Happy Arbitrary Calendar Event

According to my calendar, 2007 is done and dusted.

Last year saw: the death of a long term online friend, Jim Langmead (1974-2007) due to complications caused by Crohn's Disease; my wife lose her job (twice); my wife lose a friend to cancer; my father in law rushed into hospital for an emergency operation to remove a blockage in his aorta but apart from that, as years go (and today proves that they do), it was okayish.

On the positive side of things - tiff started driving lessons (taking test soon), got a new boiler, moved the kitchen door so that we have a bigger kitchen area, got an inner door between the lounge and the dining room, so we can silence the noise of the washing machine while we try and listen to the TV!!

Movie of the year is not "Transformers", which is the only movie that I'd actually bothered to go to the cinema to see, but the final instalment of the "Pirates Of The Caribbean" trilogy, "At World's End". Admittedly I'd only seen it for the first time in 2008 (i.e today), but it came out last year so there.

My favourite album of the year was Manic Street Preachers "Send Away The Tigers", however it was the only new album I bought that year. I bought mostly reissues by bands like The Move and the Electric Light Orchestra.

Favourite music gig of the year has to be Squeeze on the 8th December at the Liverpool Philharmonic Hall.

Favourite comedy gig of the year had to be Richard Herring on the Liverpool leg of his "Ménage Et Un" tour and was part of the Liverpool Comedy Festival. Richard was very funny and I can highly recommend the DVD from this tour which is available for a tenner from Go Faster Stripe.

Now...

As tradition dictates here's a list of resolutions....

1. Lose Weight and Get Fit - I'm 5ft9ins and 16 stone.

2. Get my wife on the road - all being well she'll be a licenced driver in a few days. We've got a car waiting for us and it's on my mum & dad's drive awaiting tax, mot etc. Due to financial constraints of my wife unfortunately being unemployed it hasn't seemed likely to be any time soon. However, a 6.9%ish salary raise starting from this month means that this should happen after all! Will check salary at the end of the month before getting my wife's hopes up to soon, but I'm sure it will be viable! As a result of 2. onto 3.

3. Go out more. Most weekends are spent at home doing nothing but watching movies and sitting in front of the computer. Thanks to 2. this is may still occur occasionally but we'll now be able to visit friends within a couple of hours driving distance with ease and visit various areas of the UK and make use of our cameras and fill the Flickr accounts up!!

4. Get the house feeling more like a home. Although our house is our house and has been for a few years, a lot of the furniture, carpets and curtains are from when my parents owned the house. Last year we managed to finally get the first stage of having a nice new kitchen sorted, so this year a new kitchen is on the cards. In addition I plan to spend holiday entitlement where we aren't away boxing up stuff in some of the rooms, moving the boxes into another room along with the furniture, stipping the wallpaper and painting the rooms in colours that we want - not just boring white emulsion.

5. Help out more. I confess it, I'm a lazy git and although our house rule is that if someone isn't earning money they do the housework, even when my wife is working she does the vast majority of the housework. This year will be different - once Tiff's back at work I'll iron my own shirts, clean the bathroom and vacuum and dust!

6. Give up beer entirely. I find I don't enjoy it any more, so once my in-house beer has gone that's it.

7. Clear debts as much as possible by buying less gadgets and dvds and not at the expense of things mentioned in the other resolutions!