As I mean to continue

It’s New Year’s Day now—emphasis on day—and I’m doing routine things I might do on a weekend or “staycation”: Laundry, emptying the dishwasher, a little cleaning. We may do some shopping this afternoon and I may even do some gardening (the last one is particularly shocking to me). What’s up with that?

Well, it’s a new year, for one thing, probably my favourite holiday of the year. Everything seems so promising on New Year’s Day—an empty page waiting for the year to fill it up with stories of all sorts of new, or newly re-imagined, adventures.

As I’ve said many times before, I love change and the adventure that life can be, so it’s only natural that I should love the day devoted to celebrating new beginnings.

Ah, new beginnings—always easier said than done, isn’t it? Last year, only three days into that year, I said I wanted to try writing some “evergreen” blog posts so I’d have some to post when, for whatever reason, I couldn’t write something new for the day. For a variety of reasons, that never happened, and I struggled to meet my goal of an annual average of one post per day (though I managed to make it, just, thanks to a productive December—and I’m pleased to say that didn’t include huge numbers of YouTube videos as fillers, either).

This year I may try again to write “evergreen” posts, or at least to write specific posts for specific dates in advance (particularly useful since in my dotage I often forget to do posts like that if I wait until the date). I certainly hope that next year I won’t write about not actually achieving either one of these.

People write blogs for a variety of reasons, but for me it’s mainly to express myself. Sure, I like to discuss ideas, to inform, to comment, even to rant, but the real reason I do it is for self-expression (that, and discussion and interaction with others). This year, I have a few ideas for additional ways of achieving that. We’ll see.

But whether any of those goals actually happen is kind of beside the point. Each new year brings a new page, another opportunity to begin again. Some day, I’ll run out of pages, as we all must, but until then, I intend to take full advantage of the opportunity to start again.

Now, let’s begin. Again.

Update 2 January 2013: It pains me to note that, in fact, I did NOT make my average of one post per day in 2012. I completely forgot that 2012 was a Leap Year, with 366 days, not 365. So, I was ONE POST short, the first time in six years that I've missed the goal—and I wouldn't have this time, either, if I'd remembered the bloody Leap Year! Maybe I should make a New Year's Resolution this year: I should learn to count.