Goodbye 2018 … Hello 2019!

I’ve just read over the post I wrote at the end of last year where I summed up how my year had been and what my goals were for this year. Of course, once I hit publish I barely looked at the post again and so had forgotten what I’d written. Even though I hadn’t been consciously thinking about what I’d written, those goals must have been firmly wedged into my mind somewhere because I’ve been working towards them all year anyway.

These were my goals for 2018:

• I want my home to be completely organised with a designated space for everything and a system for dealing with paperwork in place.
• I want my finances to be organised so I’m getting the best value for my money on everything from my gas bill and mortgage to my savings and taxes. I want tracking systems in place so I can budget effectively.
• I want my mind and body to be organised.  I want to have headspace to think and process my thoughts. I want to have time to have a fitness routine, eat healthily and get enough sleep.

So how did I do?

Home Organisation

I have done sooo much towards this. I’ve taken a tonne of bags to the tip and to the charity shop. I’ve also had lots of jobs done in my house and I feel that after living in my house for 16 years it’s almost finished.

When I bought my house it was a complete wreck, but from the moment I first walked in I knew exactly what I wanted to do with it. I even knew it was the perfect house for me from the moment I saw it from the outside which was several days before I got to view the inside for the first time. I thought it would take me 10 years to do everything. This probably would have been a fairly accurate estimate if I’d not stopped partway through and bought a second house which was also a wreck and needed completely renovating. As the second house was an investment which I needed to rent out this had to take priority.

I know exactly what needs doing to finish my house off and this will be done next year. It’s so freeing to think that after that it will just be a case of keeping on top of maintenance rather than having to set aside lots of time and money for major projects.

I still have some bits of organisation to complete too, but it’s all things I can potter away at rather than massive amounts of upheaval. One thing I’d like to do is get all my loose photos from the pre-digital era scanned into my computer and then sort them into albums. It’s a lot to do, but is something I can just do a bit at a time when I feel in the mood.

Financial Organisation

I still have quite a bit to do to feel really in control and organised with my finances, but I’m a lot more sorted than I was a year ago. I’ve gone through all my subscriptions to things like magazines and organisations and cancelled everything I don’t feel is relevant anymore. I’ve sorted out my household bills getting better tariffs and deals. This coming year I have to sort out the big stuff like my mortgages. Once I’ve done that and when I’ve finished the remaining work that needs doing on the house I’ll feel like I know exactly where I’m up to with my money.

Mind and Body Organisation

Hmm, this is the one I haven’t done so well on. I’ve been sleeping a lot better and eating better most of the time, but I still haven’t got back into exercising or walking regularly.

When I started doing agency teaching, the idea was to only accept day-to-day or short-term assignments so that I could have a personal life alongside my work life. Yeah right. Somehow, those short-term assignments have a habit of morphing into long-term and before I know it anything outside of work is just shoehorned into whatever bits of spare time I can find.

So the first half of this year ended up being dominated by work. I really enjoyed the work I was doing, but I did get behind with everything else and didn’t really do anything to take care of myself. Then I went away for the summer. When I came back I thought I’d take a bit of time to myself before going back to work so I could feel relaxed and on top of things when the demands of work started to kick in again. It didn’t quite happen like that though.

Instead I’ve spent the past few months dealing with family health issues (which I don’t want to go into here) and fighting a legal battle (which I can’t go into here) and in between these issues I’ve been finishing a major sort out of my house and possessions (that’s the numerous bags to the tip and charity shop I mentioned earlier). I’ve even sorted out all my books and shock, horror, taken several hundred to the charity shop. Of course, at the same time I’ve been getting rid of books, I’ve been buying more and so my shelves are just as full. But they look nicer.

Add to that my ten day trip to New York and a week in London for the Global Travel Market plus union work and catching up with my blog and all in all I’ve got to the end of the end of year feeling quite exhausted, even more unfit and not having done any paid work in six months, thus drastically depleting my savings.

In January I’m going to sign up with some more agencies. I want to get enough work to pay my bills and have some travel money, but not have to get into working so many hours I have no time to do anything else. Then maybe, just maybe, 2019 can be the year when I get back into taking care of myself.

What Went Well in 2018

Travel

• The year started with me staying with friends in Kent and visiting some of London’s suburbs as part of my exploring London’s suburbs series.

• A few further trips to London over the year gave me the chance to try new things like going for afternoon tea on a cake bus. Seriously, it’s a thing!

• At Easter I was in Brighton for my union’s annual conference and got to fit in a bit of sightseeing. As I was already on the south coast I arranged to meet up with a friend after the conference and we walked the coast from Eastbourne to Hastings taking in a few art galleries along the way. I finished the trip by doing a bit of exploring by myself and sleeping in my campervan.

• I attended the Traverse travel blogging conference in May. It’s the second time I’ve been and is so much fun as well as being really educational and great for networking. It was held in Rotterdam which is a city I’ve only previously spent a day in and hadn’t thought much of it. It has changed so much and the conference provided me with a wonderful opportunity to revisit and form a whole new opinion. It also meant I could nip up to Amsterdam for a few days afterwards to catch up with a friend and spend a bit of time in one of my favourite cities. I managed to squeeze in a day at the famous cheese market in Alkmaar too.

• I’d hoped to spend the summer in Greenland and Denmark, but just had no time to plan it. And Greenland doesn’t seem like the sort of place you can just turn up in. At least not without being a millionaire. So I fell back on my soul home of Shetland and headed up there for a few weeks. I then stopped off in Orkney to visit the last few inhabited islands (with a ferry link) that I still had to get to. It feels like a big achievement to have visited them all.

• The summer finished with me spending some time in mainland Scotland. I used to spend quite a lot of time exploring Scotland, but then I discovered the islands and the mainland became somewhere to pass through. It was nice this time to remind myself how beautiful the mainland is too. And I got to explore places associated with my newfound Outlander addiction.

• In October I ticked a challenge off my 60 Things to Do Before I’m 60 list and made my first trip to New York. I loved it and can’t wait to go back. I’ve written some posts on it already, but have lots more to come.

• In November I was back in London for the World Travel Market and caught up with a friend in Buckinghamshire and spent a day in Oxford.

Everything else

• I led my first workshop. I did this for my union at the Supply Teachers’ Conference and I felt it went really well. It’s certainly given me confidence for doing more things like this.

• I got the ceiling fixed in my van. It’s been falling down for the past few years and getting worse and I didn’t know what to do about it. I found someone to completely redo it before I went away for the summer and I love it.

• I attended a writers’ conference for the first time. It was held locally and was full of useful talks and workshops and I came away feeling really inspired.

• I got all my books sorted out and organised. This was a mammoth task and it feels so good to have it done.

• I stood up for myself (this is the legal issue I referred to above and so I can’t say any more about it).

• All of the things I mentioned above about sorting my house and finances.

Hello 2019

As we move into 2019 I’m going to continue working towards the goals I set for 2018 with more emphasis on the third one about taking care of myself and getting fit again.

I’m also going to try to check off at least five challenges from my 60 Things to Do Before I’m 60 list, visit at least one new country and finally, finally, FINALLY get round to publishing my book.

Happy New Year everyone!!

So how did your 2018 look? And what plans and goals for 2019 do you have? Do tell! Share your thoughts, hopes and dreams in the comments below.

Like this? Read these next:

• Goodbye 2017 … Hello 2018
• Getting Some Inspiration
• Getting Organised – January 2018 Review

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