I haven’t written a blog for a few weeks, as I decided that I was only going to write it once a month. Before I realised, we are suddenly in February, already six weeks into the New Year.

January always seems a long month. Maybe its because we look forward to Christmas and New Year so much that January seems to stretch on forever. Maybe it’s because people start new regimes like dry January, or following other New Year’s resolutions. Perhaps it because the days seem dark and cold and spring seems such a long way away. Whatever the reason, January is now gone and the daylight seems a little bit longer, which always make things feel a little bit better.

February brings Shrove Tuesday and the beginning of Lent. Quite often I have given something up for Lent, usually biscuits or chocolate, or something else that is really hard for me to stop eating. This year however, I read quite a lot about giving up sugar, so on the second week of January I decided that I was going to do 5 weeks of giving up processed/refined sugar. It’s really hard to find any kind of ready meals that don’t contain some kind of processed sugar, or artificial sweetener.

The first few days were quite hard, but now it is getting a little easier. It has stopped me snacking quite so much, as a lot of the things that I normally snack on are sweets, biscuits and cake, so I find that as I can’t have those I don’t bother having anything else.

I can’t say that I will give it up forever, as I think it is a big ask, but I definitely feel a bit better and hopefully have got out of the habit of fancying something sweet on an evening, or finding any excuse/reason to have cake or biscuits.

I’ve also been worker back nearer home for the last couple of weeks, which has allowed me to walk to or from work. This is a 4 mile walk, which is quite hilly, so it is a good start to the day.

We have also started to do some walking on a weekend. We set up a what’s app group between a few friends and family, so that if anyone is planning a walk, they can invite others along. This has been more effective than trying to plan a walk around a weekend when everyone is free, as this is sometimes impossible.

We I think  that that’s just about it for me. Let’s see what the next few weeks bring.

Last week we had a really nice break in Center Parcs on the edge of the Lake district. It was great to get away for a few days. Now that the clocks have gone back, it seems that it is dark when you go to work and when you come home from work, so it was lovely to be able to get out in the fresh air in the daylight. It was nice just to walk and enjoy the scenery and not to have anywhere to go in a rush.

On an evening we played cards and dominoes. I know this sounds very boring and old fashioned, but it was a really good opportunity to chat and have a really good laugh, without everyone being distracted by mobile phones and other gadgets.

On the Thursday my youngest daughter came to visit for the day with one of my nephews. We had a really lovely day. we went in the pool and also went bowling. It was nice to spend time with them, but my daughter would not be persuaded to go down some of the slides, but I did manage to be brave enough to try a couple of them.

Motivation Required

So this week it was back to work. I have to admit that I am feeling a bit restless and out of sorts at the minute. I really need to get back to healthy eating and back to some running or walking, or some other activity that gets me out of the house and into the fresh air.

I’ve managed to make some more crafts. actually I have made quite a lot of things and have set up a page on Facebook.  I have also been invited to have a stall at the reopening of Cliffe Castle at Keighley on 10th December, to hopefully sell some of my products, which I am really looking forward to.

However I do now feel as if I need another new challenge to work towards. I am not really sure what I want to do though. Walking is always much better for me than running, as I wimped out of the last run that I signed up for. One of my friends is wanting me to sign up for a charity walk with her, which is probably a good idea, as this really motivated me last year.

If anyone can recommend anything else that is good for motivation, I’m open to ideas!

Well a couple of weeks ago I posted about my new goals and that I wanted to start to move on, instead of treading water. Well things went a little bit out of kilter and I only managed to partially achieve two of my goals. I also missed writing my blog too.

I did manage to go back to slimming world and start eating healthier again (although this has gone a bit down hill again!)

I managed to go running three times in a week (again a good achievement, but not kept it up again this week)

I did start some craft projects, but as yet haven’t managed to complete anything.

So what happened?

On Sunday I started doing some craft projects, but whilst using my laptop, I got a warning that I had a virus. I spent ages trying to sort it out, but to no avail. Luckily one of my lovely colleagues at work sorted it for me.

On Monday my husband went into hospital for an operation on his shoulder. Not a problem in itself, as it was planned, but unfortunately in the evening when I was due to collect him from hospital, I developed some kind of sickness bug and couldn’t even get out of the house. Luckily my daughter managed to contact my sister in law, who collected him for me. I wasn’t a very good nurse that night, as wasn’t even well enough to look after myself.

I felt quite rough for the next few days, so didn’t really achieve some of the things that I wanted to do.

Ah well, these things are sent to try us!

A couple of weeks ago I posted about my new goals, Unfortunately last week went a little bit out of kilter and didn’t quite work out as I expected. This meant that I didn’t write my blog last week.

However I did manage to keep to two out of three of my goals:

I did re-join slimming world and started back on a healthy eating regime again.

I also managed to go running three times that week

I did manage to start some craft projects, but have not finished one completely yet, so hence no photograph. Hopefully I will finish it this week and put some photographs on next week.

So what happened?

Well at the weekend I started doing some craft things, but was printing out something from my laptop when I got a warning about a virus. I couldn’t use the computer and spent ages trying to clear it. Luckily one of my lovely colleagues at work managed to clear it for me.

