I’m a little late to the 2018 blog post party but better late than never, right?

The first week of 2018 was spent with a delightful stomach bug whilst my, very lucky, husband got to travel to Uganda with work. He then had to travel to India during the second week so I’ve been left to entertain myself/having the mothership round to entertain me.

2017 ended in a bit of a whirlwind. I handed my notice in at work and, as of 31st December, I’m no longer a primary school teacher. The ins and outs of that are possibly for another post, but let’s just say that being diagnosed with anxiety and depression by the doctor at the end of October probably covers most of those bases.

So, here we are in 2018. For me that means starting to look after myself better whilst also trying to find the illustrious dream job!

Things I’ve been doing to up my ‘self-care’ (is it just me that feels a bit wanky saying that?) are:

• starting to learn yoga.
• attempting to get fitter – Jonny took me running on Sunday morning – I am seriously unfit.
• reading more. My tbr pile is getting a bit out of control and I really enjoy the escapism of reading so the next challenge is to plough through that!
• cracking back on with the mindfulness; I’ve tried this before and found it helped but have fallen off the wagon so I’ve been enjoying creating a slightly calmer head space recently.
• stopping feeling guilty when I say no to something.

Happy, belated, new year everyone. I hope it’s a good one.

After posting at the weekend and mentioning on Instagram that I’d been struggling with things recently I was overwhelmed by how lovely people have been.

Like really bloody lovely.

Lovely ladies I’ve met through this little old blog, through mail swaps and Instagram wishing me well and checking in has been so genuinely heart warming.

A very kind friend sent me a surprise book in the post to cheer me up and take my mind off it all. I’ve only dipped into it so far but Moths That Drink Elephants Tears and Other Zoological Curiosities by Matt Walker is the perfect thing for dipping into when a mental distraction is needed. The added bonus being that the random animal facts within it are brilliant.

Did you know ‘Adelie penguin chicks take part in group-hugs of up to 18 individuals in a bid to stop them from freezing to death. Smaller chicks appreciate a cuddle the most as the lose heat much faster than their larger brethren.’ I can’t deal with things this cute.

So, thank you very much you bunch of stars. I really appreciated the kind sentiments. You’re all fab.

It’s been 4 months since I posted on here and for a while I honestly debated whether or not to keep going with this little space on the internet.

I’ve been feeling a little bit, well, lost recently. Work isn’t the dream and I’ve been seriously struggling with a lot of anxiety around it all. That’s for another post (if I feel like I can articulate what’s been going on in the whirlwind in my brain.)

So, to anyone I’ve cancelled on in the last 4 months, to those people I’ve not been as good a friend as I could to, I apologise. Looking on social media is deceptive. Everyone looks like they’re having a rosy old ride through life and that’s not always the case.

Anyway, I’ve decided that in order to regain some positivity I’m going to start blogging again. I’ve missed having somewhere to share random snapshots of what’s being going on in my world. I like having this to look back through and see what past me was up to. I like having somewhere to have a brain dump. I like the community of lovely people that there is within the land of tiny personal blogs.

The plan is to share the little weekend trips we make, the process of gradually decorating our little home, the slowly growing handmade wardrobe I’m loving creating and any other bits and pieces that are making me a bit more shiny and happy.

If you’re still reading after this, not so coherent, ramble, thank you. I hope that you’ll stick with me as I get this little blog up and running again.