9.09.09: A day for wishes

It's 9.09.09, a day for wishes.

I wish for a happy family, for smiley babies and tired parents

I wish for a simpler life, with fewer things and more fun

I wish for more time to write

I wish for a finished book, for a publishing deal, I wish to one day hold my own book in my hands

I wish for a road trip in North America

I wish for Blog Camp in New Zealand

I wish for my own coffee shop, a relaxed place where people come for coffee while they write, draw and talk. A place to be crafty, to discover and try out new things

I wish for more time, more space and less worries
I wish to keep on learning
I wish to keep on wishing.

What do you wish for?

No room for improvement

That's right, I'm perfect as I am. Or actually, I'm learning to live with my imperfections. That's the new challenge.

I was going to write about my Disconnect challenge today, my attempt at spending less time on the Internet and, specifically less time reading blogs. Then, I read this post in The Fragrant Muse blog that made me realize how much I actually enjoy reading blogs, and that I'm meeting fabulous people and learning lots of interesting things in the blogsphere, so why stop? Of course, I want to free up some time to do other things, but I also want to stop feeling guilty for doing something that I enjoy and that it's not hurting anyone.

So that got me thinking... Lately, boyfriend and I seem to be in this self improvement race. As in: from now on, I'm going to eat more fruit and vegs, from now on, I'm going to go to bed earlier, from now on, I'm going to write/draw every day, from now on, I'm going to give up chocolate and coffee, from now on, from now on... Frankly, it's exhausting.

I'm not saying it's bad to stop and look at what you can do to improve your life from time to time, but shouldn't we also learnt to enjoy what we do? Why give up blogging if you like it so much? Why give up chocolate if it sweetens your day?

So these are some of the things I'm not giving up:

• Blogs: If I wasn't reading blogs and writing my own, I wouldn't be going to blog camp with some amazing ladies, and that's reason enough not to stop.
• Coffee: I enjoy my first cup of coffee in the morning No, I LOVE my first cup of coffee in the morning. Having a coffee in the office is a great excuse to talk to my co-workers, going to Starbucks after work is the perfect moment to relax with your journal or a book. Why give it up?
• Pastries for breakfast: I should probably be more careful with what I eat, but frankly, breakfast is one of my favourite moments of the day, and I don't want to spoil it. Plus, if you are going to eat them at all, why not eat those (bad) things in the morning, so you have the whole day to burn those calories (not that I'm burning many calories sitting here in the office, but, hey, I cycle to work).
• An untidy room: Specially if it means I'm doing something fun instead of tidying up!

What are you NOT giving up?

What I don't tell you

Blog camp has got me thinking about blogging, blog friends, why we blog, how we blog... all those big blogging questions. Because, you see? My blogging life is about to become real. I'm really looking forward to meeting this lady (blog camp in chief), and this lady, and possibly this lady. And there are others I'm looking forward to getting to know. I know it'd be fun, but it's also kind of scary.

My first thought when I found out about this was something along the lines of "Fun! After all, I already know these people". And then I thought, "But how much do I really know them?" and then, scary thought, "How much do they really know me? How much of what I'm like in person can you get from my blog? What if they imagine something completely different?"

I try really hard to be honest here, in my little corner of the big blogosphere. I try to be myself when I write, I think about what I want to say, my opinions are mine and everything I say it's true. But how about what I don't say? Let's make a short list, because one thing we do know is that we love lists:

1. I hardly ever talk about my boyfriend, even though he's one of the most important things in my life. He does follow me, though (Hello, J, I love you!)

2. The same with my family and friends. Not many of my friends read this blog. My sister does (Hello, H!), but never comments. My mum reads my Spanish blog and always complains that she can't understand what I write about here. Which I think it's a good thing. So there's really no pressure or fear that they will be hurt by what I say. But still I never talk about them.

3. Work. You really don't want me to post about this. It's BORING. I could bore you to tears telling you how boring I find it. A couple of years ago, I really liked my job. I could have bored you to tears telling you how much I liked it. My job hasn't changed so I'm still trying to figure out what happened (apart from the fact that I spent a year travelling last year) and what to do about it (this is the hard part). This consumes a big part of my life. But I don't tell you about it very often.

4. Embarrassing things. Like when I told you about my jewellery course, but never told you what happened next (Horrible incident involving beautiful flower earrings made with great effort by me being almost consumed by flames while I was soldering. I blame the teacher of course.)

I didn't decide not to blog about these things (except the earrings, it's taken me all this time to get over it), and one day I may do. But I thought I'd mention them here now so they don't come as a surprise in blog camp. Oh! This is exciting!