New Year, New Hope

I have never subscribed to New Year resolutions, perhaps because of my fear of failure. Most of my adult life I have been over weight, and poor. Having been through challenging circumstances including homelessness and a critical illness, I like to think that I have come out the other side, wiser and more mindful of my lifestyle choices. Nevertheless, I have been feeling in funk, a funny feeling that I drag around all day with me, and this little funk, tells me that I shouldn't bother trying, and that thing won't change.

Over the last 3 weeks, my beloved Grandfather died, my husband ended up in A& E on Christmas Eve, and my lovely sister who is in New Zealand caught a nasty strain of Meningitis and was very poorly. Since being away and seeing how life has affected my grandmother (in particular) it has made me see how fragile life really is. A month ago, my grandfather was caring for my Nan who has dementia, and the next moment, she is in a home and severed from the love of her life.

Nothing is more life affirming, than when you lose a loved one.

I sang Eva Cassidy's Song Bird and 'Angles' by Sarah Mclachlan, at my Grandfathers funeral, and I was honoured to do so, the humanist service bought great comfort to my family, as it had an unusually uplifting feel to it. After settling my Grandmother into her new home, I felt the urge to make BIG changes in my life.

I grabbed some of my daughters colouring pens, and set about writing a rather crude yet spontaneous mind map, of the immediate areas of my life, and that of my family, that I wanted to focus on

I decided to commit to:

• Writing a daily blog post
• Uploading a video documenting life as it changes for us
• Take a weekly picture of myself to chronicle weight- loss
• Write my food intake down in a diary and online too
• To organise each room of our house 
• To do a monthly review of what we have achieved and goals for the month ahead
• To share tips on budgeting and finance.

Hopefully I will be able to share this goals with you, and make some great new friends along the way.

xxx

Jo

p.s- can you spot the spelling error on my brainstorm?