New Year's Resolutions 2023

 I'm back with my New Year's Resolutions list for 2023!

1. Get a tattoo
2. Get a piercing
3. Watch 100 films
4. Complete my book resolutions
5. Learn to knit
6. Sew a garment
7. Learn to crochet
8. Write 20,000 words for NaNoWriMo
9. Write 10,000 works outside NaNoWriMo
10. Do a painting
11. Finish 2 embroideries
12. Go on an outing
13. Get a new job
14. Learn to drive
15. Get a new car
16. Decorate the hallway

Book resolutions:

1. Read 100 books
2. Read 2 auto/biographies
3. Read 2 other non-fiction
4. Complete 23 in 2023 challenge
5. Complete Alphabet challenge
6. Read 30 NetGalley books
7. Complete owed reviews
8. Review every book

I want to be more crafty and creative in 2023, I need to learn new skills and I need to make more things with my own hands! I also need to write more, to stretch my brain, I need to finish something!

As explained in my last post I need a new job, why is it so hard to find something that is compatible with my skill set, physicality and mental capacity? As for the car, we haven't had this one long but knowing our luck! LOL! But also it is still a little smaller than ideal, it's nice to dream anyway.

The hallway seems a bit random but it's actually not. It's been needing doing for a while but the council just redid the bathroom and toilet, they look nice on the surface but the paintwork needs an extra coat and their shower was pathetic so we bought a mixer tap shower and paid a plumber to fit it. They also took forever! We were quoted 10 working days, it was about 3-4 weeks in the end. People not showing up, only one person coming in a week etc. It was awful. Anyway now the bathroom has been done the hallway looks even shabbier, especially where they bashed at it bringing stuff in and out, so now it's desperate for redoing. The paint is cheap enough, the big cost is new flooring and we can't skip that because it's already patch-worked from where puppy Forest ripped some back up.

So that's the list. Obviously there are other non-list mini goals as always but whatever to them.

Stef Out x

Resolutions Recap 2022

 Hello and welcome to my yearly resolutions recap where I remind myself what a failure I am! LOL!

1. Get at least one piercing
2. Get at least one tattoo
3. Add 20,000 words to my WIP novel
4. Write 30,000 words for National Novel Writing Month 2022
5. Break in all my Dr Marten shoes properly
6. Get a new job
7. Learn to drive
8. Get a new car
9. Sew a garment
10. Learn how to crochet
11. Learn how to cross stitch
12. Read 100 books
13. Watch 100 films
14. Go to the cinema 5 times
15. Go to Longleat Safari Park
16. See a show on stage

Yet another successful year as you can see! So we ended up with a new car at the end of July. The old one, a Nissan Micra, broke down fatally while we were en-route to go shopping in June (I totally looked back at Facebook and Twitter for the dates LOL!). It started to slow down, the gears went funny and then we pulled over and it wouldn't restart. A policeman wanting to do speed checks pushed us into the car park of a shut down pub. We waited 4 hours for the RAC in the heat, I got sunburn just sitting in the car. It turned out to be the timing wheel. We looked for a new one but in the meantime I was walking to work in the height of summer, ugh. It could have been worse though, the day after the actual breakdown we'd planned to go to the cinema to see the latest Jurassic World film, a breakdown on the motorway would have been hell!

We eventually found a new car within our meagre budget, a Citroen C1. Where it had been sat around a while we needed to get a new battery straight away but it's OK, it prefers going fast to slow. The gears are a bit clunky and the left indicator has just started playing up but it's got it's MOT in a couple of weeks, a tad overdue, oops!

I ended up with a new job at the end of September. I left the old one on Tuesday 27th, started the new Thursday 29th! Things had deteriorated badly at my old job. I was accused of mishandling a donation, suspended, investigated, thought I was going to lose my job but kept it by the skin of my teeth. A lot of the issue was verbal information and an incorrect date given, I remembered the correct date, they found the details and all was good-ish. This was the beginning of September. My manager then sent through the latest rotas and we weren't scheduled to work together at all up until at least November (that's how far it went at that point). She'd also hired a Sunday Supervisor behind my back when our original plan was share the weekends as we'd been doing and get me an extra day a week. Then she started leaving loads of catty notes about the way I work so it was good timing that I left then.

My new job is slightly better but it's not one I want to stay at. Some days there's loads to do, others there's nothing and you end up tidying. Ugh. When I started they wanted me to stay away from the tills but now I have entire shifts covering the customer service desk. The training was abysmal, I'm only just figuring some parts out. Sometimes they moan when I'm not doing something quick enough but I'm helping customers and covering breaks in between doing whatever I'm doing. The foot pain that started in my last job is also getting worse so I end up limping around which isn't great.

