This Saturday, the 12th of February, is my 27th Birthday.  A little scary to be honest!  Well past the quarter-century mark, and only 3 more years until I turn 30.

Aside from being a great reason to share great food and wine with friends - not that I'm generally hard-pressed to find an excuse to do that anyway! - I find Birthdays a poignant time to selfishly reflect myself over the past year.  What have I done?  What didn't I do that I wanted to do?  What really sucked?  What am I looking forward to in my next year of life?

Over the past 12 months, I have made some pretty important decisions regarding my physical and mental/emotional health:

I resigned from my job, as it was just too physically, mentally and emotionally draining to continue with - a decision I probably should have made some time ago.
I decided not to pursue more work for the time-being.
I'm really enjoying being able to do housework at my leisure, bake and cook, and exercise without worrying about being too tired out to go to work.
Cutting down on junk food.  I'm only likely to have maybe one glass soft-drink a week!  I've cut down on coffee, down to around 2 cups a day!  In the last few months, I've also been handling my comfort eating a little better.
I decided early last year to go back to school.  Today I submitted my application and sat an interview for a course due to start next week.  I am so excited!
I'm spending more time outdoors and really loving it.  Walking and gardening really relax me, sometimes I'll just sit outside in the garden and dig for the hell of it.
Trying to make our lives more sustainable, by recycling more, growing some of our own produce, and sharing it with friends.  We now have Solar panels installed that feed back into the power grid, and we have drastically changed our power usage in the home for the better.
I'm training dogs again which is something I've always loved doing.  I've missed Obedience Club over the last several years, and it's really nice to get into it again.
I'm reading more books which I had all but stopped doing for a few years.  I've been managing to average one a month, and hope to ramp it up this year!
Spending more time with friends is one of the bigger positive changes.  I'm always happier when I can share my experiences with friends, and I've got some really positive and supportive people around me now.

But it's not all good.  There's a lot of things I wish I had done, or had done differently over the last year.  I've thought about those too, but I won't share them right now.

For now, I'm looking at the positives.  This year I'll be expanding on all the positive points above, because they all make me feel better about Me (I said this was a time for selfish reflection, right?!)!  But they're also positive for those around me; sharing experiences, happy times, and personal growth.