Thoughts for 2022

I don’t think there will be many people in the whole world for whom 2021 was their best. I can honestly say it wasn’t my worst because even during a pandemic the loss of a parent and break up of my marriage were in 2014/15 were worse. But I am definitely glad to see the back of this last year.

2022 though should be better, with or without the freedom to move around as we wish. I’m weary of living with the fear and anxiety and will definitely be dealing with things differently. To be honest we have learned to manage risk in a way we didn’t know would be necessary. Plus the input we allow from news and social media outlets. It’s not that we dig our heads in the sand, but more that we manage the stress while trying to keep on top of the facts. If that is even possible!

Plans

We have lots. Yesterday, New Years day we spent quite a bit of time thinking and talking about our relationship and what things we want to do to improve our sex life, dynamic and the fact that we have become lazily comfortable in the stuff we do day to day.

The past 2 years haven’t been good for making plans and being able to follow them through, which has in some ways made us moribund. You don’t know if you can do things in the way you want by the time they come around. Master will be 62 in 3 months but we haven’t been able to go to Budapest for his 60th yet and doubt we’ll get there this year either.

But I’m not about to get maudlin about this because I have the feeling 2022 is going to be pretty good. There will be house hunting in France, a summer wedding and time to travel, by car and ferry rather than air. We have things to do around the house which I’m hoping to get started on in the coming weeks.

Health and fitness

In the early days of the pandemic, during the first lockdown I was still positive about my weight, health and fitness. I managed to keep off the weight I’d lost and tried to get out as often as possible for walks to keep fit. Gradually through I struggled, as the year went on it became harder to keep doing the healthy things. Weekly takeaways, less exercise and a general feeling that there was no future in bothering. 2021 started in the same vein and even though we got more active during the summer I managed to put on half a stone while in France and Spain which I haven’t shifted yet.

My brain seems to have flipped into a more optimistic mode over the past few weeks. I’m feeling positive that I can lose the weight and get back my fitness levels. I know I need to for my health because I get out of breath doing things that I really shouldn’t.

I have till April to lose enough of my BMI do be considered for breast reconstruction surgery. I’m undecided whether I actually want the operation, but don’t want to be denied it because of weight. Rather I want to be the one to decide.

Tomorrow I restart my low carbohydrate diet, today I started yoga and tomorrow too it will be dry January. I’m going to take this day by day and week by week. If I get to the end of the month and things are going well, then I’ll plan further.

Blogging

MPB turns 10 in April. I have to admit that when I started the then named World of Joolz in 2012 I had no idea I’d still be here. But here I am. As I mentioned in my review of 2021 the past year has been a lean one for blogging. I peaked in April and lost my mojo for months. So I’m going to try not to let that happen, especially in my anniversary year.

I’m pleased to see more memes emerging and some of the old ones coming back. I really struggle for ideas these days, because I often feel I’ve written everything already. So prompts will definitely help. I’m hoping that running my own meme will help keep the momentum going for me. Certainly it will make me read more of other people’s work, something that I’ve also been bad at. I hope too I can do a monthly round up, certainly something to factor into my planning.

I will write a bit about blog planning and my journal next weekend because that is the first of my meme prompts!