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Category: Misc
New Year. New start. Thousands of resolutions being made. But how many of them last more than a week? Not that many at all. Making plans and working towards our goals is an art and sticking to a resolution till the end is a success in itself. If you happen to often make new, ambitious plans to then abandon them after a week, having quickly run out of motivation – this post is for you.
Hello again, for the first time in 2019!
I hope you had a great night and started this brand new year on a positive note. Personally, I love this time of year. The new beginning, the empty page that we’re going to fill systematically with new memories and experiences for the next 365 days. The time when we can leave certain things in the past, labelled with previous year’s number, hidden in the deepest corners of our memory, doomed to never again see the light of day.
Happy New Year to all of you, my dear friends! 🙂
Whether you’re going to – or already did? – attend the craziest of crazy New Year’s Eve parties today or have a calm evening at home, I hope you have a great time! Let’s leave all of the bad memories and experiences of 2018 in the past and take all of the good ones to the New Year. Regardless of how 2018 has been, let’s hope that 2019 brings improvements in all aspects of our lives.
That’s it for this year – see you in the new one!
Around Christmas, I saw a lot of bloggers write posts under the lovely theme ‘sharing is caring’. Thanks to that initiative, I discovered some amazing blogs through blogs I’d already been following and I myself had visitors who came to my blog because someone else had shared my post on their site.
I would like to join in and, as the title of one of my favourite films says, pay it forward.
Hey. Hi. Hello. Welcome to my blog, again. Deja vu? How many times can one take a break from blogging, then make a loud comeback and take another step back? Way too many, that for sure. I’m a horrible blogger. 
If I got a pound every time I heard that I’d be a millionaire now. I only have bare necessities in my bag though! A lot of them… sure… but I do need them all.
1. Hand sanitizer. Cause there’s nothing worse than accidentally touching something sticky and being unable to wash your hands. (HA-HA, oh the irony… I’m reading this post in 2023. It was originally written in 2018. Who would have thought that 2 years later people would fight in supermarkets over the last bottle of hand sanitizer… So glad that we made it through those times.)
2. Adhesive band-aid. Cause you never know when you’re gonna need it.
3. Tangle teezer. Cause one can’t live without a hair brush with hair as long as mine.
4. Chapstick. Cause leaving home without my trusty Carmex is like leaving home without an arm or a leg.
5. Handcream. Might not seem like a necessity but it’s genuinely my most used thing from this list.
6. Little nail file. Cause a broken nail with sharp edges is one of the most annoying things in the whole wide world.
7. Chewing gum. Cause if you happen to eat something you wanna refresh your mouth afterwards.
8. Umbrella. Cause if you leave it at home you’re guaranteed to be caught by heavy rainstorm. Even if it doesn’t usually rain, just leave the umbrella at home and it will.
9. A piece of paper and a biro. Cause… Hm. I guess it might be useful sometimes, right? I’m not a fan of writing things down on the phone.
10. Clear nail polish, especially if I’m wearing tights. Cause you wanna prevent that run from spreading.
11. A pack of pocket tissues. No need to justify this, I believe.
12. A tiny bottle of refreshing perfume. Cause I wan’t to feel (and smell) fresh, especially in summertime.
13. Painkillers. Cause you don’t want an unexpected headache to ruin your day.
14. Earbuds. Cause I need my music to go with me everywhere.
(15. Powerbank, in case I plan on being outdoors all day)
Phone, wallet, documents, keys… all the regular essentials everyone usually carries around.
It all makes sense, right?
Is there anything I’m missing that would make my life easier (and my bag even heavier)?
Although I have a lot of stuff in my bag I believe I have it all under control. I was a lot more unorganized in the past though. When I once lost a remote control from my tv I found it after a week… in my bag, of course.
A little throwback to January. Looks like all I did that month was eat and craft Hopefully February will bring more diversity, although the weather is still wintery (we got hit by a fresh supply of snow last night…) and doesn’t encourage leaving the warmth and coziness of my house. I do however have one exciting afternoon planned for next week and I can’t wait for it!
I know, I know. Most of you are probably thinking: ‘Saying goodbye to Christmas now? It’s February!’. Well, in Polish tradition (which originates from catholic traditions), we’re allowed to keep all Christmas decorations and Christmas trees for over a month after the actual holiday, until February 2nd! Pretty cool, isn’t it? Having that lovely Christmas spirit at home for such a long time 🙂
Hello everyone ^^
The first month of 2018 is gone. Or will be, in a few hours. And it feels strange! This passing month was probably more productive than the entirety of 2017 for me, but on the other hand I still feel like Christmas was literally yesterday, not… 5 weeks ago? Am I the only one feeling like this?
Getting onto the point. This time, like never before, I actually made a long list of New Year’s resolutions. A month has passed, so it’s a good chance to check how I’ve been doing so far – mainly to fuel my motivation (I’ve actually been very successful and I believe realizing that should work as a nice incentive to keep working).
