Showing posts with label budget. Show all posts
Showing posts with label budget. Show all posts

Saturday, 3 January 2015

Welcome, 2015

It's been a long time since my last post; I must have got lost somewhere amongst the madness that is the month of December!

While part of me is convinced that all events that occured would totally fit into one post, the other (more sensible and logical) part says 'move on, Laura'... so, whizzing past a Selfridges cinema experience (Paddington was AMAZING), decorating the Christmas tree (and the rest of the flat), a concert in Boughton not Broughton, carol singing on a floating jetty at St Katharine Docks, Christmas Jumper Day, elbowing our way through throngs of tourists to that infamous ice slide at Winter Wonderland where we also drank yummy hot Rekorderlig, take-away afternoon tea and Christmas trees galore at Columbia Road Flower Market, 'merryment' at St Martin-in-the-Fields, the school nativity, tending the bar at the City Chamber Choir concert, and finally heading home for Christmas where we'll pretend everything calmed down before this list burns a hole in the page!

Home was glorious as always - just look at beautiful Norfolk!













So we reach that time again, a new year has begun! After a party torn between adulthood and our teens to see it in, we have just returned from a bracing walk along the canal and finally, the world has come to rest, just for the remainder of today but it's enough.

People keep asking me what my new year's resolutions are, but unlike last year (and I think even the year before), I have a much less clear idea than usual. I think maybe because as 2014 drew to a close, I felt more content than I have done in a long time; those small fragments of life forever floating around without a true sense of where to go have finally found direction!

'Do more of the same' would be far too boring for me though, so this post may rest a while to give me time to formulate a plan!

I have embarked on Dry January again with a view to keep going until March (having succeeded last year, I dare to actually go public with my intention this year; too much confidence?), but I'm not sure that can constitute any sort of 'resolution', particularly as it won't last the full length of 2015 (the summer of 2014 taught me that)!

With a little time passed, I hope I have decided on three achievable resolutions for this year...

1. Read!

I'm preferably a writer, not a reader. But I love to lose myself in a book when the mood takes me, and with a lack of internet connection on my laptop preventing me from losing myself in iPlayer or Netflix instead, now is the perfect opportunity to set the ball rolling (and a book even awaits me on the pillow beside me for when I've finished writing)!

2. Look after myself. Rest.

This is something I've always prided myself in being good at, but I seem to have let it slip again this academic year, resulting in a 12-week-long cold. Finally rid of it, I'm determined to keep illness and fatigue at bay... wish me luck and expect far too many cat posts thanks to more weekends spent at home.

3. Set goals for money saving.

I'm ashamed to have two resolutions that I'm almost entirely sure I've had before, but I hope I've at least re-phrased them? I am and always will be a lover of spending, but I really need to prioritise where my money goes. Having had a wardrobe clearout at the weekend, clothes shopping is a looming temptation, but instead a new bed is top of my list, which I figure links nicely to resolution number 2? Already got my Sleep Tea for Christmas, now I just need somewhere as comfortable as my bed at home to lay my weary head!

I'm really very excited for 2015 because I came out of 2014 so happy and feeling very accomplished (not entirely sure why, but hey, I'll go with it) and I can only imagine that much more of the same is in store! 2015, let's do this!

Saturday, 4 January 2014

A new calendar year, some more New Year Resolutions

New Year's Resolutions from 2013:
- stop being so lazy
- budget
- pass the PGCE year/get a job

Well, I'm sitting with my feet up on a new pouffe/fighting over a pouffe with a sleepy kitten as I write this so I'm not entirely sure how well the first two went, but I am sitting in London (on a chair, in a living room, in my flat - sounding a little like Funny Bones) having definitely succeeded in achieving resolution number 3!

As mentioned in last year's post, resolutions are made by me at every turning point. While it may be a new calendar year, I am bound to a life of academic years, so really, my big turning point happened in September. When asked how teaching is going so far, my response has been

'well, there's certainly never a dull moment'

and it's so true. Already, this 'year' (academic) has taught me a lot - I am handwriting this before I type, and my handwriting strikes me as a big change. As materialistic as that may sound, my handwriting has been the topic of great discussion through the years. A lot like Marmite, some have always thought it very neat and thus I have become designated scribe for many a task, while by others it has been considered atrocious.

So 'poof' is apparently really spelt 'pouffe'. Who knew?
Anyway, divulging too much pointless information. What the year has taught me most is to be reflective. I've always considered myself to be reflective anyway (at least, my ramblings have led me to believe that that's what I was doing), but I wonder whether perhaps there are different forms of reflection (as she bursts into song from Mulan). I'm not going to go into some potentially dull, potentially very lively philosophical debate with myself over the matter, I am simply going to suggest that perhaps this year's resolutions are the result of the effects of a first term in teaching (can you believe I survived?!).

Feeling more like myself in this moment than I have done in weeks, I am aware that holding on to this sense will require a manifold approach, in which all folds are intrinsic and a direct result of one another. So here we go...

Resolution Number One - improve diet! 
Actually eating would make an excellent start (although perhaps post-Christmas, returning to a diet consisting entirely of Hemsley & Hemsley recipes wouldn't be the worst thing in the world). Diet also refers to liquid intake (sorry Hugh, I think I might attempt to cut back). Watch this space.

Resolution Number Two - make time for real Laura time!
This involves intentional aimless wandering, unnecessary pampering, musical moments, reading and WRITING more (I know I've said it before, but I really will return to more regular posting)!

And Resolution Number Three (just to follow on from last year's pattern) - pass my NQT year/hold on to my job!

As ever, I'm beyond broad in the hope that in some small way I may be able to achieve something this year! The main aim is to maintain the colour that has come back to me (I literally mean my skin tone, that's not meant to be deep and meaningful - it's pure vanity) and fight off the bags under my eyes until Easter at least (no one wants to look sallow on their birthday)... challenge, accepted!