The # 99

Firstly....a wish....

Happy New Year! I wish that all your wishes come true in the new year! Abundance of health, love and friends and a shortage of tears and pain.

Secondly... an explanation for my absence and the title...

It's been a long time since my last post. Almost a month without cooking nor baking nor photographing. I wanted to march into the kitchen and bake cookies and bunt cakes, roast some vegetables and mix a fresh salad, alas time, my biggest enemy it seems, showed no compassion and rejected my eagerness. Seeing the number of the feeds reaching my Google Reader from my favourite blogs increasing every day without me being able to read them, let alone comment and write something of my own, had the most frustrating effect on me. While I was in Zagreb, time was my friend, a very generous friend it now seems. Life was not very complicated, gym in the morning, shopping for groceries, cooking lunch and dinner writing, reading, the occasional painting class, no traffic jams, no strikes...

It sounds nice and relaxed? Well it was, only  I did not appreciate it at the time. I remember myself complaining about being bored and uninspired. How ungrateful was I? But sure enough I got what I deserved. Time punished me by making himself unmanageable. But maybe he made me unable to manage him any more. Most of the times I find myself running from the gym to the school and then back home. I'm always in a bus or on a train going to some place from which I have to rush out again to go somewhere else. This is how it is in big cities like Athens. I know I shouldn't complain I should sit down and make a plan and re-organise my priorities. New Year's resolution? Maybe! I also want to start driving lessons so I have to incorporate this into my schedule somehow!

Whatever my issues with time are I have a whole year in front of me to solve them. It's promising that I started writing on the first day of the New Year isn't it?

Anyway, about the tittle...

This is my 99th post! Hooray for me and my Box of Stolen Socks!! 

It is customary off course to write a 'sum-it-all-up', 'greatest-moments' post when you reach 100. Well as those who read my ramblings and put up with my grammar mistakes, know, I am not a lot for custom. I like #99 better than #100. To me #99 seems mystical  and  utterly promising. So, instead of a 'sum-it-all-up, 'greatest-moments' 100th post, I am going to dedicate my #99 to a woman who left this world 3 years short of her 99th birthday; Georgie's grandmother, the woman who raised and formed his wonderful character and who decided to make a quiet exit just before Christmas.

Unfortunately I did not get to meet the real Evagelia. By the time I entered her life her perception of our world was severely altered by the fog of Alzheimer's disease which fell like a heavy blanket on her beautiful mind. I met a kind, innocent human being, the way we all are before we get corrupted by the absurdity and maliciousness of our world. A baby in an aged body, who held my hand every time the doctor came and smacked her lips with -what I thought was-  delight every time she tasted the cakes I baked. Rest in  peace dear Granny and don't worry we both got your message :)

And thirdly... a promise... to you, friends I know and friends I have yet to meet.

I will try to write more, read more blogs and feature them in mine. Publish the stories behind the ashtrays you have given me over the years and be honest about it. Taste more wine and write, without fear of judgement. I am a novice but we all have to start somewhere. I DO want you to be part of my learning process, my online homework diary, lets say. And please, please, write to me, tell me that you disagree or even that you agree with what I write, I expect your advice and help.

In closing something I found on Facebook

2013 is so young and full of potential. If you are willing to do the work, you will see your dreams unfold into reality.

Happy New Year to everyone.