Big picture or teeny picture?

Only this time last year I was struggling with what at the time seemed like the decision of a lifetime.  I had been accepted into Grad Law School but was really undecided as to whether I would take it on or just chill out, relax and enjoy a quieter (less study-filled = less stressful) life.  Typically, I chose to take on the harder option (no chilling out) and embarked on another University degree.

This year the struggle isn't whether or not to take it on, it's how much to take on.  Matt's blog has a great article about taking baby steps when setting goals and it dawned on me that this is a problem we all have; the bigger picture and the endpoint seems so far away that we struggle with the baby steps and instead want to take giant leaps ahead of where we are.

It seems that most of us freak out in January about our goals, plans and what we really want.  Thank god I am not the only one.  While I am not one for New Year's Resolutions, I do make mini-goals almost daily but often they're more of a checklist of "To Do's" as opposed to goals that work towards my bigger picture (i.e. finishing my law degree, becoming a lawyer, owning a house etc). 

My problem is swinging from one extreme to the other:

January: freaking out about the bigger picture; the time it will take to finish my degree etc, lack of money etc.

April: back to the teeny picture; OMG too much reading, too many assignments, can't cope, can't see past this day, week, weekend, mellllllltttdowwwwwn. 

July: big picture again... damnit still 4.5 years to go - argh!

November: *exhale* another year down... forget uni for 3 months (or try to)

January: big picture AGAIN... damnit still 3.5 years of being poor... fobbing off social events, working half a week, studying half a week, how many more subjects can I jam into this year to cut the length of the degree?

It's really a vicious cycle.  So am I big picture or teeny picture at the moment? I'm a bit of both.  Uni - big picture - hoping to speed up the process - doing 3 subjects and working 3 days a week.  Diet/exercise - little picture... lost 3kg of my 5kg goal for this month then keep it off.  Personal - lots of fun things planned for my birthday in February as well as a girls weekend away.  So I don't think I'm doing too badly.

Are you big picture or teeny picture right now? What will you be tomorrow, next week or next month?

Elle

Missing in action

Apologies to those of you who may have been wondering where I've been and what I've been up to given my blog absence.  The answer? A whole lot of work (pre-Christmas) and a whole lot of relaxation (Post-Christmas) which doesn't involve so much computer time.

I have been reading (almost two books a week) purely for enjoyment.  I have also just finished watching the entire first season of Gossip Girl (thanks go to my sister who let me borrow the DVDs).  Gossip Girl is so much more than I was expecting in the bitchy, kniving, backstabbing kind of way but I love it all the more exactly for those reasons!  The evil grin that appears on my face is so obvious every time one of my least-liked characters gets what's coming to them - it's ridiculously satisfying (and a bit scary for my boyfriend who then asks what exactly is the strange look on my face for?!).

In the book category this summer I must make mention of Ben Elton's new book "The Meltdown" which is just so truly fabulous and provocative you MUST MUST MUST read it.

I've let the soggy Sydney weather force me to take time out (so it was a blessing in disguise really) but I also managed a trip out of town to a glorious spa retreat up North for New Year.  The reason I do not name that lovely Spa will become clear very soon.

After my NYE dinner booking got cancelled by one of my favourite restaurants up North (nearby my spa) I decided it would be just as nice (and much cheaper) to buy a bottle of french champagne and pick up some seafood from the Fish Markets on the way and have a lovely quiet night out on the balcony of our room. 

So we checked in on NYE and I had a massage mid-afternoon.  We began our eating festival straight after the massage on the balcony (just the two of us - with food for 4) and I loved every minute of it.  It was a blissful evening of peace and quiet - I couldn't have asked for anything better and was happily asleep in bed before pumpkin time (aka midnight) feeling relaxed and full of good food and wine - even better.

We ventured out for some wine tasting the next morning with our special esky in the boot of the car so we could dispose of the remains of the previous evening's seafood extravaganza into one of those huge rubbish bins at a winery somewhere.  But suprisingly we didn't find one and somehow... hours later... i.e. that evening when getting into bed we realised that we had left our lovely stinky fish remains in the boot of our hire car (oops) and tomorrow we would have to drive the entire way back to Sydney with the windows down and the air conditioning on full but we were so full from dinner that night and slightly drunk that neither of us could be bothered doing anything about it at the time.  BOY WAS THAT A MISTAKE!

The next morning we took our bags to the car and I cannot begin to explain how POTENT the smell was.  At first when I opened the front door of the car I thought it was fine and then WHAM it hit me... not only I had I drank a bit too much the night before but it was pre-10am and I just got hit with the stench of 2 day old warm seafood - beautiful.

There was no way we could keep it in the car.  There was however one lonely empty recycling bin just waiting to welcome our stinky seafood garbage into it.  I knew it was wrong... oh so very very wrong.  I'm one of those people who washes bottles before putting them in the recycling, and pulls out the plastic inside of cardboard boxes (because you must separate the different material!!!) but I was DESPERATE.  So desperate in fact that I chucked the ENTIRE esky into the bin.  I couldn't bear to open it.

I ran back to the car and we drove off... leaving the spa and its bin with our NYE leftovers never to be welcomed back again.

Happy New Year to all and look forward to hearing some of your NY stories.

Elle