another year older

(little me!...I'm the Queen of Hearts)

This idea behind this post is inspired by Andrea at the fantastic and ever wonderful blog Hula Seventy, and I'm sure she has inspired so many others before me to do something similar. She, like myself is a prolific list writer and every year she makes a list of things she wants to do before her next birthday, however life changing or small, random or even mundane they might be.

I have loved this idea since I very first stumbled upon her blog. It seems to be a great way of taking stock of things as they stand and creating some kind of structure for the year ahead so you just don't bumble along day to day without ever particularly achieving or setting your mind to anything, and then realising when it's too late that your life has passed you by and you haven't actually done anything you really wanted to. So on that note, this year I thought I would try something similar for myself.

Tomorrow I will be turning 26 so here is my list:

26 things to do before I turn 27.

1. Devote more time to designing and creating hair accessories.

2. Relocate to a different country (preferably Australia).

3. Enrol Lila in a course of swimming lessons.

4. Read 'The Great Gatsby'.

5. Learn how to cook a thai green curry and pad thai.

6. Rescue the sewing machine from under our bed and sew Lila a dress.

7. Visit Columbia Road Flower Market in London's East End.

8. Print out all of the photos of Lila and finish the photo album of her first year.

9. A weekend away to celebrate mine and Curt's first wedding anniversary.

10. Start growing something...even if it is just herbs in a window box.

11. Make regular library visits with Lila and start reading a bedtime story to her.

12. Start writing the novel I have been planning to write since I was 10 years old.

13. Visit Morocco.

14. Spend more time at my parents farm.

15. Start surfing again after the pregnancy and post baby hiatus.

16. Improve my efforts at staying in touch with distant friends and family.

17. Cut my hair shorter...just a little bit (maybe...gulp)

18. Watch 'Into The Wild'.

19. Get a magazine subscription to one of my favourite magazines.

20. Obtain a polaroid camera and some stocks of film from somwhere.

21. Make a home.

22. Bake fairy cakes with Lila.

23. Go on a trip to Cornwall.

24. Live by the ocean.

25. Invite the girls round for a night of ice-cream, wine and weepy movies.

26. Take an afternoon by myself and wander around South Bank and the Tate Modern.

All photos are of me (and my sister) taken, I imagine, by our parents, way back when.