What do you wish for the new year?

2012 has not been the best of years for me and my sister. I had some concerns regarding my health (high blood pressure, a heart that beats too fast at times, ...) which have luckily been resolved by proper medication and learning how to deal with stress.

But in February I nearly lost my sister - which would have left me all alone. We were on a ski trip in Switzerland and had been skiing the entire morning. We took a break for lunch (a lengthy one, because the sun was out and it was lovely sitting on a terrace) and resumed skiing by 1.30 pm. We first did a black (or diamond, as they call them in the USA) run without any problem and then decided to go down to the main station to begin the descent all down the mountain. On one of the easier slopes my sister just fell head down into the snow. When I reached her, she was not yet moving. I dug out my cell phone, but by that time somebody had stopped as well. He was a ski teacher and he immediately felt for a pulse - which he did not find. Right then I assumed the fall had been fatal. I only learnt afterwards that it is possible not to feel a pulse on one side of the neck. A Tut a quarter of an hour later my sister began to move and to speak very incoherently. She did not know what had happened. She was taken to the local hospital, where they gave her one test after the other, but the doctors also could not find anything. It was not the blood pressure, nothing with the heart, ...
Still, it was a right scare. To make it worse, it was already the second time Chris almost died. The year before she was eating fries when one of them got caught in her throat, and if I had not been able to get it out by hitting her hard in the back, she would have suffocated.

So what I wish for 2013 is that both of us can stay healthy. Also that we don't have any big problems with the house or the flat. Because when something occurs it is always a big cost. I've just had a new kitchen and bathroom, so my funds are low. And Chris had some problems with the heating at the flat.

Secretly I hope that one day I'll scratch one of those lottery tickets and see that I've won a tidy sum (10,000 € would be grand)... Or better still, that I win Win for Life, which means you get 2,000 € a month for as long as you live.

What are your wishes or intentions for the new year?