The beginning of another year has passed, and with it, all the promises of change, betterment, resolutions … you know how it goes! I think that every day I resolve to author a blog post, and every day I think “I’ll have to get to it tomorrow” – and my world has become full of tomorrows.

I know I need more focus. I have no idea who my audience is. I never even check the analytics to see if anyone is reading this at all, and maybe it’s time to start doing that.

My next level. That is the blog topic for the week, as declared by Chris Brogan, blogger, author, business mentor and all-around good guy, so I thought I’d use it as my inspiration. I like the way Chris writes. I like the fact that I learn so much from him about Google+ when others have pretty much written it off, I love that he’s not ALL business ALL the time, and I wish I could find my copy of Trust Agents (the book he co-wrote with Julien Smith), because I think I need to read it again.

So, why AM I here? Why DO I blog? I think that I started when blogs weren’t really serving a purpose other than to get all your thoughts down in one place. When blogging was literally electronic journalling, and I’m fairly sure that’s why I could care less if anyone reads it or not. Having said that, I am going to use this as a means for me to keep myself accountable to myself. And that may, or may not work!

Since last time I blogged I’ve worked on setting up a home-based business – I’m a Virtual Assistant – and you can find out all about that over at BN Virtual Solutions. I have a business coach, with whom I trade VA hours for coaching, and I’m working on launching a business that will benefit our local economy through encouraging our local residents to shop a small, independently owned businesses. That is RelyLocal.com.

Add to that a successful local group of entrepreneurs on Facebook, and that’s pretty much how my time is spent lately!

The girls? Doing just great! Paris just missed Honor Roll by one “C” grade, and Ciel made Gold Honor Roll. Ciel still loves her clarinet, the Beatles, Dr. Who and reading. Paris is growing up way too fast and can’t quite decide what she likes, but she loves to cook!

But where were we? My next level. My goal was to be off unemployment by Christmas, and I didn’t make it. So. March is the month that I’ll be earning enough money to fully support myself and my family and I will no longer be reliant on unemployment. That’s my next level. I know I’m growing daily, both personally and in my business, so expect so see more blog posts, and more success, from me!

I spent a good deal of today working on www.snootyvixen.com – I fixed up the whole site, then in one errant keystroke I deleted the whole website module and all the good work I had done. So, I started over. You know, maybe that first version just wasn’t meant to be and the second version was better.

I do like my site header image though. Here it is:

Blog Header

I probably messed up the dandelion at the end, but eh, who cares!

I did clean my kitchen today, and I have two loaves of bread baking (if you call processing in the bread machine “baking” – it’s making some awful clanging noises!) At least it’ll be done mixing soon and the clanging will be over

The girls are reading, and awaiting their phone call from their dad in about 5 or 10 minutes time. Today I’ll be asking him to sign the papers I need for the girls to get their passports so we can visit my brother, Simon, in the Dominican Republic. I don’t know how that’s going to go … we’ll see.

I came across some photos today that I hadn’t seen for a while … photos like this one

Vikki & Ma, Tacolneston, 1965

At least, I think that’s my Ma! Now that I look, it looks more like Auntie Delphine. Hmmmm ….

Then there’s this treasure:

KJ and Vikki

The girl on the left is KJ. She put more fear into more people on VP than anyone I know! VP is (was?) Virtual Places – an MSN chat room with avatars and sounds … if you were clever enough, you could make a whole music video play! Still, KJ held court over the African American room. It was very strange to meet her in person, she was totally different to the KJ I had imagined!  She came to stay with me when I had a “leaving party” before I left Australia for the States, and boy did we have a riot!

So, now I’m sneezing way too much. I think I’m going to go to bed

So, I think I’m going to go make myself a cup of tea with some lemon in it. I wish I could stand the taste of honey. Maybe agave nectar will work as well?