From now on.

Seven days into 2014, and I've just sort of realised, where are my resolutions?! As a slightly neurotic, occasionally OCD person, I love to make lists. Shopping lists, to do lists, reminder lists, anything. So this is it. The one list that should count, right? My New Years resolutions. Here goes nothing, (or may be everything.)

1. Be happy. I mean it. Really, genuinely happy. This year has got off to a great start, so here's to hoping to just gets better. This year, I put my happiness first. I do what's good for me. 

2. Work harder. Uni wise. Also, I need a job. I constantly live outside of my means, and I need to get a grip and start living in the real world, even if I don't like it much. Everyone keeps telling me I'm so capable, so maybe it's about time I proved them right. 

3. Take risks. Lots of them. I'm tired of being scared of doing something, because of the chances of failure, messing things up or just not working out how I'd like. The bottom line is, if I'm not willing to take a risk every once in a while, I probably won't get to where I want to be. 

So, there's three. Seems a bit OTT to do many more, and it'll just fall into my obsessive list-making habit anyway if I continue. Today has been tiring, in the best possible sense. Even if I didn't do an awful lot. I'm drained. The festive season is well and truly over. New year is just some nostalgic memory fading on the horizon. The banners have gone, the decorations ripped miserably down as the clocks changed over and the ball dropped. There was no messing about. No hesitation. Once it's over, it's over. We don't dwell on it. There's dibs on who gets to sit on Boxing Day and say "well that's that over for another year" in such a nonchalant way that you'd think we didn't kick up such a fuss in the first place. 

To me, the eight days between Christmas Eve and new year are the only good things about winter. The hustle and bustle of eveything seasonal. The panic-buying, the happy crowds getting all tense and impatient, the food and not forgetting, the eight or so day binge we all have on alcohol. (Okay, most of us.) So it's all over. The presents packed away, no tinsel in sight, back to work, school and uni we go. Real life spells January blues, snow on it's way and the usual post-Christmas fads that usually die out by the second week of the year. I'm tired. Okay, scratch that, I'm absolutely exhausted. Everything is just so. Every smile, every breath, every movement, it all seems..well, right. I keep gushing about how happy I am, but I honestly can't emphasise it enough. (Lukas, you can take credit for this! You got a shoutout, even if you didn't want one, but I'm pretty sure you're grinning right now.) It's a hell of a big deal for me, and I'm still getting used to it. 

My wish list.

Yes, another list. What a surprise. This time, I'm writing a wish list. Things I want right now. Things that, at this precise moment, would make me happy, turn that straight face into a smiling, refreshed one. So, the moment of truth, what are they?

1. an iPhone. Yes. I feel totally out of the loop with my BlackBerry perched less than lovingly on my knee right now. I loved it once, but the love affair ended when all of my friends, family and even mere acquaintances started to get updates. The iPhone. And now, like every other typical, naive, gullible consumer, I want one too. I feel left out, I feel boring. I feel like this is exactly what I need in my life now to step my positivity up a notch. I want the works, the whole shebang. The apps, the snap-chatting and the Instagram. All of the things that non-iPhone users get bombarded with daily all across the internet. Call me materialistic, I probably am. I'd really like one though.

2. Coffee. This will always be one. There isn't enough coffee in my life ever. Even as I sit with a coffee by my bedside right now, I'm thinking of my next opportunity to venture downstairs, into the kitchen and boil the kettle for what will be the fifth time today.

3. Nail varnish that doesn't chip. And dries as quickly as it claims. A girly want, obviously. It's my pet-hate. Quick dry nail varnish that doesn't actually do what it says, then you end up with it everywhere. Or, I do anyway. Maybe that's just a sign that I'm far too impatient, I dunno.

4. A plane ticket to New York. This one is probably a given too. My cousin Sophie and I spend far too many hours each week contemplating when we will actually, finally, hopefully get ourselves to NYC. The latest verdict is that we'll go in 5 years when Sophie is 21, so we can actually fully enjoy The Big Apple. It will happen, I assure you. Soon though, probably not.

5. A decent night's sleep. I'm not feeling too good, and haven't been for almost a week now. Although I'm in recovery, I still feel like I haven't had what I'd class as a decent night's sleep in forever. It's well overdue, and in high demand.

6. A pair of Levi jeans. I've harped on about this forever. To my family, my friends, and all of my Twitter followers. I have a craving for some, although I can't really finance my shopaholic tendencies just yet.

7. A lottery win. Again, this one is a dead giveaway. Most people want this, and the people who don't, well, it must be fine and dandy to think you've got more than enough money to be able to decline a lottery win. Btw, I'm talking about a proper lottery win, like the kind you sell your house for, the kind that changes your life and enables you to buy a holiday home somewhere exotic. I fantasize about this moment. A lot.

8. To be happy. Oh good god, shoot me already! Is that a cliché I've just spat out? Oh dear, Eleanor, Eleanor, Eleanor. Now that was stupid, wasn't it? I might as well get a teardrop tattooed right now. I mean, it's like an unspoken rule. Everyone wants happiness, but actually voicing it out loud, maybe that's the biggest taboo of all. It's like, everyone feels the same towards that little thing we call happiness. But if it's so simple, why does it seem so, I dunno, unattainable, so out of our grasp? Maybe that's just me, with my negative attitude and my ability to mess up things so easily.

9. Fame. Okay. Scratch the previous entry, this one here may be the real taboo. I've admitted something here I never thought I would. See: previous post. I've blogged about, talked about it, wrote about it. The fact that, in my eyes, wanting to be famous is like choosing to get into a car you know is going to crash. It's risky, it's ill-advised, and in most events, really stupid. It's not even ambitious, it's just naive. It's like hoping it doesn't happen, hoping for the best even though you truly know it's against all odds. So, yes. I've decided, after a long, hard think, this is what I want. I want fame, fortune and everything that I so bitterly despised a few months back. I want my name in flashing, gaudy, florescent lights, I want the money, the success, the infamy. You're now wondering, how, yeah? Well, I want to write. I want to be a writer. Whether that means in novels, newspapers or any other sort of journalism, that's what I want. I haven't gone all specific yet, I'm keeping my options open, but that's what I really want. I know it is. It's just an instinct. I want fame, and going into my second year of University, I'm more ready than I'll ever be, to grab it with both hands, and never let go. I'm ready for you fame, I'll take everything you throw at me. As long as you keep your part of the bargain.