankles in the last few weeks so I am going to need to rest them and then see how much time I have for training left before I absolutely commit. I would love to achieve a marathon but it may not be this year - 26.2 miles is a lot further than the 3 miles of my tri!

Reading
No specific reading goals, I find it difficult to participate in challenges as I like to have the freedom. I do want to read and blog about a Virago Modern Classic a week for my Virago Venture blog - I have been bad at that recently and it is not helping me to complete that challenge! I have stacks of VMCs waiting for me to read them and I just need to grit my teeth and get on with them.
I am impressed by Simon's challenge to read a book from each year of the 20th century; I am planning to see how my reading goes and record it in a similar way, although I am not actually setting out to do this!

Photo a day
Again, inspired by Simon (who did this challenge on facebook) I want to take a photo a day for 2012 to record the year. I'm going to upload these once a week in a blog post. That fits in with my desire for slightly more low key blogging this year - I still want to keep in touch with my bloggy friends but I don't have so much inclination to blog as I used to. If I plan to do that post each week, then I can see what else happens!

Baking
I'm intending to do a little less baking this year; Mr W is getting a little cuddly and I am a little above my fighting weight now particularly if I want to fulfil my sporting goals so we are going to try to mainly eat cake at the weekends and less in the week. We still have mountains of biscuits and chocolate left from Christmas!
However, I hope to maximise opportunities to make other cakes, my sister in law has asked me to make a cake for her son's birthday at the start of February, and I'm trying to work out quite how to do an electric guitar cake.

Other
It sounds silly, but I don't want to take any hour that I have to spend with Mr W for granted. I will be very happy at the end of 2012 if I have achieved that.