I'm back!

I'm back! I know I haven't posted on here in a long while, but I simply haven't really had anything to report. For the past month and a bit, it seems my life has consisted of working, shovelling snow, and driving in the snow. Needless to say, I am sick of winter and so glad that the sun is out today and it actually seems as if spring might be on the way!
It's now the middle of March and only 15 days until my birthday! On March 30th I turn 28 years old, and this year I am actually quite excited about it. Normally I don't look forward to my birthdays as I have a bit of a thing about getting older, but I love the way "28" sounds. A lot better than "27" I think. 8 is also my favorite number so maybe that has something to do with it. I also have a feeling that 28 is going to be a big year for me. For those that don't know, March 1st was the first day of my year-long "follow your dreams" personal challenge. I have been faced with some big decisions in the last little while, and the biggest one was "what am going to do with my songwriting?". Was I actually going to pursue it as a career or leave it as a hobby. Well I decided to give it a go. I am giving it 100% until March 1, 2009. If I have made some progress by then and think that I am on the right track and will be able to make a living at this then I will continue with it. If I haven't really made any progress and if it doesn't really look like it's something that can or will help provide for my family then I will really have to think about just continuing it as a hobby at that point.
This also means Chris and I are going to delay starting to "try to conceive". We had orignally talked about trying in the summer, but now will wait until the summer of 2009 at the earliest. It'll give us more time to save up some money and get in a better place financially, so as much as I would love to have a child sooner rather than later I know that looking at the "big picture" we're doing the best thing. I'll also be able to help out my friends (as much as they'll let me) when their babies arrive and that can be my training. (Considering I've never even held a baby or changed a diaper I think I'll definitely need it)!
So on day 16 of my challenge, I think I'm made some progress. I bought a new computer, so I now have enough space on it to load all my recording software and all those fiddly bits one needs on a computer to actually make a song sound complete and worthy enough to be on a demo. I've also reorganized all my songwriting stuff and have almost finished writing a new song. I think it's a great one too (if I do say so myself). It's an upbeat tempo and has a good message to it. Can't wait for you all to hear it! I'm thinking I might start up a webpage, something like a "songwriters journey" webpage - the chronicles or yours truly and how a songwriter takes an idea and turns it into a finished product. I'll probably even move my blog onto the webpage, so stay tuned.
On a completely unrelated note - I bought a new pilates DVD the other day. I had a moment a couple of days ago when Chris and I were talking about going on vacation and (sadly) one of the first things that popped into my head at the thought of going somewhere hot was "I can't go somewhere hot! That means I'd have to put my bathing suit on, and I am so not ready for that!" I know I'm not actually overweight or anything, but I've been super lazy since last summer and could stand to loose a few pounds. It all seems to settle in my belly and my behind so when I saw that DVD I though "AHA - flat abs here I come!" I've tried pilates before and found it too slow, but this one is a little more fast paced and solely focused on the abs and butt so we'll see how that goes. As for the vacation, we're probably just going to stay home as we can't realistically afford a vacation right now, but that only means it'll give me longer to get in even better shape for the summer. Bathing suit - here I come!