Two Thousand And Seventeen

Happy New Year!

As always, my intention to blog got sidetracked this Christmas period...

I managed the few odd days but I didn't post everything I wanted to, leaving me with things overhanging into the New Year.

I've literally just been texting my friend about setting goals for the year.

We've both already set our Goodreads one (mine's set for 50 books this year) and I've also just set my running one - 180 miles. That's more than double what I did this year but I'm feeling optimistic.

All that's left really are the standard New Year resolutions.

Now, I haven't thoroughly thought these through but I may come back and add to them if I can think of any more!

Here they are:

✽ To be kinder. I'm not sure why exactly, but I don't feel like I've been a very nice person of late so this year I'd like to stop, take a moment, and think before I open my mouth.

✽To move out of this house. It's been mentioned numerous times on my behalf but I'm determined that that was the last New Years in this house.

✽To visit at least three countries whether that be alone or with someone. I want to break out of my comfort zone and start exploring. Maybe my love for photography will also come back if I don't have any teacher-set boundaries.

✽To spend a bit more time offline. Now that I'm working in an office, I realise I spend the majority of my time looking at a screen of some sort and quite frankly I'm worried I'm wasting my life watching TV or scrolling aimlessly through blogs. It's time to log off a bit more.

✽I hate myself for this one but I would like to eat less sugar. I have a real sweet tooth but I'm worried with the amount I consume. It may not be pretty for my moods for the first little while but I noticed a big difference in my energy levels when I started to eat more fruit and veg and maybe my skin will clear up with less sugar in my diet!

✽To get out more. To Adeel's annoyance I've suddenly always got ants in my pants in the fact that I always want to get out at a weekend and actually do something. I'm tired of sitting in all the time, watching TV. I want to go out for breakfast, I want to go to the top of the Shard (I work right next to it for God's sake!), I want to go on spontaneous road trips whether that be a half hour drive away or an eight hour drive away, I even want to go out in the evenings to a bar maybe or whatever people my age tend to do - I may not like it but at least I can say I've tried it again. This also includes more date-like activities. We did a little better this year but a lot of stuff kept getting in the way. I want time for us to be together.

✽To finish my darn book! I have got to stop writing this as a goal and actually do it. I'm quite close to be fair but I still think it needs a lot of work and I'm terrified of actually handing it over to a publishing company which is probably why I keep putting off finishing it...

✽To stop hoarding. I have so much stuff that I have absolutely no room in this one bedroom I rent. Unless I absolutely love a book or a piece of clothing or an object, I want to give it away. Others are in need of things and I feel awful for having all this stuff that probably goes to waste. I have already started to give my old clothes away but I want to continue.

✽Improve. I've decided this is going to be my word of the year. I constantly want to be improving in myself, my work, my art, my experiences, my relationships, my goals.

Wishing you all the best for the year to come.



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Social Pressure

So, this post is going to seem hella out of the blue but it's something I've been thinking about a lot lately and wanted to get off of my chest. Plus, I'm not even too sure on how to write it without coming across.. weird, yanno?

It was my nan's birthday yesterday and I've been trying to go home a lot more as, well, they're getting on a bit and I miss seeing them as much as we used to as kids. We used to spend 2 weeks with my mum, 2 weeks with my dad and 2 weeks with my grandparents (6 weeks seemed like forever back then!) and then secondary school hit, and I just saw them less and less until I barely saw them at all when I was at uni. Granted, it was tougher considering I was in London and not a ten minute drive from them, but still.

It's just been on my mind a lot that I haven't seen them enough and I'm trying to make up for it in a way. I just don't feel as close to my family as some people do. Like, we have good chats and stuff when we're together, we just never seem to make the effort to see each other a lot. I don't know, we're weird.

Anyways, I digress.

So I shot over to St. Pancras International after work on Friday to be greeted by a whole hoard of people - there had been a signal failure further up the line causing delays. I cried on the inside but once I'd hopped on the train, we were actually only five minutes later leaving than scheduled - hurray!

We had a nice chill evening in watching Jurassic World and chatting away, settling in for the night in preparation for the following day.

After my sister had finally finished faffing about, doing God knows what, we headed over to my grandparents yesterday afternoon. We arrived before everyone else (just us and the grandparents) and settled in for my granddads infamous buffet-style dinner (he used to be a chef back in the day so I always look forward to the food!)

And then the others showed up, including my cousin and her baby.

Which leads me to my confession.

I'm really really broody. Like, I don't think I can control it right now, especially when I see my cousin's daughter. She is sooooo adorable.

But, well, basically, this post was meant to be addressing the fact that most women still feel the pressure to have kids even if they don't want them. I used to not want kids, as in I loathed the idea of them and any I came into contact with and whenever I aired the fact that I didn't want them, people would just look at me and be all "you'll change your mind, trrrrust me."

And then there are the others that are all "you should be grateful you can have kids, you're so selfish if you don't want to take advantage of what you can have, blah blah blah."

No.

I just think it's ridiculous that women have to feel like this, like it's hard wired into our DNA and we're meant to want this. Men don't have to want to have them, so why do we? We're allowed to play the field, be career or goal orientated.

Okay, so I have changed my mind but that's not because I feel pressured to, it's because I want to.

I'm still torn though. I mean I really really want them at the moment, but I'm also loving my job and don't want to take time off right now (plus there's the whole living situation and whatnot - which will hopefully be changing in the near future. Fingers crossed!)

So, I guess what I'm trying to say is I guess it doesn't help that I've been home a lot more recently for family birthdays and seeing my second cousin's adorable little face and the way my cousin has changed, it just makes me want it way more. Plus, A is so family-orientated that just seeing him with his little nephews and nieces makes my heart melt.

I don't know if any of this made sense or whether it was a random mishmash of my thoughts, but, yeah, I wanted to write it out, clear my head as it were.

I should definitely write spontaneously more often.

Let me know your thoughts!



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