January has been good for.....

It's a proven fact that January provides a blissful amount great of down-time from the normal busy school and family routines we find ourselves in during the year.  So we've taken advantage of this time to do things we just haven't had the time or inclination to before now. Things like:

1. Water blasting the property

Poor Mark was outside for 9 hours straight water blasting the whole of our property over the long anniversary weekend. It looks great but it was a labour of love - we hadn't water blasted for four years and had never done the driveway in the eight years we've lived here so it was a BIG job. Good job done though - it looks amazing.

 



 

 



2. Out with the old

Whilst Mark did the water blasting, I finally got the motivation to clear out all the baby clothes from our attic - there were boxes and boxes and boxes of the stuff - they were somewhat organised into age but a lot of stuff had been thrown back in there after lending it to another friend and so I had to painstakingly go through about 15 boxes of clothes sorting into ages, putting some stuff aside to take to the Salvation Army and then cataloguing and photographing everything else to go on Trade Me as well as determining what size box they would fit in to give accurate shipping costs.



This was also a massive job and took me most of the long weekend. It felt good to be able to see the floor again in the attic and I'd challenged myself to do it in order to put the proceeds towards some more photography equipment I want to get but didn't feel I should just fork out for it without some kind of sacrifice!

3. What's been on the box

Since we got back from our Christmas break we've also had lots of spare evenings to catch up on things like the latest series of Homeland (12 episodes), Derek (6 episodes), A Place to Call Home (10 episodes), the Christmas specials of Call the Midwife and Downton Abbey as well as I've lost count of how many Modern Family episodes (halfway through Season 4 at the moment). I do so love being able to watch a series in one go rather than having to wait week by week as each episode airs - I wonder what that says about me? Impatient I'm guessing!



Broadchurch has just started back on TV as well - which makes for pretty compelling watching and we are hoping to watch the Boyhood movie too - has anyone seen this - it's up for loads of Oscars and it completely passed us by when it came out last year? I don't remember seeing any hype about it at all.

4. Saving pennies and going some extra miles

With the two boys at holiday programme for four weeks straight - this is a bit ouchie on the wallet so I've made it my mission not to drive in to work once over the holidays to save about $100 - so far so good - with only a few days left till school goes back on Tuesday 3rd February. It helps that the weather has been pretty kind the whole time too though! And I'm clocking up a good few kilometres of walking/jogging on the new Strava app I've been using for the past few weeks - I'm thinking of setting myself a goal for the year of 1,000 km travelled (which doesn't include any miles pedalled on the bike trainer which I do a couple of mornings a week but I can't easily track this) - not sure if it's doable but I'd like to hope so!


5. Goal setting

Being less busy this month it's allowed me some time to think about a few goals for my photography this year. In other years I'd have had some blogging goals too but I've already decided to take the pressure off this year and not make any goals and just share on here what I want when I want. And you have no idea how freeing that feels! But to be able to continue to grow and challenge myself both as a photographer and in the little side business I have set up I do need to have some real and attainable goals. The response from setting up my website and doing the fair last year has made me realise that unfortunately I'm not going to be an overnight photographic sensation that takes the world by storm and I will need to chip away it with small steps here and there. As long as I'm continuing to move forward in the right direction I have to be patient and be OK with that!

 



These are just a few of the goals I've jotted down - there are more I can think of!

We also have a fairly big family goal to work towards this year. It's not something I've shared openly here on the blog although some of you may already know what I'm referring to if we've discussed it one-on-one in the past and it's very much top of mind to work through how we can make it actually happen. There's still a lot that needs to fall into place but hopefully we are starting to make small steps in the right direction there too.

So there you have it.... how has your January been? Do you find this time of the year is good for goal setting and making progress on ticking off the to-do list that you just can't find the time for when the daily grind takes over?! Tell me I'm not the only one!