Oh wow. This year is getting away from me! I can’t believe I’m here at the halfway point already. So what have I been up to? I’m going to look at how I am getting on with the goals I sent myself back in January.

I’ve been playing around with some new crafts over the last few months – embroidery, shuttle tatting and zentangle. I went to an embroidery workshop at the Herbert Art Gallery so I’m checking that one off of my list.

I’m still having drum lessons and I’m really enjoying that. I’m working on learning to play Chekkov’s Hangnail by Martha. I also got my very own snare drum for my birthday so I’m one part closer to getting a kit to practice on!

So far I’ve read 67 books and watched 8 films. I was going to recap what my favorites are but I think I’ll leave that till the end of the year. Reading wise, I’ve already hit my goal of reading at least 10 books from the library so my next focus is on reading some of the books I’ve had unread on my physical or virtual bookshelves before this year started.

In all honesty, not much decluttering has happened over the last 3 months and we’ve brought some things for the new place but I’m ok with that. I think once it gets less hot, I’ll be ready to dig back into the decluttering again. My Mum visited at the end of May and planted some flowers and herbs for us and also gave us 3 tomato plants

We still need to buy garden furniture and some astroturf for the bare patch where the previous owner had putting practice putting hole but it’s looking pretty nice out there. I’ve been really enjoying having people to visit and being able to cook and entertain without feeling stressed out like I did in the old place.

Work-wise I haven’t yet signed up for the mentoring scheme but I have been reaching out to a lot of different people on a more casual basis to ask for their advice on different aspects of my career and progression. It’s out of my comfort zone in a lot of way but I’ve also been really touched by how willing people seem to be to help. I am aiming to finish my Microsoft certification by the end of the month so I can then decide what to focus on next.

I’m being fairly social over the next few weeks – off to London to see Fun Home at the Young Vic which I am very much looking forward to. It was over a year ago I booked the tickets so it feels like it has been a long time coming. I’m off on holiday to Copenhagen in September but I’ve also booked some other time off of work and can hopefully fit some UK adventures in too.

As for my word of the year – Resilience – that’s a work in progress. I just went through a fairly hard few months emotionally and I felt like my moods were all over the place. I don’t think I always managed to be the most resilient person in facing some of those issues either which is frustrating. That said, I’m starting to realise that I always need to start from the ground up and make sure my very basics are being met such as getting enough sleep, taking my meds and drinking water. Since moving house, I feel like I am in much better routines with all of these type of things so hopefully I’m building myself a stronger foundation and now I just need to look at what needs work next.

and on that note…

I can’t believe March is over – which means it’s time for me to reflect on how my goals for 2018 are going.

The big news is – WE BROUGHT A HOUSE! It finally happened. We moved at the end of February (yes, in that week with all of the snow) I love our new place – it has a few teething issues but overall I couldn’t be happier. It’s a little closer to town than where we lived before and in a much quieter area. We’ve been living here for just over a month now and it just feels right.

I did a lot of de-cluttering both in the run up to the move and while packing but I still have a lot more to go. In total, I’ve got rid of over 1,500 things since the start of this year which is a huge improvement on last year. The more I get rid of, the easier I find it to let go and the easier it is to see what I actually want to keep and why.

My Mum came to visit last weekend and we did a workshop on embroidery at the Herbert Art Gallery. You can see a little glimpse of what I did in my March 1 second everyday video. I’ve been working on setting out my new office and it’s really helping me to feel more inclined to create.

I’ve watched 4 films so far and read 32 books. I haven’t been so good at not buying more books tbh but that’s something for me to work on.

I’ve signed up for a new Microsoft course at work so that will be my focus over the next few months as it’s mainly self study (and we are about to enter another busy exam season)

I want to try and add more pictures to my blog posts so future ones wont just be big walls of text like this. Sorry!