Happy new year! 🎉 It’s my first post of the year and although it’s cliche, the beginning of the year is a good time to make some new goals. I won’t be making any “smart” new goals as I am focussing on my 27 by 27 list, but as I mentioned in my last post, I have some personal things I want to aim for, that I will reiterate:

• Do something for me, every day. Self-love and self-care is important and even the smallest things can put make you smile on the inside, even if you can’t see it on the outside.
• Stop rushing. This goes hand-in-hand with getting adequate sleep and giving myself time. I want to completely avoid ever rushing something that should be simple: getting ready. Getting ready for anything. For work, for a gym class, for the next day. It should never be rushed.
• Spend time really listening to people. Not being distracted or thinking about the next thing I’m gonna fucking say or daydream or get distracted or start planning the rest of my day in my head, but really, really, listen. This goes for all friends, family, at work, meetups, and so on. Listen and be present.

The reason I’ve chosen these sort of non-measurable goals is primarily because of my mental health and my declining interest in hobbies I previously used to care about. My mental health suffered last year and I was often distracted, and extremely anxious about minor things. Doing something for myself will get me into the habit of self-care. Avoiding rushing will keep my mind at peace and calm me so that I am prepared for what the world will throw at me. And listening to people is something that will help with my attentiveness to the world around me as well as in the present moment, with myself. 💕

Physical and mental health

Not gonna lie, participating in the WBFF Fitness and Fashion Show is a legitimate goal of mine, though not necessarily for this year. Since I have become more passionate about fitness and am simply amazed at what my body has the ability to do, I want to keep up being toned and fit. I’ve been going to the gym about twice a day on weekdays, upping the amount of high intensity cardio I do so that I can shred as much body fat as possible, within a healthy range of course.

I’ve not forgotten that diet is important. Although I haven’t been massively strict on diet, what I’ve learned is that it’s important to simply eat in moderation. I don’t flat-out ban foods from my diet but I know when to stop and how to have some control. It’s actually a really huge change from years gone by, where I would quite easily snack on biscuits or candy. I think I have been making a better effort to eat more good food so that I’ve filled myself up with good nutrients before heading for snacks.

Although meditation is something I want to make a habit, I fell out of the habit of meditation last September, because I started getting really busy close to the wedding. I kept doing hatha yoga every week (which is my release) but recently I’ve found it just a little bit of a chore. I very much prefer to challenge myself with strength training, and I’ve also found a new found enjoyment for high intensity cardio, so I’m thinking I will be doing yoga a little less, in favour of doing my own meditative sessions at home.

I’ve also come down with a cough in the past week so I am still recovering from that. It’s left me pretty lethargic, and some days in the past week I’ve woken up and felt awful, or had a really bad headache, and ended up sleeping for half the day. 😞 I think it’s getting to the end of it though, hopefully, because it sucks waking up with your throat feeling like parchment.

Technology

I don’t know if I’ve been trying hard enough but I’ve been working a lot with React despite being extremely reluctant about it (and JavaScript) in the past. I’ll be honest, keeping up with technology is often a struggle for me but I’m slowly putting myself in the deep end to learn more at a faster rate. I never studied computer science at school apart from a class on Java, and… I vaguely remember doing something in Visual Basic over ten years ago… so I signed up for CS50x, Harvard University’s introduction to computer science, in the hopes that I might learn – from the very basics – about computer programming. I haven’t started the course yet.

Blog-related

Right at the end of last year I wrote something rather important for my blog – some terms and conditions! There’s also a disclaimer, privacy policy, and comment policy on the same page. It’s basically a boring document that I tried to make a bit more fun to read by tossing in a few TL;DRs. I had been meaning to write it for quite some time. It’s not completely necessary to have one, but I did want to include one on my blog to make certain things clear (that I’m not a professional in health, for example, even though I blog about that topic occasionally), and because having some kind of agreement between myself and any visitors of my blog is important, given the nature of my blog and the interaction it welcomes.

As many of you might know, since it’s on my 27 by 27 list, I plan to redesign my blog. There is nothing particularly wrong with how it is right now, but I would like it to be a bit more visual. I took things maybe a little too seriously when I tried to really shave down the loading time of my website a couple of years back. I removed post thumbnails and Gravatars in the comments, bringing attention to the written content. I’m not sure how well that turned out because I’m not one to really look at statistics. 😕

Anyway, while I do want something visual as it can be nice on a blog, I don’t really want images to flood up the homepage. I’m getting a new logo created for my blog as well, because I’m sick of this boring triangle. I’m not sure yet if I’m sick of the aqua colour, but I can tell you I’m feeling pretty damn attached to it that I’m not even sure if changing it to something else is a good idea. 😂

This year I’ll be writing up some overdue travel posts from last year and publishing them, as well as a couple of other events and things I meant to write about but didn’t get the chance to. There are a lot of things I want to mention about our wedding as well but I had refrained from blogging about them for privacy reasons – I didn’t want any unexpected guests to turn up after stalking attempts, so, there’s a reason I didn’t publicise where the heck we were getting married… 😅 And I dearly hope I will be a bit more on top of all my posts from now on.

Fashion Friday will be returning this year. Last time I did a Fashion Friday shoot, I had long hair, wasn’t married yet, and hadn’t nuked a lot of the crap in my wardrobe. My physique has changed a lot over the past year that I actually can’t wear things like skater skirts because my booty and quads make it look like too much, I can’t wear short tube skirts or dresses without them riding up, and I couldn’t fit into my grey Topshop jeans that I only bought back in June. Whoops. So there’s been wardrobe updates left, right and centre, which brings me to…

The Wardrobe Redux

I have been meaning to write about my wardrobe updates for a very long time now, part of my whole initiative to live simply – again, something I haven’t written very much about. I’m not sure if I will be writing a lot in terms of living simply. I’m also not sure how I am going to go about writing about my wardrobe cleanse(s). I’ve tossed out a lot of clothes and I didn’t document any of it. It was never my intention, though I had meant to at least blog about it.

I spent a lot of time last year donating clothes that no longer felt like “me”, and that didn’t scream “strong independent woman” like I wanted them to. It really has been hard given how much my body shape has changed, so much so that I’m literally living in basics (t-shirt and jeans).

This is something that is a revelation, though, because I have owned so few basics in my lifetime and now I have spent time experimenting and investing in quality clothing that can be well mixed and matched. I’ve always had glamorous, patterned or textured clothes that never matched well with anything, and now I have a lot of solid basics that I am actually amazed at how many outfits I can create with just a handful of items of clothing. That is something that I will be exploring this year on my blog and hope to share with you. I love fashion, but it’s something that is very individual and I think I am finally in the midst of something that works for me.

Well then, let’s go!

Thank you for taking the time to read this, if you did get through to the end. I know many of you have been loyal readers of my blog for some time and I am so thankful for that. 🙏🏼 No one should go through 2018 alone, so let’s have as great an adventure as we possibly can. ✨