New Year

I'm a bit late to doing my new year post but hey I like to be different! I went back to work yesterday after a nice long 3 weeks Christmas holiday. As the students don't come back until next week it's very quiet and I couldn't think of anything I'd rather do for a few hours on a quiet afternoon at work than update my blog!

I am pleased with the progress of my challenges and felt that the number I got done last year was good. As this year I have the whole year I am expecting to complete a lot more. I already have a few in the pipeline.

The first task I will be starting on this year is the creative writing course. I signed up for one in the summer last year at a local college and that starts in two weeks time on a Tuesday evening. The course is writing children stories. I am looking forward to it although quite nervous as I haven't really done much writing before! It should be a good way to try it out though! It is only a short course of 8 weeks so it's not too big of a commitment if it turns out I'm rubbish or that I don't like it!

The second task that I have in the pipeline is to be in a TV audience. As I have already blogged I have free tickets to go and see the auditions for Britain's Got Talent in February. I'm hugely excited about that and can't wait! I just hope that I can actually get in as the tickets don't guarantee entry as they over ticket!

As well as those two things I also have the Edinburgh Festival booked for August. I have booked a hostel and got three friends who are wanting to come along so everything is set for that. All we need to do now is to book the flights up to Scotland to save the time spent on a train.

I'm sure that I will do some of the other things this year as well, such as go to Longleat, but they will be planned more in the short term. As for my monthly targets I'm not doing too badly. It looks like that I will be able to add another month to not using my credit card as I get some more money next week and I haven't had to use them so far this month. I'm behind on my swims by quite a bit and I have to admit that this weather isn't encouraging me to get undressed to jump in a pool! I may have to increase my swims in other months to reach the overall target. I haven't yet given to a charity this month but I have chosen which one I'm going to give to and will blog about that when I get round to doing it next week. The other target that I'm not doing well on is cleaning my car inside and out. I now find it hard to do the inside of it as I no longer have a drive way so I can't reach where I park my car with the hoover! I may decide to change that target to something else or I will just change it to car wash.

I am looking forward to another year and the exciting things that I can find to do!

Toys r us, toys r us, toys r us

I finished my Christmas Shopping this evening. 1st of Dec and I'm all done! I think this is the earliest I've ever completed my Christmas shopping and it feels good :) I went to Toys R Us this evening and blitzed the place! It was a pretty traumatic event by the end of the evening. I set out with a good feeling optimistic that I would be able to buy all the presents for my 6 nieces and nephews in one go without having to traipse around loads of shops. Well I did manage to do that but only only 2 and a half hours £80 later!! It was harder work than I thought to choose between so many toys and games. It then got to the final two presents and I started to become a bit of a trembling wreck. My sister said to me before I went that if I began sitting in the corner rocking I was to leave - I should probably have listened to her advice! The problem I had was that I'd found something for my two nieces but it was the same thing and that particular brand were doing an offer of buy 2 get 1 free. This would normally be great but I had the problem of then having a third thing and no one to give it to (I had already chosen things for the other 4 kids and didn't want to change those) and I didn't want to just get two and not get something free!! This is where this challenge comes into it. In order to decide what I was going to do I had to speak to my sister and my mum to find out what they had got the children and ask what my sister thought would be the best thing to get her boy. You see how I'm linking this?! To speak with all of my family members each month! One of my brothers had phoned me earlier on to speak to me about football tickets for a match we're going to later this month and I had rung my other brother to ask him what one of his children is in to at the moment. So while in Toys R Us I actually managed to speak to every single person in my family - maybe I should go more often!!!

I have been doing well with keeping in contact with my family since starting this challenge. I get on with my family anyway but I can go for months on occassions without talking to them, especially my brothers. This is mainly just down to all of us being busy and living in completely different places across the country. It's not a huge problem but I thought that as I was doing this challenge and trying to fit something for each areas of my life it would be good to do something to strengthen my family relationships. It has definitely made an impact on my relationship with one of my brothers. We have met up a couple of times since I've started the 30 things which is more than I would've done in the past. His wife is having their first baby next year so I am excited about that (yeah my 6 nieces and nephews are all by my other brother and my sister as they have three each. Next Christmas I'll be having to buy for 7!).

Well November has ended and I completed all my monthly tasks which is good. I also didn't spend anything on my credit cards so that has increased that total to 2. Unfortunately I'm not going to make that 3 months in December as I paid for Toys R Us (ok so maybe it wasn't the entire shop even if it felt it!) by credit card this evening. That's not too much of a shock though as Christmas is an expensive time and I knew that I would have to cover some things by card. I will be donating to charity a bit later in the month this time round. I'm going to be getting my benefits just before Christmas so I will give then as I have a couple of Christmas outings I need to pay for before then! I have already decided who I'm going to give to this month but I will post about that when I do it!

Tis is the Season...

With December starting tomorrow I started making my Christmas cards at the weekend. I have some photos which I had taken back in March when it was snowy here which I am using. I went to a craft shop on Friday during my lunch break and had fun choosing cards and stickers and decorative paper. I've really enjoyed making them and if I may say so myself they've come out looking really good! I've made 15 so far so only about another 10 to go which I'll do over the next couple of days. I like to start sending them towards the end of the first week of December.

December is an exciting month for me with my holiday to look forward to. I can't wait to reach the warm sir and sunshine that is waiting for us in Lanzarote! Going on holiday over Christmas is one of my tasks that I included because it is something that I've wanted to do for a long time. It feels good to have one of the larger tasks coming up as it's something more exciting than swimming twice a month!

You may have noticed (prob not!) that one of my tasks has changed. Instead of having to pay off all my credit cards I have changed it to not using my cards for a month 12 times. Paying off my credit cards is not going to be achievable. My debt is larger than what is a sensible amount to try and pay off in that time scale but I do want something regarding the debt on here as it is something I do want to get on top of. I have now not used my cards for 2 months in a row (including Nov) and it feels good to not be increasing my debt for the first time in years. I now have another 10 months to not use them at some point over the next 22 months. If I don't use them for months than that it will be an even bigger bonus!!