Happy new year everyone! Overall I think 2014 was a pretty good year. Things were a lot happier for me & my little family. The worst part was definitely those three months when my house was plagued with wasps. At least I know a good pest control man now if the little buggers decide to come back again this year! Anyway rather than dwelling on past I think it's more important to look towards the future & think about the things I want to achieve in 2015. I've come to realise that I'm quite stuck in my ways & some things about myself will never change. Instead of fooling myself into thinking that I can stop my bad habits I've simply set myself five goals for 2015:
Get fit
Yeah yeah yeah, I know I say this every year but this time I really do want to lose weight & keep it off. I've already started off well by doing a mixture of Tone It Up, Jillian Michaels & Blogilates routines but I want to get back to the gym and do some classes. The only class I can get to is spinning so I'm gonna give that a go soon. In terms of diet I'm just gonna try eating a bit cleaner and make sure I use my NutriBullet every day. I've always failed when it comes to following a strict diet because I just love food too much! I do some terrible diet sabotaging things like eating whole bags of giant chocolate buttons so even just a few small adjustments should help make a difference.
Take driving refresher lessons
I passed my driving test way back in 2006 (first time!) but I haven't driven at all since then. Mainly because I couldn't afford a car & thought it was pointless to get one while I was at uni. After I graduated I still didn't bother to buy one and have struggled along on public transport for the past few years. Having my own car & being confident enough to drive on the motorway would be brilliant. Then I could go shopping without my bags cutting off the circulation in my arms & could apply for jobs that are further afield. I could also take Chloe out on more day trips without having to wait for Andy to have a rare day off. She's pretty good with getting buses & trains with me but there's so many places that you can't reach without a car. I'd love to get something small like a Fiat 500 but I guess it all depends on how well I do with these refresher lessons!
Get a new job
After four years of being a stay at home mum, Chloe finally started infant school in September and I gained a bit more freedom. I've been looking for a new job for the past couple of months and so many companies seem to be impressed with my portfolio. However finding something that can fit within school hours is a lot trickier than it seems. As soon as I say I want to work part-time, they say they're no longer interested. I have no help with childcare - there's no room at the local after school care club, Andy works ridiculous hours because he's a store manager & both sets of grandparents live too far away to help out at all. Being at home all the time is boring, depressing & lonely. I just want a job where I actually get to leave the house & work amongst other people.
Learn modern copperplate calligraphy
Typography is one of my biggest passions in life & I've missed doing something creative as a hobby. Creating web graphics all the time gets a bit soulless and I've always preferred design for print. Currently hand drawn lettering is far more appealing to me than using pre-made fonts so I've decided to teach myself modern copperplate calligraphy. This style of lettering is hugely popular right now & there's a large market for calligraphic prints, greetings cards, wedding stationery etc. I've only just started out so I'm no expert yet but depending on how good I get at it I might open up my own print shop on Etsy. If not I'm happy to keep it as a hobby. Drawing out letter sets over and over again is strangely relaxing!
Learn Japanese
Not to toot my own horn but I've always excelled at learning languages. Spanish was my favourite subject at school & I was really good at German too. I worked in a shop in Spain and did a German exchange so I feel like I know enough to survive in those countries. However Japanese is something that has kinda eluded me. I love Japanese culture & my biggest dream would be to visit there someday so I really want to learn how to read & write it properly. I've picked up vocab from watching tons of anime & we even had a Japanese club at school. For the first term we had actual Japanese people teaching us but after that we got taught by one of the language teachers at school who was basically useless and killed all my passion for learning the grammar & characters. I came across this video by Kelsey Ellison about how she learns Japanese & she inspired me to try again. I bought one of the Japanese From Zero books that she recommended & I'm gonna attempt learning the language by myself. I think the thing I struggle with most is remembering the hiragana, katakana & kanji. I can understand a lot of romanised text so now I need to make a real effort with the Japanese alphabets!
Of course I do have to mention blogging & my intentions for Sparkly Vodka this year. I've had a huge influx of followers recently so hello to all of you & thanks for reading my blog! My sole aim for 2014 was to write 150 posts. I missed the mark by 10 so I'm gonna try my hardest to get to 150 this year. My posts have always been quite text heavy because I like to write really thorough reviews so they do take me a few hours to do. If I'm gonna achieve my other goals for this year I doubt I'll have time to write many more. But who knows what the future holds?! I'm gonna make a conscious effort to focus more on makeup than skincare this year & hopefully get on with doing some YouTube makeup tutorials. Anyway I just want to say a huge thank you to everyone who reads my blog & enjoys the content I put out. So here's to 2015! I hope you all have a fantastic year filled with plenty of success & happiness!
Get fit
Yeah yeah yeah, I know I say this every year but this time I really do want to lose weight & keep it off. I've already started off well by doing a mixture of Tone It Up, Jillian Michaels & Blogilates routines but I want to get back to the gym and do some classes. The only class I can get to is spinning so I'm gonna give that a go soon. In terms of diet I'm just gonna try eating a bit cleaner and make sure I use my NutriBullet every day. I've always failed when it comes to following a strict diet because I just love food too much! I do some terrible diet sabotaging things like eating whole bags of giant chocolate buttons so even just a few small adjustments should help make a difference.
