I have been developing this list in my head (I'm a list person) of the things I want to change in my life to get that little step closer to being who I want to be... I guess what made me think about it is something Chris said on Tuesday. We went out to Buckland Manor (very English, eh?) for a cream tea (again...) for Dad's birthday. Chris is over from Canada for a week for Dad's birthday and his Mum's, armed with a shopping list from Mary full of British things to take back to Newfoundland for their new house, which he's still building. It was great to see him. It's strange how quickly he has become my brother. When I first met him I knew he was my brother, but there's a difference between knowing a fact and feeling it as a reality. I'm so comfortable around both him and Phil. I don't think Chris could have known how many lives he would change for the better when he found Dad on FriendsReunited.

Anyway, back to what Chris was saying... We were sitting around the fire eating scones and clotted cream and talking about winning the lottery (an understandable topic when you're seated in the lap of luxury and thinking 'this is the life I could lead...'). You dream about what you would do with the money. I'd give money to my family, pay of Lori's loans, build Tracy a new house with a huge kitchen and then set off around the world - Prague, Egypt, Australia, Japan, St Petersburg... all those places I'd love to see. Perhaps I'd buy flats in Paris and New England with huge libraries full of books. I could do a giant road trip around the U.S. See the world, in style of course. Anyway, amidst all this dreaming around the fire, Chris declared that he didn't want to win that much money. He said he'd be afraid of what it would do to his life; that he would have so many responsabilities along with it, and that there was nothing in his life that he would change for the better if he did have that much money.

And I thought then that that was what life was all about: trying to get to that point that Chris has already reached, where there isn't anything you would want to change in your life. I doubt many people get to that point. And I suppose he doesn't necessarily mean that he wouldn't find good uses for the money - you can always see a use for money, even if it has nothing to do with you personally (helping friends, family, donating to charity, etc.) But I so often think of things I wish I could change about myself and my life. It made me determined to make all those little changes that I think about every now and then. Nothing drastic; the drastic wishes seem to run into dreams of success and talent that are out of my reach right now. Even without those dreams, though, I think I could make some immediate changes if I really put my mind to it.

So when Lori and I made our "to do" list today, we decided to schedule a time to change our lives :-)

Here are some things on my list...

I want to go to the gym. If my mother read that she would never let me live it down. She's always getting at Dave to go to the gym, get fit, go running, biking, etc. I think she might see me as a bit of a lost cause when it comes to keeping fit. To be honest, I don't think I'm unfit. I walk a lot and I'm not overweight or unhealthy. But I really should go to the gym or get some more exercise, especially since my work-life at the moment involves not much more than sitting on the sofa reading. Not too good for the respiratory system, I suppose. But it's more than just wanting to get fit; it's more about that feeling you get when you've been working out. You feel healthier and happier. Horse riding this summer was exhilerating. It's a pitty that costs so much. Although... I wonder how much joining a gym would cost... hmm...

I want to make time for things. We have so much reading to do at the moment that it seems to eat up so much of the day. We push everything else aside and read haphazardly, wasting time on silly things as our only form of procrastination. So part of the new plan involves scheduling.

I want to work on Destination Elsewhere. Actually, that's wrong. I want to have worked on Destination Elsewhere. There's a significant difference. The longer I put it off, though, the less chance there is that I'm going to actually do it. Sometimes just thinking about how much I have pushed it to bottom of the list (and sometimes off there altogether) just makes my stomach turn...

I want to write more. Not just blogging, which comes out as stream-of-consciousness babble that is totally unstructured and has no depth to it. I was starting to get things published and now that I'm not writing for the Printz it seems as though writing has taken a back seat to everything else in life.

I want to stop praying last thing at night when I'm tired out of my brain and can hardly focus on anything except how comfortable my pillow would be. I think this might come in to the scheduling element, although there seems to be something sacreligious in scheduling a fixed time for prayer. "Oh, got to stop now; it's time to read our Dickens quota" is hardly devoted Christianity, now, is it?

I want to make time for reading that doesn't come under the "required" heading.

I want to cook a meal I've never had once every week.

I want to stay in touch with people. I'm so bad at replying to emails and writing to friends. I need to stop that. My friends are so important to me. The fault lies in my procrastination and inability to reply to something right away rather than in my lack of desire to keep in touch. But I need to change that.

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Sometimes I wonder why on earth I didn't keep this blog properly while I was living in America. It makes me angry with myself, really, because I was having so many new experiences and I wish I had some sort of record of them. Lori is being much more impressive than I ever was. She has blogged quite often since she arrived here, and she's diligently recording the days both for her own enjoyment and to save her from having to write to everyone in her enormous family who will be dying to know how she's doing. I suppose that's the difference, really. I seriously doubt my family would have been interested in reading my random online ramblings.