Success! Well, almost. I did skip one day, but besides that – 35+ minutes of workout done every day. My primary goal of exercising was having that one strong point of my daily routine that would keep me disciplined – and that’s working really well. I’m slightly disappointed with the lack of extra benefits from it though – I hoped to fall asleep quicker and earlier and that’s not the case. Either way, I do feel like my body is a little bit stronger and less of an unruly blob, so that’s nice. And I do love the moment of finishing a workout, being exhausted and congratulating myself on staying motivated for yet another day. Sadly, I’m not one of those fitness freaks who can’t wait to start exercising and get hit with endorphins while drowning in their own sweat – it costs me a lot to start a workout and my favourite exercise is the last one. It’s good for me though and it should be worth even more in the long term, so I’m not giving up! I just can’t wait for spring – rollerblading is a kind of workout I genuinely like doing, as opposed to tedious, repetitive exercises I can do at home.
This is by far the most demanding of my resolutions. I wanted to learn all new words from one page of my old, trusty dictionary every day. I’m still motivated and determined to make it happen – every evening I make a list of words to learn the next day. Do I actually go through those words as often as I’d like to? Hmm… maybe not always – I’m not a robot, I’m a human who can be tired or slightly lazy sometimes, but I usually manage to catch up with my learning later on if I have a weaker moment. January list has 1494 words on it. Looks like a lot, sure. Some of the records are indeed new to me, some are there so I use them more, and some are just less common meanings of common words. Do I know all of the January words? No, definitely not, but I try to go back and revise regularly and I definitely remember a lot – vast majority for sure. I said I wanted to learn one page each day, but I actually do two pages – one from each side of the dictionary. That way I have more to learn now, but as the time goes I’ll start seeing more and more words that I’ve already learnt, so I should have a bit less work in the last months of this resolution. Also, seeing each word for the second time should be a nice extra revision.
I did. I read not one, but two books and I’m now reading the third one, to finish Philip Pullman’s trilogy – His Dark Materials. I have a few books waiting on my list, not sure which one I’ll pick next.
It turned out that learning words from the dictionary and reading books (in English but without paying attention to words I don’t know if I understand the context) work great together – I actually see a lot of the newly learnt words in use in books, much more often than I anticipated. That makes me think that learning them is actually useful and motivates me to keep studying.
I’ve been a good girl and used creams every morning and every evening. Proud of myself here!
This is something I’m most disappointed with. Not because I’m not trying – I do make sure to turn off the lights and put away all electronic devices much earlier than I used to for the last couple of years – around 1-1.5h earlier. And… I hardly ever manage to actually fall asleep when I’d like to. It’s certainly not because I’m not tired enough. I get very little actual sleep Monday to Friday – under 6 hours a day. I do my full time job, work out, learn a lot in my spare time – I’m absolutely knackered when I go to bed. And yet I simply can’t fall asleep for ages. It’s extremely frustrating. I’ve always been a night owl, sure, and I’d gladly switch my daily routine so that I can get up and go to bed later than I do – but that’s not an option. On most days I feel like a zombie, in desperate need of sleep, just to find myself unable to sleep when the time for it comes. I’m going to keep trying, in hopes to make my body and brain used to this new, earlier time of going to bed, but it’s really discouraging to see that even after 4 weeks it simply won’t work. Any advice? 😦
I noticed that in this case I didn’t put my purpose in words the way I meant it, although I wasn’t far off. I want to move abroad and the main goal here is to be financially secure as well as competitive in the jobs market, able to find something soon after moving. I split this whole resolution into two overlapping parts – creating things that I can sell and working on my portfolio, which won’t get me money but should make it easier to find a job. I’ve been creating some bits and bobs to try and list on Etsy in a few months time (that certainly won’t generate much of an income, but if I can potentially make some pocket money doing something I like to do in my free time anyway, I believe it’s worth a try). I’ve also been learning 3D modelling – something that seems to be a natural course for someone who loves creative arts and crafts and also happens to be a programmer. 3D modelling is something I’d like to focus on this year, mainly cause I can kill two birds with one stone there – do it as a side freelance work in my spare time and also potentially use it in my actual career in the future. The last thing is building my portfolio and learning new stuff from the industry I work in at the moment. I managed to find an extra purpose in it and decided to create an app for my English vocabulary training – I have a basic version of it done and I already use it to revise my words in a much better and more convenient way than just reading the dictionary. I’m going to extend and improve it in the next months, using some of the most commonly used technologies – that way I should be more efficient in my vocabulary learning, and the app itself should serve as a nice proof of me being able to use quite a few programming tools.
Something I haven’t said out loud, but I wanted to do anyway – trying something new, something fun, something I’ve wanted to do for a long time or just indulging myself every now and then, especially with experiences. In all this hectic, filled to the top, ambitious routine, I wanted to stay sane and make it all more of a purposeful pleasure rather than a burden. I found time to cook and bake, I found time for some arts and crafts (whether to potentially monetize it in the future or to simply have fun), I found time to watch sports on TV along with my family and I idled some time away doing nothing, like everyone does sometimes. All in a healthy balance.
One of my resolutions was to focus on myself and my self-development. If you’ve read previous paragraphs, you can probably tell that I’ve been quite successful. I stepped into 2018 with my heart shattered to a million pieces, so taking a step back and avoiding getting involved in any sort of social relations was a natural move anyway – but I’m glad I managed to turn all the negativity into an insane dose of motivation.
Have you made any resolutions? How are they going so far? 🙂
I came across some watercolour painting tutorials channel on YouTube the other day and instantly thought how weird it was that I still hadn’t tried that popular technique! Feeling inspired, the next day I bought a set of watercolours and some paper.
Alphe's Corner 