Only one cinema trip this year :( Sing 2. We planned on seeing others but finances etc just never work out. I made it to 152 books read though so I'm proud of that. I can't remember the film number and officially there's still a few days of the year left but it is over 100. NaNo was a fail this year, I didn't even reach 5,000 words. I did absolutely no planning and a depressive funk made me wonder if I was even going to attempt at all.

Everything else was obviously finance and time related. And motivation, I've struggled mentally this year, I'm constantly in a low level of I don't care. Hopefully that might improve soon? Please?

Back Sunday with this year's resolutions! (Though I'll write it up now and then schedule it XD)

Stef Out x

New Year's Resolutions 2022

1. Get at least one piercing
2. Get at least one tattoo
3. Add 20,000 words to my WIP novel
4. Write 30,000 words for National Novel Writing Month 2022
5. Break in all my Dr Marten shoes properly
6. Get a new job
7. Learn to drive
8. Get a new car
9. Sew a garment
10. Learn how to crochet
11. Learn how to cross stitch
12. Read 100 books
13. Watch 100 films
14. Go to the cinema 5 times
15. Go to Longleat Safari Park
16. See a show on stage

I also have extra mini goals like getting a bit fitter and clearing my Gmail and Outlook inboxes. Gmail is where Quora stuff gets sent (it was a little bit of an obsession for a while) and Outlook is Pinterest emails. Both require more time dedicating to them than I usually want to spend on them. I have been making progress on the Pinterest ones this week though, no money to shop with (£10 til PayDay) and bank holidays meaning not many working days this week meant I've had a little more computer time, in between colouring my calendar for this year.

Then of course on top there are the extra "need to buy" goals. I need a new laptop, I'd like to go old school and get an old iPod Classic for my music. We need a new carpet in the living room, we need to vinyl in the hallway and kitchen. I need a new desk chair. We'd like to re-replace the sofas for comfier ones. (Background - one of the old sofas broke so they were emergency replaced last September but the only ones we could afford turned out to not be overly comfy.) We both need new beds and probably mattresses.

All in all a lot of reasons to need a new job with more hours/more money. Sigh.

I also need to catch up a lot with my NetGalley books. I've decided to put a pause on requesting for a bit to give myself time to catch up a little, I have over 300 that I need to read and that's on top of my existing reading lists for this year. I've thought up a 22 in 2022 list plus I want to try and read the alphabet as well. Anyway this is long enough now so I'll leave it there.

Stef Out x

2021 Resolutions Recap

 Before I start anything else can I plead with the universe to make 2022 less of a shit show??? Please!!! Although early signs are not hopeful. Onto the recap before I get into that...

1. Get at least one piercing
2. Get at least one tattoo
3. Read 100 books
4. Watch 150 films
5. Go to the cinema 5 times
6. Learn to drive
7. Get a new car
8. Go to Longleat
9. See a show on stage
10. Learn to cross stitch
11. Learn to crochet
12. Write 20,000 words of a novel
13. Get fitter
14. Break in my sequin Doc shoes
15. Keep up to date with book reviews
16. Start to grow my hair out

Well that was a disaster. Coronavirus is still affecting everything massively. As are my pathetic finances. I still haven't found a new job but that is a definite goal for 2022. To cut a long story short my old manager quit with a week's notice so I was running the shop single-handedly 5 days a week from end of July to the beginning of October. I debated taking it on permanently but I didn't decided quick enough and now I have a new manager. It has been... tough. She's lazy and slapdash about everything and has criticised me to my face and it's hard. I've lost all confidence in myself and my ability to do the job because whatever I do it's wrong or not good enough or ignoring something I didn't realise she'd said. I'm just tired of it all.

I was up to date on book reviews for a while but there's one from April I still haven't posted and two that have been hand-written but need typing up. I've decided to stop requesting from NetGalley for a bit, I just have too big of a backlog that I really need to catch up with, plus I have three (!!!) to read that were author requests. On top of that I've created a list of 22 books to read in 2022, plus I want to try the Alphabet Challenge.

Films were a disaster this year for some reason. I got to 95 I think it was and only managed two cinema trips, both in December: A Boy Called Christmas and Encanto. Both were amazing and I've already bought the Encanto soundtrack. We were hoping to see the new Spiderman film but there's just one teensy problem there... The car is broken. It's been making a strange noise when you reverse for a while and then the other day it made a loud clunk so we're thinking whatever it is has broken. It means I'm using foot power to get to work at the moment as well which is fun. Not. Mum gets her money on the 14th so hopefully it won't be too expensive to fix.