On Monday my husband went into hospital for an operation on his shoulder. This went really well, but at the point when I was supposed to be collecting him from hospital I developed some sickness bug and couldn’t actually go. My daughter managed to contact my sister in law, who thankfully went to collect him. I wasn’t a particularly good carer for him that night as I felt so ill.

I felt pretty rough for the next couple of days, so didn’t manage to do half the things that I wanted to do. The healthy eating didn’t really happen either, as I wasn’t well enough to cook or even eat properly.

Ah well these things are sent to try us!

via Daily Prompt: Believe

I believe that there are some things in life that you cannot change, that “everything happens for a reason”, although sometimes I feel as though it is something that I say, rather than I actually believe. In my heart I really do believe it, but it’s just sometimes hard to put it into practice.

When things don’t happen the way that you expected them to, or bad things happen to your friends and family, it is hard to see this and believe there is a reason for it, but usually later on, sometimes months or years later, everything kind of clicks into place and it makes sense at to why things happened like they did.

I believe that you shouldn’t expect things from others that you are not prepared to do yourself and also that you should treat other people in a way that you would expect others to treat you.

I believe in loyalty. When my children were younger and they had agreed to do something or go somewhere, but then something else came along, I would always make sure that they did what they had initially promised. I don’t think that you should cancel something just because you get a better offer. I also expect loyalty from others.

I believe in keeping my promises, so I tend to only make promises that I can keep.

I believe that determination has helped me to succeed in many things in my life. When I was younger and lived at home with my parents and brothers, I was sometimes led to believe that girls cannot do certain things. I’ve never been a feminist in the campaigning, bra burning way, but some of the things that I have done in life have been done because I was stubborn and determined to do those things that girls don’t do.

I believe in doing the right thing. This has always been a difficult one, as I have sometimes done the right things for other people and not always the right thing for me. It is also difficult to please everyone, so I think that as I get older I am more inclined to do the right thing for me

I believe in love. The kind of love between two people that keeps you together when everything else is falling apart. The kind of love that parents have for their children, that makes them sacrifice everything. The kind of love that people show for others when they become unsung heroes.

I believe in tolerance. I think that people should be able to live alongside others with different views and beliefs without hating each other.

As this week has been a fairly ordinary run of the mill week, I decided that I didn’t want to bore everyone with that, so I thought I’d bore you with something else instead. Recently, due to the family celebrations we have had in our family, we have looked through lots of photographs. This got me thinking about how important photographs are, so I thought I’d share some of my favourite ones with you.

We have so many photographs, that it was difficult to pick just a few, so I tried to go for the less obvious ones and some that were not so recent. I’ve only picked six, as I really could have gone on forever.

So as they say on TV, in no particular order, here are those that made it through to the final six:

This photograph is of me and my three brothers. It must have been taken some time in 1970, as my youngest brother was born in December 1969 and he’s the baby on the photograph. For those of you that were around then, This was the typical family photo of the day, taken by professional photographers. Everything is so relaxed these days, but we look very formal. We are all still smiling so that’s a good thing. When I look at this photo, it makes me smile that I had the exact same haircut as the boys!

This photo was taken at my brother’s wedding in October 2017. We had an absolutely fabulous time at the wedding and I could have picked lots of photographs from that day as there were so many good ones. The reason I picked this one of me, my sister in law and my friend was because it captured a moment of laughter, brought about by someone saying “I think you’ll need a wind angle lens”, when we asked to have our photo taken. The looks on our faces say it all!

This looks like a really bizarre photograph, which of course it is, but there is a story behind it. One weekend, me and two of my very good friends were working together and had one of those moments of silliness. We decided to make a Christmas card for the rest of our colleagues. The lady with the big stick on teeth, is my very closed friend who died over 18 months ago. Myself and my other friend are wearing masks of her face and Christmassy headdresses. It seemed very amusing at the time and this photograph sums up what it was like working together as a team. It may not be funny to anyone else, but I guess you had to be there.

Strictly speaking this is a selfie rather than a photograph, but it brings back great memories, as it was taken in July 2014, the night we all went on holiday together. It’s the last time that all eight of us went together. We had a really great time and it was good to get that time together as a family.

This was the first time that I had seen my eldest daughter take a main part in a show. She had been in many things before this, but when she played Christine in Phantom of the opera, I realised for the first time that she was going to be able to pursue her dream of being a performer. I had never been so nervous in my life when she first cam on the stage. I don’t know who took the photograph, as it appeared on Facebook after the show, but I am very grateful to whoever did, even though they probably shouldn’t have.

I’m not sure that the young people in this photograph will appreciate me putting this on as they are now very grown up and sophisticated. This was taken on a family holiday, when we used to go as a big group. They were great holidays for all of us and a very special time. On this particular holiday we all had T-shirts and were “Clampitts on tour” on the back. I’m sure that whoever shared the campsite with us were mortified when we all turned up. We had some great laughs and my children have wonderful memories of these holidays.

Hope you like the photos. I’m sure that you all have favourite photos that mean so much to you and I’d be happy to see those that bring back memories for you.