Showing posts with label january. Show all posts
Showing posts with label january. Show all posts

Small, happy and rounding up #joyfuljanuary!


Can't believe it's already time to write this but here we go, it's time to sum up #joyfuljanuary

This January 2015 was the month I...

Booked a holiday to Rome in Easter!

Enjoyed my juices in mini style.

Tried out a new exercise class and got really into playing squash!

Started my first full time teaching job and took my stationary obsession to another level.



January was also the month I...

Made some highly necessary impulse purchases from Tesco! 


Got this A beautiful mess diary, 2015 is beautiful!


Cooked some delicious new recipes including tomato thyme cod and imam bayildi!


Got cracking at work and received some really good feedback, finishing the month with my class winning best poem at our school poetry performance! 

And other lovely things I did that weren't pictures, I...

Had a lovely visit from my mum and sister.


Explored more of both my town and city- hello northern quarter! #alternative


Had some lovely phone calls with my grandma after work.


Watched my boyfriend trade food at Altrincham market and do his part to help food poverty in Manchester.


Started tutoring.


Read more than my goal of 100 pages of The Luminaries.


Went to the cinema twice in a week!


Organised for one of my best, best old uni friends to come and stay in half term. 


Booked to go and see The Lion King in Manchester next month! 

Wow, so to look at that I've actually done quite a lot! It's been, as my boyfriend very wisely said, a month of planning. January seems to be that time, the month where we make plans and resolutions for what we hope the rest of the year will bring.


While that's true I really wanted to make a concerted effort this year to make January a fun and special month itself and I feel it has been. So I'm calling #joyfuljanuary a success! How had your month been? I want to know! Any top moments?! 

Now we've all had a nice catch up and recap,blet's get going with #fabulousfebruary!


Nope, not tired of the alliteration yet, sorry!

Sophia x

Small and happy's #JOYFULJANUARY (come join!)

People love to hate on January, don't they? It seems like first month of our new year is like the black sheep of the twelve month family. Everyone's grim about going back to work, the next big excitement of summer seems light years away (it's really not) and everyone's being so hard on themselves trying to completely change overnight due to the pressure of new year's resolutions.

I know because I've been there. This time last year I was absolutely dreading January, as in did not want to go back to Leeds where I was deep deep in the trenches of my PGCE. Sure, I was enjoying my course and it was my ticket to qualifying for something over always wanted to do and I knew that. But the idea of going back to Leeds away from my family and boyfriend to go back to 6.30am pick up times and marking books til 7pm and lesson observations and living with noisy international students who were seeing their stint in England as one big party?! No waaaaay, January, I'm not joining the party.

However, before I knew it, not only was January done and dusted (and not as bad as I expected, much like everything in life) but it was February half term and my time at the school I couldn't wait to leave was in fact done. And yep, you guessed it, I was sad to leave.

This made me think that how we see situations are the key factor in how we the situations themselves pan out. If I didn't have it in my head that January was going to be stressful and long and depressing I probably would have enjoyed it much more quickly and it would had made me enjoy my December even more too because I didn't have the looking January dread!

I'm not saying it's easy to be completely positive and love every day with the same kind of Christmas build up, chocolate fuelled, present buying excitement but I am going to take steps this year to make this month a #joyfuljanuary.

I always plan fun things for Decmeber, when in fact this month needs no help being exciting! Our friend January needs a little sparkle injected into it and that's where my #joyfuljanuary idea (which popped into my head on our drive back to Altrincham) comes in.

I am going to set out some fun things I am going to do or get organised in January to help the month look like work interspersed with fun rather than just work and no fun (the basic opposite of December!)

I feel all months should be treated like equal months like this. I am going to aim this year to find and create joy in vevey month, and the little things in every day so that I don't end up spending half the year counting down to Christmas and the other half counting down to summer (totally guilty of this!) 

So in January I pledge to:

* Have a Skype date with one of my best uni friends who is back living in Belfast and have a lovely catch up.

* Do Zumba and step, my two favourite fitness classes as often as possible and see if there's any more fitness classes I want to try out!
 
* I will go to the cinema (this is already organised, The Theory of Everything on 21st January, see you there Eddie a Redmayne you beauty!)

* Sort out my Mum coming to visit sometime this month. I'm going to try and convince her to see Into the Woods with me. I can't wait to see this and Johnny Depp and Meryl Streep should help me make this an easy sell to her! 

* I will make sure I reach at least page 100 of The Luminaries by the end of the month. I just started it after getting it for Christmas and while it's a mammoth read I'll feel really happy getting into it and getting started! 

* Go visit the Northern Quarter in Manchester. I keep saying I want to explore more of Manchester and the Northern Quarter is still a complete mystery to me so I think my boyfriend and I are going to try and go next weekend. Any recommendations? Pleeeeease nowhere too alternative, I'm a huge Disney fan and my boyfriend will never have a large beard so I already feel we shall stick out like sore (non tattooed, non pierced) thumbs.

So, looking at all that I think that's quite a lot to be excited about for January! I really think this a nice idea just to try and make a little effort to have fun things lined up to help make waving goodbye to Christmas less dramatic and make saying hello to January a bit more joyful!

What about you? Do you have anything nice lined up for January? How do you battle the blues this time of year? What's your favourite time of year in general?

Speak soon!
Sophia x


Small, happy and saying goodbye to January (already!)


I feel like this wonderful quote by Nelson Mandela pretty much sums up how I felt about January 2014.  I had a full month of placement in school to look ahead to, lots of planning, late night, nervy observations and some cold, dark nights.  I would also be away from my boyfriend, friends and family pretty much doing it on my own.

However, January I can honestly say has FLOWN by and, like most things in life, has not been nearly as bad as I thought it would be!

Happy January things!

*I have managed to go home every weekend, getting back to your support system (aka my Mummy!) helps so much.

*I have been reading more, Harry Potter et l'orde du phenix and The Princess Bride.


*I have been devouring season 4 of Grey's Anatomy, new episodes of Nashville, The Mindy Project and loving Channel 4's The Taste whenever I have had some tv time.

 



*Hostels are all sorted for RIO (pass the caipirinha!!) in July for the World Cup!  Now to start thinking about our stop after, any beach recommendations in the Rio area would be appreciated!

*I have planned a weekend in Liverpool in February (my beautiful and definitely missed uni city) with my boyfriend and I will hopefully see some uni besties too.



*I have (through the powers of persuasive email writing) managed to get my next placement in Sheffield so I will be closer to home and away from noisy halls of residence people as of March!
*I have gotten back into doing zumba and LBT every weekend which has made me feel great!

So, as I always said, this month would seem impossible until I'd gotten through it (ery positive I know) but now looking back it has flashed by and I've really enjoyed it.  No other month will be as full on in school and in two weeks I'll be leaving and back into the uni swing of essays and lectures and pointless seminars and part of me thinks, BRING IT ON.  Any situation that means I can start my day at 9 and finish it at 4 is suddenly extremely appealing.

But, I cannot get ahead of myself, I still have two weeks left, just two weeks left of planning and sorting and everything before I have a nice 'break' so I just need to keep going, decide to smash it and do my absolute best and enjoy every minute, because if this is how fast 2014 is going to go, it'll be summer before we know it! 

Anyone else felt their January has gone quickly?  Or has it dragged for you?  Perhaps for people braving dry January it might have been a slow one!

Sophia x
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