Speaking of the car, over the space of a couple of months we bought two new ones and then bought our original one back. The first was an Audi estate which had a broken window and an unfortunate gear problem - it would jump into fourth when you wanted second, not good. Then we ended up with a Skoda Fabia, just getting home was fun with that one, it was running on fumes and the petrol cap was jammed. The first station's attendant couldn't help and they were out anyway but the second managed to sort it. It was an uncomfortable car but it ended up needing to go because it had a habit of just stopping without warning. A tad dangerous. Then thanks to notifications from the DVLA because the logbook hadn't been done we discovered that our original one hadn't been sold yet so we bought it back.

Writing was OK this year, I manged 26,000 words for National Novel Writing Month in November so I'm really pleased with that. Fitness, hair etc, forget it, I kind of forgot about the crafty stuff and I feel guilty about my shoes. 2022 will be the year! I hope...

Anyway that's long enough for now, I will be back soon-ish with my 2022 Resolutions (I haven't even come up with them yet...).

Stef Out x

2021 New Year's Resolutions

So hello and welcome to my 2021 New Year's Resolutions!

> Get at least one piercing

> Get at least one tattoo

> Read 100 books

> Watch 150 films

> Go to the cinema 5 times

> Learn to drive

> Get a new car

> Go to Longleat

> See a show on stage

> Learn to cross stitch

> Learn to crochet

> Write 20,000 words of a novel

> Get fitter

> Break in my sequin Doc shoes

> Keep up to date with book reviews

> Start to grow my hair out

Not listed but are extras/stretch goals are: get a new job, move house, get a new dog, stretch my ears. Mum's knees are struggling to cope with the stairs so she's going to go to the doctors and play it up so she can hopefully get the council to move us to a ground floor flat or bungalow, preferably with a small garden. Then we can get a new puppy and not have to worry about the stairs with toilet training. That's part of why we decided against one last year. As for job I mentioned in my last post about the hours etc.

Things like the cinema, shows, Longleat are me being hopeful about the state of the world and everyone getting vaccinated and things hopefully starting to normalise. My fingers are tightly crossed. Stage shows are actually why the shoes are on there... If you're a long-time reader of this blog then you know I saw Mamma Mia at the Bristol Hippodrome a few years with some peope from work. Ever since I've wanted to see it again (without the annoying work colleagues) and when Dr Martens released the reversible rainbow sequin 1461 shoes I fell in love because rainbows! But I also thought they would be perfect for shows, events etc. However I've had them... A while now and they are proving difficult in terms of cutting into my ankles. A little while ago though I finally got some leather balsam - not the official Dr Martens one because that was more expensive for less than the one I got - and they've now had two applications and I think I'll try the hairdryer thing as well and hopefully we'll get somewhere. It is doable because my metallic pink boots caused a lot of issues at first and now they are perfectly comfy and I can wear them 6 hours plus at work.

Anyway enough typing for now. I've decided not to bother with my film breakdown this year, its just too much hassle trying to work out what genre everything is.

Stef Out x

2020 Resolutions Recap

So that's it. Another year over thank goodness and welcome to another resolutions recap *corny game show audience cheer*.

1. Get at least one piercing
2. Get at least one tattoo
3. Get fitter
4. Sort out my health
5. Draw or write something every day
6. Get a new car
7. Learn to drive
8. Get a new puppy
9. Watch 100 films
10. Read 100 books
11. Go to the cinema at least 8 times
12. Go to Longleat
13. See a show on stage
14. Start to save more money
15. Learn to knit
16. Learn to crochet
17. Learn embroidery
18. Write 20,000 words for NaNoWriMo
19. Get up to date with book reviews
20. Start to grow my hair out

Well thanks to the worldwide hiccup known as the coronavirus or Covid-19 a lot of stuff got cancelled and everything went on lockdown in the UK for several months back in March. We had a second smaller one in November for just a month.

The first lockdown is the only reason I completed any resolutions at all! It prompted me to learn embroidery, I caught up on reading for a grand total of 127 books read this year. Also despite the wealth of stuff on Netflix, Amazon Prime and Sky (I don't have Disney+ yet) I watched a lot of films... 227 to be exact... Cinema trips suffered greatly though. Only 5! Cats, Frozen twice, Sonic the Hedgehog and Doolittle.

In hindsight draw or write something every day was probably never realistic for me...  Not when time-sucking mobile games exist LOL! Fitness went down, health is probably also still not great *sigh*. To save money you need money to start with and since the lockdown work have put a stop to overtime so I'm down to my contracted 21 hours over 3 days where I was doing 28 over 4. I haven't made it an official resolution (as you'll see in my next post) but I think I do need to look for a new job. My manager is draining and I need more hours. Maybe then I'll also feel "right" about growing my hair out.

Anyway this is long enough for now so I will go and be back tomorrow with a 2021 resolutions post!

Stef Out x