Ok chaps. Festive fun is over. Trees are coming down, decorations are being put away, turkeys across the land are no longer in hiding and I’m sure our waistlines are all a little…tight. (Erm, except for mine actually. Food poisoning + loss of appetite for three days = a trim and smug Sama, despite the day of hell that shall now be known as Vomday.)
2013 has been around the corner for a couple of months now, but it is finally HERE (Happy New Year by the way), and I’m sure I’m not alone in feeling like life can get back on track again. I’m not even going to put this bit in brackets, I’m actually looking forward to going back to work today. Routine makes me productive; lying on my arse watching Christmas telly and eating too much cheese and chocolate does not.
So mainly for my own benefit but also as sharing is caring (and boy, do I care about you lovely lot), I thought I’d share my thoughts and aims (you may say resolutions, I don’t like to make promises) for the coming months. In bullet-point form, obviously.
- The Wedding Diet is ON, although I use the word ‘diet’ very loosely. I hate diets and somehow usually manage to gain weight when I’m actively trying to lose it. But I would like to lose just a couple of pounds for my wedding in May (which should theoretically be easily achieved by eating smaller portions and less sugar), and more importantly, tone up my wobbly bits which means HITTING THE GYM WITH A VENGEANCE. I’m using capital letters, I must be serious.
- Speaking of the gym, I need to seriously sort out my attitude to gym sessions. I enjoy going to the gym, but only after I’ve been. Never before (I don’t want to go, please don’t make me go, maybe I won’t go…), and certainly not during (Want to stop, want to stop, oh dear god please let me stop), and I have the despicable habit of stopping as soon as I start to sweat (Ooh there we go- my forehead is moist, that means I must have worked hard. Aaaand, I’m done). Gym memberships don’t come cheap and since last May when I joined, I’ve struggled to go once a week, let alone the three times I should be going to actually make any difference. But with a New Year comes a New Attitude (who’s laughing? Paul? Is that you??) and certainly until May I shall be making every effort to go three times a week, in a routine that looks a little something like this:
- Mon or Tuesday morning: early morning swim before work
- Weds or Thurs morning: hardcore gym sesh
- Friday (day off): either class or hardcore gym sesh followed by swim and spa.
Oh, it looks so easy when you write it down.
- With only 4 months and three weeks to go until I become a Mrs, Operation Amazing Wedding must really swing in to action now. And with a To-Do list longer than my arm, I’ve finally come to realise that it’s time to DELEGATE. It’s been my baby for the last year, and I’ve greeted every generous offer of help with “Ahh, that’s sweet, thank you” whilst actually thinking “not on your nelly, mate, this is my show”. But like my stinky gym attitude, this is an even stinkier wedding planning attitude. With so much to do in a short space of time, delegation is key, and as of next week I shall be handing out carefully-chosen jobs to carefully-chosen people. Friends and family, you have been warned.
- Of course, there’s another reason I’m feeling pressured by time and that is my other baby, Utterly Wow. Not only do I have website copy and planning tools to complete in order to get the business up and running, but I already have three clients to be thinking about as well. With a job at the bridal boutique taking up the majority of my time, I NEED to re-organise my working week and put some structure to how I work. This is still to be figured out exactly but I shall be assigning days and time slots to the various areas of my working life, and more importantly, sticking to it. (Paul, are you laughing again?? Stop it!)
- And finally, that leaves my third and smallest baby (I know, I look great for three kids, right?), this little ol’ blog. I started The Utter Blog to document my wedding planning journey and connect with other brides-to-be and industry folk, and I love it deeply. But assessing 2012, and in particular the last few months, I think I’ve sometimes put too much pressure on myself to keep writing, even when I felt there was nothing to write; devoting a whole precious morning to writing one blog post when actually I had 6 other really important things to do as well. The Utter Blog isn’t going anywhere, but from now on I’m putting it out there and declaring that there shall only be one blog post a week. Yes, it had pretty much become that anyway, but I had been beating myself up for not managing more than one blog post and taking up way too much of my time thinking about it. Well, the pressure is off now, and, dear readers, I hope you stick with my random utterings and look forward to your weekly Wednesday (or Thursday) fix. And don’t worry I may still occasionally slip in the odd Friday Favourite or Sunday Utterings as well.
So I think that will do for this week! I feel rejuvenated, refreshed and re-invigorated for what should be an EPIC year of wedding-related wonder. This time next year I’ll be looking back and saying WOW, 2013 was the year I launched a business and got married. But for now, I’m off to beautify some brides dressed head to toe in brand new got-this-for-Christmas clothes.
Life is good.
Sama xxx
