What's in store for 2024?
Fun, friends, adventures and plenty more #12
Hey friends!
Welcome to 2024. The year I get serious! Serious about having more fun, learning new things, reading more books, experiencing more adventures, creating new friendships, and establishing this newsletter blog properly. 2024 is my year and this is my journey. You can come along for the ride. It might be mild, it might be wild, but I’m setting out to have an amazing year of experiences and adventures, both locally and further afield.
Over the Christmas and New Year period we tend to reflect on the past year and set goals for the year ahead. I’ve seen many acquaintances post year-end wraps of all the amazing things they did in 2023. I’ve heard work friends talk about their goals for the new year. I normally do the former and not the latter. I could easily do a year-end wrap as I’ve had some great adventures in 2023 (maybe next week!), but this year I’m setting goals. Goals to indulge (not restrict), to have more fun, more adventures, make the money and spend the money, in essence to experience and live life in the best way possible. Not every week will be an adventure, as everyone needs some downtime, but it will be full of life. I want to get out there and do things, see things and go places, before I can’t. This post will make me accountable and I’m going to re-visit it every month this year to make sure I hit the goals that I have set for myself.
In previous posts I have talked about my favourite things to do, adventures close to home and travelling the world solo, so you know what brings me joy. I will continue to do all those things but I’m going to be more intentional with my adventures and goals for the year. I’m going to continue this weekly writing adventure and tell you about all the experiences I have had, are about to do, or have booked (goal #1). I will tell you if I enjoyed them, what I liked or disliked about them, or if I wasted my time (like that comedian I saw last year!). I will still write about my solo travels, but they will be closer to home this year, with less overseas adventures and more Australian (and possibly New Zealand) content. I want to explore my own backyard, have more weekends away, go on road trips and do some of my favourite things (e.g. movies, theatre shows, live gigs) in other cities and regions.
I want to get out of my comfort zone more. Being an introvert I could quite happily spend the rest of my days alone at home doing the homely things I love such as gardening, cooking (and eating), reading and writing. But I can also do these things whilst taking myself on adventures and road trips across this vast continent. Weekend adventures are something I want to explore more. Head off on a Friday afternoon and come back Sunday evening. Two days and nights exploring new places. If I’m getting on a plane I might extend that by a day or two, giving me more time to explore. Will I enjoy it? Will I get bored? I will never know if I never go. I aim to intentionally travel for a weekend away at least once a month (goal #2). It might be near or it might be far, deciding where to go is half the adventure.
So what are my plans thus far? I have a few things booked already and January looks set to be a busy local adventure. Coming up the next two weekends are the Portarlington Mussel Festival and the Geelong Beer Festival, amongst many other festivals in this region, but I don’t plan to attend them all (that would be wild, not mild!). I have also pre-booked tickets for a couple of shows in advance. These being Laneway Festival in February, Bang On Live in June and Chelsea Handler: Little Big Bitch in July. I bought a ticket to Laneway purely to see American musician, Dominic Fike, who is not playing anywhere else. Bang On is an Australian podcast I listen to about music, art, life and stuff and Chelsea Handler is an American comedian. I also plan to take an overseas holiday for my birthday on an island in the Pacific Ocean, again closer to home than 2023, but it will be beautiful no doubt.
Other goals I have for myself this year include learning to play guitar (I bought a guitar 18 months ago during lockdowns; goal#3), learn a language (goal #4) or rather strengthen my knowledge in languages I have previously learnt but now forgotten, reading more books (goal #5) - I have downloaded the StoryGraph app and have set myself some challenges, if you have this app also you can follow me at nicolemathers - and creating new friendships (goal #6). In 2023 I met so many wonderful new people from across the globe and this year I want to turn more of those meetings into actual friends. I know it won’t always work out, but having listened to half of Jessica Pan’s Sorry I’m Late I Didn’t Want to Come: One Introvert’s Year of Saying Yes I have a new sense of hope that I can make lasting friendships as an introvert. Plus movies, movies, movies. I love movies, I love movie popcorn. I know everyone is talking about it, but if you didn’t get to see Saltburn at the cinema it is currently on Amazon Prime. It’s not for everyone, people walked out of the cinema in the session I went to, but I found it a thoroughly enjoyable and most fascinating film. I will watch it again. It’s one of those films you will need to watch again to fully comprehend what it was you just watched!! I also want to check out some local experiences that I would like to revisit as future community experiences.
So that concludes my list of goals and intentions for 2024. If you want to follow along on my adventure then subscribe, share and come back to see how I’m doing in my quest for intentionally living life and conquering some not so big bucket list items. Follow along my reading journey with the StoryGraph app, suggest places for me to visit, movies to watch or shows to see in the comments. Grease, The Musical will definitely be on the cards, the Melbourne International Comedy Festival also (this will also be one of my “weekends away” adventures). I’d love to hear what your goals for 2024 are, I hope they’re wild!
Thanks for reading…
My favourite cookbook at the moment is Dinner by Nagi Maehashi (also recommended by Jamie Oliver). I cannot get enough of Nagi’s recipes. Check out her website, you won’t be disappointed. Below is a picture of her Roasted Stuffed Pumpkin I made for Christmas lunch…EPIC!
