Monday 6 January 2014

New Year, Not So New Me.

I really dislike the whole "New Year, New You" thing. As if who you were last year wasn't good enough. I suppose that the sentiment behind it means well, but it's a bit over-done now, isn't it? And who has the energy to be a whole new person every single year? Even if you've had a terrible 2013, surely you'll strive to become a Better You, who has learnt from all the disappointment and sadness and uses the experience to improve your life, rather than a New person altogether?

I'm looking forward to 2014, but I'm not going to become a New Me. I'm going to keep trying to do all the things that I tried to do last year, only this time around I'm going to try harder to actually do them. Including, amongst other things, blogging. I have big blogging plans for 2015, but I feel like I should lay the groundwork and actually use it this year first. So watch out for more random musings. I feel those are my forte.

When I first thought about it, 2014 loomed ahead as a dull year of work and living at home (obviously oh-so-grateful that I can, but it is sometimes a little testing...), the less beautiful older sister of 2015. But things are often only as bad as you make them, so I wrote down all the things that are going to be great this year:

  • Brussels for the company catalogue launch - it was going to be the slightly-better-choice of Barcelona, but the powers that be deemed Brussels superior, so off we go in less than two weeks on a coach full of alcohol. More amusing than exciting, but I'm always up for seeing a new place.
  • A whole year of training and races - I've been banned from running for over a month now and I'm itching to get back into it. Especially because post-Christmas my jeans are not quite so comfortable. Unfortunately a really dodgy shin is holding me back, but I'm on the mend and once the right size pair of running shoes turns up I'm going to attack it. This weekend's cross country was cancelled because of the weather; I wasn't going to run because of the aforementioned shin, but fingers crossed it'll be postponed for a while and I'll be able to run, and therefore will only have missed the December race. I'm going to try (again) to get a place in the Yorkshire marathon, as well as enter a couple of half marathons and shorter races so that I have something to work towards.
  • Paris with Sofie - I haven't been since I was 13 and I'm slightly too excited to go and explore, dress like Amelie, and find the perfect cafe. I will rave about this more in the distant future...
  • Cornwall in May - I've already booked the week off work because it is one of my two favourite places other than home and I wouldn't miss it for the world. Last year I spent the month before it as excited as an eight year old on Christmas Eve, probably because the only other activity in my life was dissertation writing. This year I will try to forget about it until two weeks before.
  • Doing more cooking - I bought a recipe book by one of the owners of Leon, a new favourite place to eat. The recipes inside sound so delicious and really look homemade: most of them are old family recipes of people who work in the restaurants, or are ones for the perennial foods served that are customer favourites. I do love cooking, but most of the time it is purely functional. Porridge for breakfast, half a forest of fruit for lunch, and a giant smoothie for super. Not exactly the stuff of dreams. So I'm going to try to cook at least one meal ever weekend, regardless of who is at home, that I've never made before. Who knows, maybe by the end of the year I'll have made the whole book.
  • Various projects - planning travels for 2015, learning how to use my camera properly again, yoga, printing photos and putting them in albums, redecorating our attic and making it amazing.
I'm pretty certain that more things will crop up along the way, but for now that will do. I have two pairs of running shoes in the post, plus gym clothes and jewellery from someone I've followed on social media for a long long time. She wanted to make jewellery and so she went out there, learned how to, and is doing it. If I can do half as well as her then I'll be having a successful 2014 all round.