How has it got to the end of January already? If feels that if Christmas was only last week. Possibly because we are still playing catch up after being ill. Yet life is rushing past us at an ever-increasing speed. One sure sign that we are growing older.
So how has our first month of documenting our progress while Creating A New Beautiful And Courageous Existence gone?
Well, we are both over our colds FINALLY which is a bonus.
Our detox and new eating strategy are also going really well. Over the last 30 days our weight has dropped considerably. Yet we are both eating reasonable amounts: no starvation diets here! We are also enjoying treats such as the newly discovered and VERY delicious Kouign-amann.
You can read the blog about our desperate need to detox here.
However, the results are all in the figures so here’s our total weight loss for January:
Andrew – 5.3kg
Nicci – 5.7kg
That’s about 11.5lbs and 12.5lbs respectively in “old money”.
Not only are the scales happier when we stand on them, there have been other changes too.
Andrew’s gone down one belt hole and I’m no longer using the extender to fasten my bras!
RESULT!
So that the general update on our January progress. What about our reflections on the blogs that we have written?
We’ve both recorded a short video about one aspect of our blogging month.
You can read Andrew’s blog about “A little of what you fancy does you good” here.
You can read my blog about “The pampering of a long zoom call” here. The blog announcing my book called “The unexpected wobble of a more gentle grief”. You can read it here.
However, we’ve published 30 blogs this January so there must be some other highlights.
Andrew’s easiest blog in January
The blog I found easiest to write as half of it was a rant was about technology getting in the way of what you want to do. This seems to be becoming a perpetual problem as digital technology is changing at an ever-increasing rate. As I get older the joys of learning new ticks is less of a joy. I was happy with how things worked before. Nothing was wrong with how I used to do things. Why does it have to change? Why is it now harder to perform the task to get the same result?
Luckily the new WordPress block system can be turned off which is good for the moment. Nicci and I were getting so frustrated that we couldn’t format blogs the way we used to. I’m sure it is better than before. Well WordPress keep on telling me it is. Yet I haven’t discovered this for myself and until I do Guttenberg will be disabled! ,
Now I love tech as much as the next person but I try very hard not to let it rule my life. Sometimes I feel I’m fighting a losing battle. You can read my article about “No plan surviving first contact with technology” here.
Nicci most challenging blog in January
Writing the blog about how supportive I think my mother would have been was always going to be a challenge. I wanted to be truthful about our relationship and yet I didn’t want it to come across as though we’d had a terrible relationship. It wasn’t like that at all. Although no one realised it at the time, we now think she’d been ill for many years. She was eventually diagnosed with a condition similar to epilepsy yet wasn’t her “episodes” were not epileptic fits. There was something else disrupting her brain functionality that was never fully diagnosed.
When she had her first “episode” the specialist she was referred to looked at some photos of her at different stages in her life. He suspected that she’d had one, or may be more, minor and undetected “episodes” over the previous two decades. That’s going to have an impact on your behaviour.
So, it was very hard to write about this truthfully while not being disrespectful of my mother or of someone who had died.
You can read my article about “The strained relationships between mothers and daughters” here.
To help you find all the blogs that we’ve published in January we’ve created a page of links for you. The blogs are groups together in their category sections. This way it will be easier for you to identify all of the proactive healing blogs or the ones about dealing with Snakes and Ladders. You can find all the links here.
Practice makes perfect
It’s all well and good writing about things in theory: however, we need to start applying what we learn. Your final task for January is to think about your response to our blogs. Please reflect on the following questions …
What are the three suggestions/blogs that have helped you most and why?
What three suggestions/blogs that could help you more if you tweak them a little?
To help you keep track of all your work for the daily activities mentioned, we have created a Monthly Diary for you to record your progress. To download your copy of “My January Canbace Diary” please click here.
Be kind to yourself …
In CANBACE friendship!
If anything I have written resonates I’d love to hear from you in the comments. I appreciate that this can be a difficult subject to speak openly about. If you don’t want me to publish your comment on the website, please let me know. I will keep your words private.
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