It’s no secret that I’m not super fit. In fact, I’m not really fit at all. When I got walking with Jonny he’s the one springing ahead up a hill like a mountain goat whilst I scramble behind, on my hands and knees, gasping for breath.

However, because I’m a size 10 people assume that I exercise or at least do something to look after myself. Apart from eating a relatively healthy diet  (lets not mention the amount of wine and gin that gets consumed in our house) I don’t do anything to keep myself healthy.

With turning 30 on the horizon I decided to do something about this. I’d had enough of being the teacher who can’t keep up with the kids during PE lessons. So I bought a Fitbit with the hope that it would give me the kick up the arse that I needed to get moving.

It arrived on Saturday and so far I’ve proudly managed to notch up 10,000+ steps a day. This doesn’t sound like a lot, and I (arrogantly) assumed I’d cover most of this being on my feet at work all day. WRONG! To hit my daily target I’ve been having to go for a decent length walk after work each day too.

This hasn’t been a bad thing. The village we live in has a beautiful walk alongside the River Lune and I’ve been enjoying heading along there with my earphones in. Taking an hour for myself each day has been lovely, and has definitely been helping create a calmer head space after less than calm days at school.

The nice weather is obviously helping the walking, but I really want to keep this up. I’ll let you know how I get on, and if there’s an improvement in how I feel after a longer spell using the Fitbit. Fingers crossed it’s a healthy habit I can keep up!

I genuinely used to be a full-on pessimist. Easy to wind-up, quick to temper and generally a bit of a grump.

Over the past 9 months I’ve really been working to change that. I’m certainly on my way, but I’m by no means an eternal optimist yet.

I noticed just how much more positive I’d started to become recently when talking to someone. Everything they said was taken from a negative angle; no matter how hard I tried to turn it into a more positive slant I was shot down with yet more negativity. Being negative seemed to have become a bit of a purpose for them, and it was wearing them down.

The fact that I was searching for positives in this highlighted the change to me. Last year I might have been tempted to jump on the grumpy band wagon, seeking to point out what was going wrong in my life too.

It felt so much better to be able to step back and think in a more optimistic light. I’m definitely getting better at letting things go, and stopping the little things getting to me quite so much.

I’m aware it’s still something I need to work on, but this little encounter recently highlighted how far I’ve already come.

It’s lovely to think that the more I practise, the more positive I’ll become. I’m not saying I don’t have days when things truly piss me off, or that I never  have a rant and a moan about the general injustices of day-to-day life, but I’m getting better.

What do you do to stay positive? For me, thinking a little more before I speak has really helped. If it isn’t positive I’m trying not to vent it.

Source

As I write this I’m currently in the process of recovering from my first time being ‘glutened.’

My stomach is solid and bloated and I’ve spent more time than I’d like in the bathroom over the past 12 hours! (Sorry for the overshare – my chat with Jonny was far more gross.)

We went out for dinner last night with friends and I was super careful when ordering, I perused the allergen menu and made my choices carefully. Something must have slipped under the radar though as I feel utterly rubbish this morning.  I can’t even blame alcohol for this as I was the designated driver!

Lesson learnt though, in future I will be double checking everything I order, even if this does make me that pain in the arse at a restaurant. It isn’t worth making myself feel ill over. So for today I shall be mainly battling that ‘I’m off work and really need to be in there’ guilt and drinking peppermint tea.

Any tips for feeling better from an upset stomach/being glutened are more than welcome and will be very gratefully received!

Do you ever feel that since you’ve become a grown up life can have the tendency to take over? Work in particular has been manic over the past month, leaving little time for much, let alone blogging.

I am, however, going to make a concerted effort to get back into the swing of things here.

In the meantime, here are a few shots of what I’ve been up to over the past month (aside from report writing, parents evenings, and all the other fun things teaching brings with it!)

We’re almost there in terms of collecting random and vintage glassware for wedding table decorations. The varying shades of green make me very happy.

I’ve also been experimenting with gluten free baking (my Instagram shows my attempt at a gluten free quiche too.) This loaf was the first try at producing something better than the stodgy, sweet offerings from the supermarket. I must say that I was pleasantly surprised at how well this turned out!

Here in the North West we don’t get a great deal of sunshine, meaning that when we do everyone strips off and heads outdoors. I was no exception earlier this month when the weather turned warmer. I grabbed my latest read (which I’m not enjoying as much as I did One Day) and whipped out my ghost legs to get some Vitamin D!

There has also been time to squeeze in a little bit of a social life. The mothership came to visit for a lovely weekend, full of florist visiting and general wedding planning chit-chat.

I also got a history geek visit to Sizergh Castle in with my lovely friend, Roz. Any day out with Roz is fun, but the history ones are particularly good. We met studying History at university so share a love of all things old and factual.

I’m now going to try and plough through a few more reports and generally get a better hold on managing my time! How do you manage a work-life balance effectively?