So here we are then... 2012.

My first post of 2012- I can't believe it. It doesn't seem like two minutes ago that we were celebrating the end of 2010 and beginning of 2011!

New Year's Eve was brilliant, despite me crashing and losing all energy at about 11. But actually I was pretty impressed that I lasted that long, and I still managed to see 2012 in by resting on the sofa whilst everyone else carried on having fun. We watched the fireworks in London on BBC 1- it was perfect as I love fireworks but they're always too bad for my noise sensitivity. I had all my friends over which was really lovely. It meant that I still had everything I needed around such as pain relief and somewhere to lie down, but I was still able to spend the evening with everyone having fun. And we had a lot of fun! I even managed a nice glass of wine- it went STRAIGHT to my head, supposedly because I hadn't had a drink for many months. I was nowhere near as bad as Rob though who got completely trashed! He was fine until he started a race with the other boys to see who could knock back some dry scrumpy the quickest. All I'll say is that we are from Somerset...!

I've been paying a lot for going to Banbury and having the New Year's Eve party. It seems to have knocked me back to being mainly in bed again, although not quite as bad as I was before luckily. All of it was worth it though; if I hadn't have gone to Banbury I'd feel a lot more scared about moving there, not knowing what my new home would be like. And I would have been very upset to have not spent New Year's Eve with my friends- it's what we do every year. I'm well aware that if I keep doing things like that then I won't get better, but that's it now- I'm behaving myself. Even if that means not moving in with Rob straight away but waiting until I'm more able to look after myself then so be it. That's one of my New Year's resolutions actually. I usually make them but have forgotten what they are by the end of the year! So this year I've tried to really think about ones that will really benefit me, and here they are:

1. Keep up this blog. It's really helping me to get everything out of my system and it's allowing me to make sense of things a lot more easily. Plus I'm hopefully raising awareness of ME; if that benefits other people then that's brilliant!

2. Pace myself. Last year I was awful at it and that's what ultimately led to me being so poorly. I need to really make sure that even on a good day, I'm really strict with sticking to my limits so that I can avoid payback. It's going to be tough and incredibly frustrating but I don't want to spend this year as a severe ME sufferer too!

3. Find at least one reason to smile every day. That doesn't just go for the battle with my ME. That applies to whatever I'm doing. I may well regret saying this, but I'm hoping that at some point this year I'll be so up to my eyeballs in planning and marking that I won't know where to start. I'll have been teaching all day and may have had some grotty kids to contend with, I may have had parents' evening and be home late and STILL have a lot to do. But even then I'm going to find something to smile about- in that case I'm sure it'll be that I CAN do all those things, as much of a nightmare as they may seem at the time!

I also want to keep in close contact with my friends and keep getting closer to those lovely other AYMErs, but I don't need to turn that into a resolution- I know it's a given that it'll happen!