Firstly, Happy New Year everyone. How on earth is it 2017?
I don’t do New Year’s resolutions. I never have. Mainly because I have zero willpower and so have never been able to stick to the whole no eating chocolate or exercising more. Besides, they seem a little frivolous now and in truth I need to focus on more than just what I’m eating. That’s not to say I won’t be telling myself to stop eating chocolate, I will.
Instead I am hoping to make some new plans for the year ahead. Longer term goals and objectives that should hopefully have a positive impact on our family as a whole. I thought that if I shared them with all you lovely readers I have no excuse not to get focused and get on with it.
First up is making more time for us as a family. Sometimes weeks fly by and I’m never really sure where they have gone. I’m not saying we don’t do things together but sometimes it is the small things that get forgotten. Yes we read together, go to the park and all the usual but am I really focussing on the girls? I normally have a million and one other things flying through my head and find that I’ll be darting here there and everywhere in between. Molly adores craft and we used to have a weekly craft session. I now find by the time I’ve picked her up from school I’m running around getting tea ready and so on and it seems to have been forgotten. That is definitely one of the things we will re-introduce. I also want to spend more time doing things with Alice before she starts big school in September *sob*.
To help that I am going to try my hardest to switch off from the phone when the girls are around. I find I’m constantly checking emails, Instagram etc and I really don’t need to all the time. It’s a bit of a hangover from my previous job when I was always answering emails even as I walked around the office and it’s a hard habit to break but I do want to try and have time with the girls when I’m not constantly online.
On that note I am also introducing one night a week where Edd and I are phone/laptop/tablet free. It has got to the stage where we are both glued to our laptops in the evening rather than talking to each other. It also seems to result in far too much online shopping!
Which leads me on to said bank balance. All this online browsing is no good for watching the pennies. We would dearly love to move house over the next few years, mainly for schooling reasons as we start to think about secondary schools. Yes I know it’s early to do that but it will soon come around and we want to make quite a big jump when we do move. I’m hoping Charlotte’s husband James will build me somewhere when the time comes! We don’t need half the stuff we buy and I’m pretty sure that by monitoring the spending a bit more we can make it happen. I am still not sure this job is conducive to saving when we all constantly send each other lovely things to look at or we are ahem “researching” items for you lovely lot. Charlotte’s makeup recommendations alone are lethal!
After Ferns post on family recipes and after seeing Lauren’s epic dinner spreadsheet at our last team meeting I am determined to be more organised with our food. As Edd is often away in the week I tend to eat really simple dinners and then at the weekend we are normally rushing around so come tea time we are ravenous and can’t be bothered to cook so have beans on toast. It’s not the best so this year I am going to aim to follow a meal plan and also make sure we all eat dinner together at least once a week. That might not sound a lot but when Saturday and Sunday are the only days we are really all together then I reckon that’s achievable. I’m hoping we will share lots of lovely new recipes with you over the coming months and in the meantime I need some new delicious cook book recommendations please. I am a fan of Jamie Oliver and just purchased his superfood family classics book. Well worth a read.
Finally I want to make a bit more time for me. That’s not meant to seem selfish but I think I need it at the moment. I’ve found things getting all too much recently as I try to juggle work, motherhood and life in general and that makes for one cranky Lottie. It’s hard in the week to do anything as Edd works long hours or away so I’m very lucky that at the weekend Edd does look after the girls so I can pop to the shops or head out but it’s normally to do some chore or other. After a rare weekend recently when I popped for a massage whilst he took them swimming I decided I need more of this. It was bliss. It doesn’t always have to be something pricey. It might just be going for a run or meeting my friends for a coffee but an hour out is definitely required.
Are any of you making resolutions or instead making plans for 2017?
Lottie…every point you made I was like ‘ditto’! Meal planning I really need to do, I am a very organised person in other areas but don’t seem to be able to get myself into meal planning mode! We obviously all need Lauren’s spreadsheet u mentioned :))
Nicola, I am aiming to get a copy from her and will share with you all. It is epic. I am attempting to recreate it this afternoon! x
I feel really ambiguous about making resolutions for this year, as one of the major lessons I learnt in 2016 (after much heartache) was that my old goals and dreams don’t really fit with who I am anymore. I’m ok with that now. So my big resolution is to give myself space and enjoy this time to think of some new ones!
And to get my cooking mojo back. Not recovered from the pregnancy sickness loss of interest. And to get my fitness back after baby arrives in the spring in time for our village 10k in the autumn.
Have you got “One Good Egg” Lottie? Its a mix of meals and baking and the style might appeal. I just got “Florentine” for Christmas and love it.