Movies, meals and muddling through life January 2020

It’s a brand new year and I still can’t quite get used to the fact that we are in 2020. Does anyone else still find it really strange? Life seems to be moving way too fast these days and I’m trying my very best to enjoy all of the moments. I haven’t done one of these general life updates in a little while. I have really struggled to reclaim my writing mojo but I’ve started to plan out some writing time in my days just 30 mins here or there and I am slowly getting back into it.

So what’s been happening?

Well the answer is lots. But let’s do this the way I always do, starting with movies:

Movies

The last three months have been quite film/movie heavy. In the cinema I’ve seen Frozen 2, Cats, Ford v Ferrari and Last Christmas. My favourite was Frozen 2, it’s a truly excellent film and I enjoyed it far more than the first. Fave moments for me include the Samantha scene and Kristoff’s 80s style ballad. Last Christmas was predictably cheesy but also made me think…a lot. As for Cats. Well. I can’t really begin to explain it. The kids loved it but I spent most of the film looking at my older sister and wondering what on earth was going on. It’s properly weird but I’m glad I’ve seen it so I can actually understand the reviews 😂.

Photo by Myke Simon on Unsplash

On Netflix we have watched a wide range of kids films and Christmas Prince films and I have also watched Marriage Story and rewatched About Time again.

TV/Netflix shows

I don’t watch a lot of normal tv. I cancelled my tv licence last year as it was such a rarity so now I only watch terrestrial tv at my parents house. Last month I watched Gavin and Stacey which I quite enjoyed, mainly as I watched with all my family. Funny to see how various characters had aged or in some cases had not due to various face treatments. On Netflix I have watched a fair bit including You, Dirty John, Don’t F*** with Cats, People V OJ and an assortment of food related shows. You is a fairly creepy series which is focused on the life and loves of Joe Goldberg a handsome young romantic who has serial killer tendencies- fascinating but also creepy. People v OJ was really interesting and well cast. Don’t f*** with cats is a quite distressing watch and I wouldn’t watch it again, in fact if I had know what it was about I wouldn’t have watched it the first time but once you start it has you gripped!

Meals

My food life has been a little boring of late. I’ve had to spend a lot of time indoors and I ended up cancelling all of my Christmas work meals etc and to be honest I’m not sad about that. I am back to creating in the kitchen a bit more, not quite ready to share recipes but I’ll get there soon. Aside from the odd breakfast out with my mam, sisters and the girls I haven’t eaten out since maybe November when we had our fake Christmas meal. I am making some changes to what I eat at home, cutting down a little on meat consumption and just cooking mostly from scratch again.

Health

Ah where do I begin? It’s been a year of poor health which ended up with severe break and dislocation in my toe from stubbing a cardboard box, seriously. I’m healing up now thankfully and just awaiting results from my back MRI which took place just before New Years. I have managed to regain the heavy weight loss from earlier in the year so now I am just trying to maintain a healthy weight and exercise lightly when possible.

Life in general

I can’t deny that the last year has been incredibly stressful, probably the most stressful one of my life so far but I have definitely learned from it, I am not sure how much stronger I am for it but it’s taught me things. I do want to try and do a little more with the blog this year and also find some way to use it for good, whether it’s to help raise awareness for charities I support or to talk about important issues. The girls are flourishing and getting so clever and funny. They are great company these days and we talk about the most random of things and dance about the house to silly songs, current fave is Dance Monkey by The Tones.

The New Year

I’m not making resolutions this year but there are a few things that I started late last year which I’ll be continuing with. One is looking for the positives, I find it all too easy to be negative and I really want that to be a change for me. Last year with positive advent I made a point each day of finding all the little things which were positive in my day so I’m continuing with that. I’m also keeping a journal, one from Amazon which is one line a day ( actually about 3 lines) for 5 years, I think it’ll be interesting to read back on the different days and compare things. Each page of the journal has five spaces for each year for that particular day. This is the one I have:

I am also trying to walk each day even if it’s just a little, I still can’t overdo things as in a lot of pain with my back but walking is so incredibly good for my mental health that I owe it to myself to prioritise it. I’m also actually considering the food I cook and eat, making sure to eat proper meals even when the girls aren’t around rather than forgetting then grabbing some sugary laden treat when I feel rubbish. I know this year will hold challenges, it always does but by taking care of myself more maybe I’ll be better prepared for them.