The Year Ahead

I'm not really a person who makes reams of New Years Resolutions but I do like to give myself some loose goals to aim for.  They tend to be financial goals such as cutting down spending in certain areas or paying off debts on credit cards, etc.  I don't always meet them and the fact that they are loose means I don't beat myself up about it.  This year I'm aiming to:

• Pay off my credit cards (again!)
• Spend less where possible.
• Have at least 50 no spend days (inspired by several of the blogs I've been reading) - I managed 35 last year without really trying too hard so thought I'd be a bit more ambitious (but only a bit!)  If I manage more that's great, but 50 is about one per week which I think I can manage happily.
• Declutter our house.  After having had building work carried out for six months of last year our house is a mess with stuff everywhere.  Now the building work has just about finished it is time to get my house in order, literally.
• Create a work room in our spare room where I can store all my projects, get organised and run my small business from.
• Utilise my allotment to it's full potential.

This last item hasn't been achieved in the last couple of years as other things have got in the way of me working as much on it as I could have.  Sometimes life and the weather have a way of conspiring to get in the way of our good intentions and I need to get back to gardening and growing things as I do really enjoy it and I miss the home grown salads that I used to grow and that used to save me a fortune on bought salads.  I had to wait 4 years to get this plot, so I do really appreciate how lucky I am to have it living in London.   At a very nominal cost and a bike ride away, it is a lovely place to spend some time and get some exercise out in the fresh air. 

Talking about gardening I mentioned in my last post how I no longer grew Johnny Jump Up on my new allotment.  Well, by chance when sorting through some seeds last night I came across an old packet of seeds I must have harvested a few years ago from my old allotment and I am going to sew them and see if they will grow so that I can have them on my current allotment.  I have missed that little flower.  You may know it by one of its other names - , viola tricolour, heartsease, love in idleness, wild pansy, johnny jump up.  It has lots of names for such a small flower.

Anyway, I digress.  Back on the subject of the year ahead I also hope to carry on exercising regularly which I do at present.  Not with the aim of losing weight specifically.  Don't get me wrong I would happily drop a stone or two but am quite happy with my current size as all my clothes fit me. I like to exercise so I  at least stay the same and don't gain weight and also for the physical and mental benefits I get from it.  My exercise of choice has always been aerobics and more recently Zumba classes as they are both social, energetic and good fun.  I would recommend anyone to try it if you want to get fit.  I know it takes a lot to muster up the courage to go to that first class but stick with it and it is worth it. I've had two weeks away from it this Christmas and I'm itching to get back to it tomorrow which reminds me I need to go and book into my class.