2015 Reflection

Hello. I know, I know, I pretty much dropped off the face of the internet at the end of August and haven't returned since. This year was unfortunately the year that I didn't blog much at all, mainly due to being so busy and having to put blogging at the bottom of the priority list. I'm not coming to you in 2016 with a comeback as I have decided, which is probably evident from last years posts, that I want to keep this space as an online diary for myself. I wasn't actually planning on posting today, or any day for that matter, but after reading the abundance of reflection and goals posts I couldn't help but look back at my own and it just didn't feel right beginning this year without a reflection of the last and goals for the present. I hope you all had a great new year, we had a nice night of drinks and a takeaway at a friends.

2014 was a year of achievements which you can read about here and it was going to be pretty hard to beat in 2015 so I planned to focus on some smaller goals. Looking back at those goals I sadly didn't do too well at fulfilling them. I did get my teeth whitened which you can read about here and I signed up to a new gym and tried out a variety of classes which I was so nervous to do on my own but i'm pleased to say that I now try and do at least one class per day, five days per week when I have the time, my favourites are pump and spinning. I also bought a new car which can be seen in this post. Another goal, no phones in the mornings when with Lee was one which was forgotten about. We rarely get a morning together and most of our mornings are spent hitting snooze for as long as possible and rushing around. However, I do think we've naturally prioritised saying morning and having a cuddle whilst dosing off again before picking up our phones, we're certainly not completely unattached from our phones when together though. Sadly, The goals I didn't quite succeed at were learn to cook, make a scrapbook, finish all uni assignments before 11pm the day before they're due and plan things.

Something I briefly mentioned in last years goals post was that moving out was the next 'big thing' but I certainly thought it would be another year or two until we could afford to actually do it. However, we were extremely lucky and with some help from family, who we're renting from, we moved into our first home in September. It's something I love being part of as the whole place was a huge renovation project, it was a lot of hard work but it's nice to know that we had our say in the design and that we helped pull the place together. Moving out has certainly been a challenge and I was very homesick in the beginning but I'm okay now, it takes time. Our home took up the latter half of the year and trying to juggle that, work, uni, volunteering and placement hasn't been easy so I have spent the last 3-4 months, which seem like a complete blur, in serious stress. Of course I do really love having our own space, sometimes I think it would have been better to wait until I had finished uni but we had to take the amazing opportunity when it was there.

More highlights of 2015 include our anniversary trip to the Lake District in January, a girls holiday to Barcelona in June and a trip to Leeds with the girls in October. I seen The Script live and was shortlisted for volunteer of the year at the Northumberland's Finest Awards in February which was such a good feeling. The year was full of cinema trips, meals out, nights out, nights in with friends as well as my 20th birthday, a few relaxing bike rides in Kielder and a day out in the Lake District during Summer. Finally, I stepped further out of my comfort zone on a volunteering residential which involved ghyll scrambling and jumping into waterfalls, it was freezing and terrifying but the sense of achievement was so worth it. I should probably stop rambling now, I hope your 2016 is a great one! 

Rachael x