Rosie's New Year Resolutions...

Hi Honeys
We're off into a new week, the first full week of the new year.  What possibilities we all have before us! Why don't we all try to make some dreams happen this year honeys?

Mine are pretty small I suppose, in the grand scheme of things, but I plan on working towards them all the same :) Here they are then, my 2016 resolutions...

Resolution One: Home Organization

Hubby and I have, for a while now, been trying to declutter, downsize and organize our home and I hope that this year we can start to see some solid progress.  Not that we haven't made any progress so far but trying to sort and downsize over thirty years of accumulated clutter is proving to be quite a tremendous task, especially since we only have one day a week where we're both not working.  The next huge job ahead will be working on Hubby's home office which will be quite a job I'm sure since it's become a sort of store room for everything being moved from other rooms. I'm sure though that with Hubby's help it'll get done and we'll have a few giggles along the way :)

Resolution Two: My Health

Something tells me this should have been first on my list but as soon that thought appears my immediate reaction is to feel incredibly selfish.  This is clearly part of the problem. I'm really not good at putting myself first, well, ever.  

For many years I've been attending the rhuematology department at our local hospital. I have inflamatory arthritis and asthma.  In addition I've suffered from stubbornly high blood pressure for several years now and during a scan at the hospital they discovered I also have osteo-arthritis in my lower spine.  My GP, the staff at our Doctor's surgery and the doctors I've seen over the years at the hospital too are all wonderful and of course I rely on them to help me cope with my health problems but I've decided to set myself a goal of doing everything I can to improve my health this year.

I need to make an effort to address my health issues because no one knows them better or has more to gain from addressing them than I do. In order to do this I first need to adopt a change of mindset!  It isn't selfish to think of my own (body's) needs.  I am meticulous in making sure Hubby has fresh fruit with him at work each day, that he has healthy snacks in the fridge all the time and that we have vegetables with every dinner and yet I don't tell myself to drink lots of water or have fruit every single day or anything else remotely good for me.  I'm just not very good at caring about me.

In short honeys, I need to be far more pro-active in my attitude towards my health issues, facing them instead of letting them bully me or wear me down. To begin I'm hoping to try to go for short walks with Jade and Hubby when the weather improves. My mobility is dreadful right now, I can't walk any distance without being in awful pain, but a short walk is better than no walk isn't it?  So, that's my plan. I can't allow the walls to close around me again and I have to try to get into the habit of going outside but mostly I have to practice telling that loud inner critic to shush and that self care is not the same thing as being selfish. Wish me luck x    

Resolution Three: Our Garden

Do you remember how pretty the roses were in our little front garden last year honeys?  I've promised myself that this year I'll plant another rose bush in our front garden.  The rose bush we already have, I planted in memory of my dear Gramma and this year I'm going to plant another in memory of my sweet Mother in Law.  She was everything to me and I miss her terribly.  I know whichever rose we plant for her will be as beautiful as Gramma's and I know they'll make me smile just as much too because they'll remind me I was blessed to have these wonderful women in my life.

We haven't ever really done anything properly with our back garden. It has a patio area, with the rest being mostly lawn including my precious drying green :) Precious? Rosie? A drying green? Absolutely! Surely I can't be the only person in the world who absolutely adores laundry?  A bright sunny day with a lovely warm breeze where I can spend all day washing and hanging laundry really is my idea of heaven and even the very notion of it makes me grin so much my face aches :)

It's the patio I'm thinking about really though honeys because neither Hubby nor I particularly want anything other than lawn (and my precious drying area of course) for the back garden.  The patio right now though really only serves as a storage area for four large wheely bins.  Such a waste of outdoor space.  While most of our efforts this year will again be focused on indoors, if we are able to,  I'd love to be able to make a small seating area on the patio.

Nothing elaborate, maybe even just a pretty bench to sit on to enjoy the peace of the garden. Possibly a couple of planters with pretty flowers nearby?  I'd like it to be a little area we can sit in during the evenings and have a cuppa while Jade plays with her toys on the grass.

Resolution Four: My Blog

This blog will be two years old soon, on the twenty seventh of this month to be exact and I really haven't decided on a direction for it yet.  I started it as a way to document the work in our home but along the way it's become a sort of journal,  a collection of my favourite recipes, a place to talk about my health issues and the ways I've found to cope and even a place to talk about books I've read.  Not forgetting of course those beautiful roses so that I can look back at them long after they've faded. 

Mostly though this little blog is my connection to the world outside our home and to you too honeys. As time passes it's becoming increasingly important to me because my physical connection to the world is shrinking. When I began my job I worked four days a week but over the past few years I've been forced to reduce my hours.  I began having some form of blackouts. My body would just shut down and I would have the most appalling headaches. Someone at the hospital once said I had been writing cheques my body couldn't cash :/  I now work two days a week and this is, other than occasional visits to our Doctor's surgery to have my bloods & blood pressure checked & to the rhuematology clinic twice a year, the only time I regularly go outside.  

Shopping trips for me are very rare and have to be planned to the tiniest degree as does everything else I do.  I live with such a terror of not being able to work because that would mean becoming completely isolated from the world again. This little blog is supposed to stop that from happening by allowing me to maintain a connection.  I'm sorry honeys, I don't mean to complain, I don't do pity parties and I'm so grateful for the people and the things I've been blessed with in my life.  I just wanted to explain a little background to my blog and why it's as important to me as it is. 

My resolution then is to make a concrete plan for my blog this year. To try to map out which direction I want it to go in and what exactly I want it to become.  

There you have it then, what I hope to achieve this coming year.  What about you honeys?  Have you made any resolutions?  What do you hope for?  Whatever it is, I so wish for it for you too xx  Till next time dear ones, huggles always xxx