Hellooooo! Everyone.

As we approach the end of January, I’m using this time to reflect on how crap January has been. January is usually the most hated month of the year. It’s long, it’s a financial nightmare, the weather is always gloomy, people usually get a cold and overall there is a sense of combined grumpiness.

I have had a month of being ill with various things that have kept my mood challenging and my reading non-existant.

Life in my new flat is cosy and calming and being cooped up from lockdown hasn’t bothered me that much. I have spent the last 2 weeks unable to drive and have another 2 weeks to go, which somehow seems more restricting than being told to ‘stay at home’.

At the beginning of the year I started my ‘Kindle Journey Challenge’, where I was supposed to read 3 Kindle books a week and finish all that was in my library by the end of January. I was successful in week 1. I failed in week 2. It wasn’t that no one seemed interested in joining along with me or that I didn’t have the motivation to read, I was just sleepy all the time. Some of the medication I’ve been on in the past month has made me very lethargic and slightly loopy.

I started a live stream post to randomly pick out three books to read a week using a random number generator. Those three books are still sitting on my bedside table…unfinished. Again, this was an idea to motivate me into reading more, and reading a more diverse selection of my tbr books but life got in the way, in the only way it can – by being aggressively chaotic and not giving me a moments peace.

My inability to keep up with the challenges I’ve set myself does make me feel incredibly guilty and almost like a fraud. I try to set myself vague goals otherwise I find myself rebelling from the guidelines I put in place.

I am, I believe, my own worst enemy!

I read 2 books at the beginning of January and if I manage to read 2 more by the end, I’ll feel accomplished.

I have been doing a lot of work for my small business. Designing cards or painting stamps, I film every time I paint a new design. I made a TikTok account for my business, and have seen a rise of engagement from there to my shop on Etsy, that has made me feel both proud and positive. I now have a bank of posts lined up and feel that I am now able to capably juggle both reading and promoting together. (At times, it has been one or the other).

I also got back into fan fiction again, so while I am reading, it’s not an actual book. It does pass the time on a slow work day though, or if I need something familiar to distract me from life.

Most people I talk to are praying for the lockdown to end and for life to be normal again. In the news the Prime Minister is talking about easing lockdown restrictions at the end of March. As we stand currently, I don’t believe that is a good decision to make. The press is full of negative headlines of how the government has acted in terms of protecting people during the COVID outbreak. I think we can all realise that the UK made a ‘boo boo’. We didn’t act quick enough, some people didn’t take it seriously enough and we didn’t protect ourselves efficiently.

It is fair to blame the government, especially when we’ve seen them acting out against the scientific advice given but it is also fair to blame those people who walk around like they aren’t in the middle of a pandemic. Last week there were 2 days of snow where I live and I looked out my window to take a pretty picture of the snow and was appalled by how many people were outside ‘enjoying the snow’, mingling with strangers, without masks, and all breathing the same air.

I understand the enjoyment of snow. I just don’t understand the disrespect and selfishness of not thinking of others. I could argue that it is the minority of people who are flouncing the rules and acting without care, but that minority is still a large number of people and I would have thought that by now, people would be more aware about what their actions could cost others.

It makes me wonder how people felt during the Spanish Flu or the Plague. Were people just as entitled then as the are now? If so, what a sorry group of humans we are.

Enough COVID talk – for now.

Here are some things I’ve discovered recently:

• The pump in my shower only works if you turn on the main bathroom light.
• It is possible to fall asleep while gently rocking yourself in an IKEA lazy chair.
• Hard plastic – such as yogurt pots and margarine tubs are not recyclable in my area.
• Rice Paper Wraps are as good as I thought they would be.
• It is possible for me to fall asleep listening to ASMR.
• I still haven’t met whoever lives opposite me.
• I had my first iron attack of the year – it was horrible.
• It is possible to buy books on a budget.
• My body prefers to be in a state of pain and sickness.
• I may have reached a limit on funky socks.
• I started Christmas shopping for 2021.
• I turn 31 at the end of Feb and I’m not even excited about it.
• I found a concealer that hides my insomnia bags.
• I tried that ‘Maybelline Sky High Mascara’ that everyone is raving about – it’s magical, my lashes have never been longer!
• I have too many scarves.
• I have begun a new obsession with kitchen gadgets.

Game changer – February.

With January out of the way, the rest of the year looks golden, regardless of what is happening outside the door, I feel a sense of positive energy when I look forward to the rest of 2021 and think of all that can be accomplished and achieved within it.

I may still get confused when I get packages of things I don’t remember ordering (hello insomnia), but I’m still here for good or bad, and I’m still reading – though maybe at the pace of a tortoise now!