Not making resolutions, just time

The last two years I made resolutions.  The last two years my world came crashing down on or around New Year's Day. My mum was admitted to hospital on New Year's Day in 2010 and on the 3rd January 2011.  The resolutions were soon forgotten, I realised life is what happens when you are busy making other plans.  After mum died last year, I let my subconscious wander wherever it needed in 2010, there wasn't much structure, many goals or plans.  But it really helped me grieve.

This year I am not making resolutions.  I am making time.  I've been reading up on time management and taking control of my time in 2012, so that I can deal with whatever life throws at me and still achieve some goals of my own. I've been reading, amongst other things, Nadine of Juggle Mum's book But I don't have time to write.  It's very inspiring.

When I left teaching I left behind timetables, plans and bells and embraced the freedom of having less structure in my life.  I had been in the education system from the age of 4 until I was 29, with only one year's break. It was heaven to not have to work to a timetable. Small children and mum's illness and death meant I succumbed more and more to chaos.  But I'm ready to reign that back in now.

The cornerstone to time management, according to Nadine, is a diary you love. This was in my stocking and I love it:

Wishing you all the best in 2012.  May time be on your side too!

Dear Diary Little Legacy 19

Wednesday 16th November 2011
I awoke to voices shouting 'Shark'.  I stumbled out of bed and down the landing to find L and G performing daring sea rescues up the stairs, using the sheets that were drying over the banister. We scrambled through the school run, making it by seconds.  I worked at home in the day and after school we picked Daddy and his friend A up from the train station. Kids were very tired but excited to see them.

Wednesday 16th November 1983
Ill again? We went to the Doctors who gave you some medicine.  You and your brother made a library, went to Gran's, made a bookmark, decided to collect stamps and generally didn't stop.


The first entry is mine, the second my mum's.  My mum was a great diarist, I am a lapsed one, although perhaps my blog has filled that space.  When I was 5, the same age as my daughter is now, my mum wrote a diary just for me.  My brother was also exactly the same age as my son is now.

I'm enjoying in dipping in, seeing the world from a 5 year old's perspective, sympathising with the frustrations my mum clearly felt at managing two small children, and relishing as she did, the milestones and the magical stuff children do.  It's comforting to know even though she's not here to ask about those times, that I have a connection to them.

Do you have diaries of people in your family?  Do you keep a diary?

Little legacy is a remembrance project , a positive and creative space, to celebrate small things handed down by predecessors.  Feel free to link up a little legacy you've been thinking about this week, or to leave one in the comments.  Here's the code and here's more on Little Legacy

<a href="http://www.aresidence.co.uk/p/little-small-thing-handed-down-by.html" target="_blank"><img src="http://i1204.photobucket.com/albums/bb402/aresidence/acorn2.jpg" border="0" alt="@AResidence "></a>