January is finally over and the first signs of spring are finally in the air (or in the garden at least, even it if is a bit wet and miserable out there today). I am definitely ready for some lighter mornings and longer days!

Surprisingly, January actually passed quite quickly this year (although it did feel like an awfully long time until pay day…). A big acquisition I’ve been working on for months finally closed, but a weeks delay in the date caused an awful lot of last minute organisation. It also meant a week of running on-boarding events both in the UK and Sweden, and I got very behind on my day job (although I can barely remember what that is at the moment!).

I also had an assignment to get done for college. I usually aim to get these done about a week before the deadline, but it just hasn’t been possible as I’ve lost quite a few evenings to work events. I also took my eye off the ball in terms of health as I didn’t have enough time to do all the exercise sessions I planned and did fall back on some quick and easy (but not particularly healthy) food choices at times.

The good news is that we accepted an offer on house. This is just the start of the journey as we haven’t found anywhere to move to yet, but it should be an exciting few weeks as we crack on with the search for our new home. I realise that there are a lot of obstacles between now and then, but hopefully we won’t hit any major stumbling blocks.

I had a few specific goals for January, the first one related to the house move, which was to have a focussed month of de-cluttering, by chucking out one thing on the 1st Jan, 2 on the 2nd and so on. I managed to keep more or less on top of this during the course of the month, and made my target. I also read a couple of books on the topic, both with quite different approaches. I think there are things I would take from each, but I did like “The life changing magic of tidying up” by Marie Kondo, who advocates discarding anything that doesn’t spark joy. Whilst I can’t say that I’m going to part with certain items which don’t fall into that category but are nonetheless necessary (Tin opener? Lawn mower?), it has given me food for thought when it comes to things like clothes and books. I genuinely haven’t had the time to take action on this over the last month, but I plan to look at it during February. I’ve been looking at things with a different lens, i.e. can I be arsed to cart this to a new house, if the answer is no, then it makes the decision a lot easier!

A couple of other items were ticked off the list in January:

• Did my first fitness test, which I will be repeating in the next few days. I can’t imagine I’ve made any progress given that I haven’t been totally focussed on health this month, but it’s still good to track.
• Have put together an outline running plan for the next 4 months in the run up to my half marathon
• submitting my assignment (in the nick of time and to the best standard I could manage given the constraints I had this month)
• Had a lovely day in the New Forest celebrating my parents’ 70th birthdays
• I mostly didn’t panic, although I did have a moment of ARRGGGHHH mid-month when the work stuff all got thrown up in the air and I realised I’d be losing 3 evenings worth of assignment time to work events

February promises to be another busy month. Half term seems to have come round really quickly as it’s only about 10 days away now, and we’re taking the girls to Amsterdam for the weekend. Poppy has never been on a plane and Daisy was too small to remember, so a short hop should be just the thing to introduce them to air travel! It’s a great city, so hopefully we’ll have a good time.

Year 2 at college is pretty full on, and I have yet another assignment to be submitted early March, so hopefully I’ll have managed to get that done before the end of the month. I’m now officially half way through the course which seems like madness! I’m also doing a day of observation in the teaching clinic which I’m really looking forward to, as it’ll give me a great insight into clinical practice and give me an idea of what I’m in for in year 3 when I will see clients of my own under supervision!

In between all of that, there’s another big project kicking off at work and there is the small matter of finding somewhere to live, so there looks to be no rest for the wicked! By necessity, the main focus this month is going to be house move related, so key things will be finding our dream home and getting in finances in order so we’re ready to proceed when we’ve found somewhere. I also want to get back to a bit of self-care, I’ve neglected the basics like good hydration and taking my vitamins, so that needs focus. Key goals for February will be:

• Self-care basics – hydration, vitamins, going to bed in good time
• Viewing a lot of houses
• Getting our mortgage arrangements sorted
• Submitting assignment on time and to a good standard (that old chestnut)
• Gently getting back on track with my usual exercise schedule and making good food choices
• Clearing out some (more!) clothes and books