Lockdown Goals (Even Though We’re Not as Locked Down Any More!)

I can’t believe it’s been nearly three months since my last post, everything is so different now to back then. I’m not sure what month it is sometime let alone what day! Since then I think most places in the world have been in some kind of lock down or another and each day sort of blurs into the next. I’ve also had my 31^st birthday (literally 2 days after the last post) and my Grandma died so I’m still sort of recovering from that as it’s all been so surreal.

I should probably mention that I actually wrote this goals list about two months ago, so they’re not all that up to date in some ways but I didn’t have any to add and still wanted to do a post on them. Even with lockdown changing here in England, things opening up and life getting closer to normal, I still think it’ll be a long way till it’s properly back to how it was and a lot of time will be spent at home so I’m trying to stick to the goals. To be honest the routine parts are probably things that I should try to stick to afterwards anyway!

Time for a Catch Up, an Update Post

It feels so long since I’ve done a blog post, I know last time I said I’d be back and posting more but I’ve ended up busier and with less energy than I thought for blogging so it sort of got left behind while I sort other things out. I’m back now though and being more realistic about how often I’ll post now.

I thought I’d do a bit of an update post, catch you up on how my life has been and a few goals that I decided to set myself. Though a few of them haven’t been going great looking at my blogging so far!

Change is Scary

Change is scary, it’s unknown and difficult, but a lot of the time it’s inevitable. Some things don’t change, like my love for cheesy 90s pop, Red Dwarf and Crash Bandicoot, but for most things it’s going to happen whether we like it or not. Even the best kind of change can be scary, especially when it’s something big. One of my goals for this year was to try new things, and I have definitely done that, more on that later. But, with my chronic illnesses it means that these changes can have more of an effect than I realised they would.

We all have our comfort zones, whether it’s staying at home reading, burying ourselves in our work or focussing on our friends or family over trying new things. This blog kind of became my comfort zone and I ended up almost relying on it for more than it was. I ended up getting anxious when I couldn’t post on the day I set myself, I’d end up posting a ‘sorry I can’t post’ type post and it wasn’t really fun at times. That’s one of the reasons the changes in my life, or maybe more my way of thinking, started.

2019 Goals

 

I feel like this post is a couple of weeks late now but I’ve kind of been putting it off as I know my blogging goals at the beginning of last year are so far off what I actually did that it’s not the most positive thing to look back on for last year. I’ve been trying to work on things and plan ahead and needed a break from blogging, partly planned at the beginning but then I got ill so less planned but definitely needed.

I tend to make goals posts for my blog and update and change them as I go throughout the year as I see goals as a flexible thing, something that you can change as the circumstances change, and check things off as you go along and add new ones. I tended to find that whenever I set new years resolutions they seem to fail pretty early but goals with definite updates throughout the year work better for me.

Another 2018 Goals Update

I did originally plan to do an update every three months but my last one was in March so you can see how well that went! I can’t believe how quickly 2018 has gone, so much seems to have happened but in so little time. Having got a notification saying I’ve just had my 4 year anniversary I thought I’d look back at the goals I set way back in January and see how I’m doing.

I tend to see goals as something to aim for, but still keep them flexible. I’ve found that if I’m too rigid with these things it’s easy to get discouraged and give up. Things change, life gets in the way, making realistic goals helps me to stick to them and I love that feeling when you achieve something. It’s like that feeling of crossing off things on a list. I think I just like lists in general.

Introducing Stormy the Puppy!

This was going to be part of an update post I had planned at the beginning of August but it never happened so Stormy gets his own post now. I have to admit that I forgot how tiring a puppy can be, our last one was 14 years ago, and it has kind of taken most of my energy making sure he goes out when he needs to and pretty much resting when he does so my blogging may have suffered a bit. Also I’m doing a customer service course now from home so that’s another factor, but this is about the puppy!

July didn’t start as a great month as our 14 year old dog, Ricky, died. He had a heart condition and never got on well with the heat so the heat wave did sort of finish him. He was a great dog and had a good life but it was his time.

We weren’t expecting to get a dog so soon afterwards but a friend knew someone at dog training who had puppies and Stormy was one of them. He’s a bit of a mix, his dad is a Labrador and mum looks like a lurcher but might be a rottweiler retriever cross.

It’s going to be interesting to see how he turns out. He’s already almost the size of our old dog and he’s not even four months old!

So far we know he loves water, that’ll be fun when we go places with lakes, and he seems to attract leaves and sticks in his fluffy fur. He’s also not sure what to do with new toys that squeak, he’s still a puppy then.

I won’t spam here with a load of posts about him, though he’ll probably creep into any update posts, especially as we’re probably taking him puppy training, or trying it out anyway. But there will probably be quite a lot on my Instagram if you want to see more of him as he grows up.

Let’s Catch Up: Health, a New Lizard and Looking for a Job

I feel like I should start by saying sorry for not posting as often recently. I will admit that the huge dip in views since actually paying for this blog was a bit discouraging, going from nearly 300 a day every day to under 100 a day did not feel good, but you guys are awesome and I’ve loved the fact that I’m actually getting more comments than ever, so many more, and I’m actually having conversations. That probably sounds odd but definitely more important to me than the whole numbers thing. I feel like I should apologise for being a bit awol on here but I do have reasons and within the next few weeks it’ll all be back to normal, I promise.

I now have a Facebook page!

You can find the Facebook page here.

I guess I’ve kind of had it for the past few days really but I wanted to do a post on here so if you want to follow me over there it’ll have all my blog, Instagram and Facebook updates in one place!

I am so far behind on starting this but I thought, with working on the look of the blog, it was the perfect time to actually start one. Hope to see some of you guys over there.

Find me on social media:

Instagram | Twitter | Bloglovin’

I’m now on Facebook too! (I love being able to add that!)

A Bit of a Catch Up

I thought, as I’ve been away for a few weeks, I’d start blogging again with a bit of a catch up. I haven’t really done that much of an update on my goals, my planned no buy September and what I’m doing with the blog coming up. I’ve actually found that the few weeks off, though the reason for the break wasn’t great, has actually helped me clear my head and get more focussed on what I’m going to do with my blog, or want to anyway.

I did get a bit stuck in a rut, despite posting about trying to get out of it before, and did find myself wondering whether I should keep blogging before all of this happened as you look around and see newer blogs doing better with views and likes and things and getting more companies working with them and it did sort of sit there in the back of my mind. However, having had the break, I’m really looking forward to blogging more and have ideas as well as all the things I had planned on posting the past few weeks.

Might Be Taking a Bit of a Break

It’s a bit odd posting this as I’m not sure if there will actually be any difference on my blog as, for once, I was actually organised and have a few posts scheduled. But yesterday my Grandpa died, it hasn’t really sunk in yet so no idea how I’m going to react when it does and I might go quiet online for a bit. It’s odd, I know I’ve been lucky in that no one close to me has died since I was five or six and I was too young to really remember that too much so the next few weeks will be taking it as it comes probably. 

Hopefully I’ll be back blogging next week and there won’t be any difference, I actually really miss posting when I miss a post or week or whatever and I may have ended up buying more recently, not the best way of coping but I do have a lot of things to post about!

Anyway, this was just a quick post, I’ll stop before I ramble on too much. I started this with a plan of having this really good post but it’s just another short update for why I might not be psoting. I seem to be doing this a lot recently.