Take driving refresher lessons
I passed my driving test way back in 2006 (first time!) but I haven't driven at all since then. Mainly because I couldn't afford a car & thought it was pointless to get one while I was at uni. After I graduated I still didn't bother to buy one and have struggled along on public transport for the past few years. Having my own car & being confident enough to drive on the motorway would be brilliant. Then I could go shopping without my bags cutting off the circulation in my arms & could apply for jobs that are further afield. I could also take Chloe out on more day trips without having to wait for Andy to have a rare day off. She's pretty good with getting buses & trains with me but there's so many places that you can't reach without a car. I'd love to get something small like a Fiat 500 but I guess it all depends on how well I do with these refresher lessons!
Get a new job
After four years of being a stay at home mum, Chloe finally started infant school in September and I gained a bit more freedom. I've been looking for a new job for the past couple of months and so many companies seem to be impressed with my portfolio. However finding something that can fit within school hours is a lot trickier than it seems. As soon as I say I want to work part-time, they say they're no longer interested. I have no help with childcare - there's no room at the local after school care club, Andy works ridiculous hours because he's a store manager & both sets of grandparents live too far away to help out at all. Being at home all the time is boring, depressing & lonely. I just want a job where I actually get to leave the house & work amongst other people.
Learn modern copperplate calligraphy
Typography is one of my biggest passions in life & I've missed doing something creative as a hobby. Creating web graphics all the time gets a bit soulless and I've always preferred design for print. Currently hand drawn lettering is far more appealing to me than using pre-made fonts so I've decided to teach myself modern copperplate calligraphy. This style of lettering is hugely popular right now & there's a large market for calligraphic prints, greetings cards, wedding stationery etc. I've only just started out so I'm no expert yet but depending on how good I get at it I might open up my own print shop on Etsy. If not I'm happy to keep it as a hobby. Drawing out letter sets over and over again is strangely relaxing!
Learn Japanese
Not to toot my own horn but I've always excelled at learning languages. Spanish was my favourite subject at school & I was really good at German too. I worked in a shop in Spain and did a German exchange so I feel like I know enough to survive in those countries. However Japanese is something that has kinda eluded me. I love Japanese culture & my biggest dream would be to visit there someday so I really want to learn how to read & write it properly. I've picked up vocab from watching tons of anime & we even had a Japanese club at school. For the first term we had actual Japanese people teaching us but after that we got taught by one of the language teachers at school who was basically useless and killed all my passion for learning the grammar & characters. I came across this video by Kelsey Ellison about how she learns Japanese & she inspired me to try again. I bought one of the Japanese From Zero books that she recommended & I'm gonna attempt learning the language by myself. I think the thing I struggle with most is remembering the hiragana, katakana & kanji. I can understand a lot of romanised text so now I need to make a real effort with the Japanese alphabets!
Of course I do have to mention blogging & my intentions for Sparkly Vodka this year. I've had a huge influx of followers recently so hello to all of you & thanks for reading my blog! My sole aim for 2014 was to write 150 posts. I missed the mark by 10 so I'm gonna try my hardest to get to 150 this year. My posts have always been quite text heavy because I like to write really thorough reviews so they do take me a few hours to do. If I'm gonna achieve my other goals for this year I doubt I'll have time to write many more. But who knows what the future holds?! I'm gonna make a conscious effort to focus more on makeup than skincare this year & hopefully get on with doing some YouTube makeup tutorials. Anyway I just want to say a huge thank you to everyone who reads my blog & enjoys the content I put out. So here's to 2015! I hope you all have a fantastic year filled with plenty of success & happiness!
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Happy New Year! I love your diary, it's gorgeous.
ReplyDeleteSorry to hear of your childcare struggles, I hope someone gives you a chance to work part-time! xx
Good luck with all your goals for the year! I'm hoping to pass my driving test after packing in my lessons a few years ago so I can understand it's a bit difficult to get back behind the wheel after so long.
ReplyDeleteCatherine, xo || Lady Liquor
Good luck with the job hunt - it's never easy but hopefully the right thing will come up sooner rather than later :) xx
ReplyDeleteI hope the job hunt goes well for you, I'm sure you'll have companies fighting over you!
ReplyDeleteAnnabel ♥
Mascara & Maltesers
Excellent goals! Japanese is definitely not the easiest language to learn (after all, you have to memorise three new alphabets!) but it sounds like you have the aptitude for languages. Good luck!
ReplyDeleteTessa at Bramble & Thorn
Good luck with the japanese! I'm living in Tokyo studying it right now - once you get the hiragana and katakana down things will get much easier! xx
ReplyDelete☾ Liquorice Pearls ☾
You have some lovely goals you want this year and hope you get done and accomplish them. As for learning a new language that is awesome. I took French in college and learned a lot and I kind of want to learn more to speak more fluently.
ReplyDeleteJackie | fashionxfairytale | bloglovin' |
I want to learn Italian x
ReplyDeletep.s. get the Duolingo app it will teach you Japanese!
http://lilliemysel.blogspot.com
These are fab goals, mine are quite similar too! I used to be really good at speaking German and French after going to an 'arts and language school' which we were required to learn, but I've lost it over the years so apps like duolingo like people have posted about above would be good for getting back into it! Good luck with the job hunt, I'm in the same boat at the minute too!
ReplyDeleteLouise x