Goodbye 2015, Hello 2016!

The few blogs I follow started publishing posts about their 2015 in review. After I finished reading each one I thought, wow I wish I'd accomplished that much in a year. Then I started thinking about what I had done this year and I was rather shocked, despite not having a full-time job on top of my job as a mummy I still feel like I've accomplished a hell of a lot. I guess I have never sat down and reflected on all that has happened to me in the past year before. I'm sure I will have missed a few things but below is the list of things that immediately sprung to mind when performing this exercise, I suggest you give it a try, you might just be shocked by how much you have grown in a year.

In 2015...

• Cyril celebrated his first birthday surrounded by friends and family. It was one hell of a party and although we were exhausted afterwards I realised just how much I love to entertain and surround myself with people I love. My family and friends in America were desperately missed but Royal Oak would have burst at the seams if everyone we love were able to attend. 

• My father in law died and left an irreplaceable hole in the Soper family and my heart. From the moment I met him 9 years ago I felt a connection. As I got to know him more he started to feel like a second father to me even though he would often say "God damn fucking American" (in his best accent) when I refused to admit I was wrong because Americans are never wrong right? And I would give it right back to him making fun of some British antic.  He always stood up for me, thought I was amazing at everything I did for him at Stead McAlpin (even though he once walked in on me making curtains for my mother during working hours) and he never ceased to make me laugh. He had an interesting sense of humour to say the least. You needed to know how to read him but I found that relatively easy and we had many jokes during Sunday roast, except the time I told him I didn't like cauliflower and cheese, that was no laughing matter and he demanded I take a portion, to which I obliged. After all he was throwing meat across the table with a knife.

• My father in laws illness changed me more then I realised at the time. When he could no longer walk I turned to exercise and found a new love for life. Each painful minute doing Kayla Itsines BBG,  I thought of how lucky I was to have the capacity to perform such high intensity exercises even if they left me destroyed on the floor afterwards. If it was sunny and warm I strapped Cyril to his bike seat and we went for a cruise. I didn't want to waste a single minute of this amazing life I have. I guess after Cyril was born I put a lot of things to one side and then all of a sudden I remembered who I was and just how much I love to be active outdoors, thank you Chris for waking me up.

• Sparred on by my desire to live life to the fullest I started reading the Hands Free Mama blog and little by little I turned away from technology. I got so obsessed, as I often do with such things, that I wanted to get rid of the TV. Josh refused, so we met in the middle and agreed the TV could only be watched after Cyril went to bed or if Man U were playing. I deleted Facebook from my phone, stopped all notifications, kept my phone stored out of reach when I was driving and made a conscious effort to leave it off when Cyril was awake. If it takes me hours to reply to your text messages or emails, this is why. I had to do this because when I stopped to think about my obsessive phone usage I was shocked by how much life I was wasting because I was staring at other people's lives through my phone. I also discovered that Facebook brought little joy to my life, I either felt like I wasted an hour scrolling through statuses that didn't really interest me or I was left depressed by what everyone else was doing that I wasn't, particularly when I saw posts about California because I just miss my friends too damn much. Several weeks ago I downloaded a phone app called moment to see how much or little I use my phone each day. Now that I've made all the changes listed above I'm happy to say that on average I am on my phone anywhere from 15-30 minutes/day which is a number I can live with.

• I discovered minimalism through the minimalist baker, I've been making her recipes for over a year and one day I decided to read more about the amazing cook I follow religiously. In typical Tatiana fashion I didn't actually realise she was a minimalist until I read her bio. Intrigued by her decision to only own one pair of jeans I started devouring every blog related to minimalism. Instantly taken by this lifestyle, due to my OCD tendencies, I started getting rid of everything of mine that I found superfluous. Josh was totally freaked out at first but now that I've been getting rid of stuff for several months, and we've agreed his stuff is off limits, he's relaxed a bit and has even agreed the house feels lighter and easier to clean.

• One blog leads to another and before I knew it I was on a shopping ban. I've been on a shopping ban since July and have only bought one item not on my excluded list, a totally radical jacket in Portugal because I didn't pack anything warm to wear at night. After 5 nights of freezing Josh convinced me to make the purchase stating that I'd been talking about how much I loved the coat since I first laid eyes on it. Sadly, 5 days after I made this purchase I saw the jacket on sale for 40% less then what I paid. It was an extremely painful moment for me and it took some serious self-talk to just LET IT GO!

• I discovered the benefits of meditation early in 2015 and although I'm not meditating every day for 30 minutes like I used to, I'm able to identify when I'm getting uptight and need to meditate to find my chakra. 

• We travelled to Spain, Portugal, Massachusetts, NYC, Washington, New Hampshire, Devon and Edinburgh.

• I discovered RIE parenting and now feel confident in my ability to parent Cyril respectfully. It has transformed our relationship, taught Josh and me some valuable skills along the way and we both feel that Cyril is such a good boy the majority of the time. I owe all of his behaviour to integrating the RIE philosophy and techniques. In fact, Josh and I follow this style of parenting so closely now that we often feel we're using the techniques on Hobson, and surprisingly they work on him too!

• I found Raise Healthy Eaters, another parenting blog, and have continued to research ways to feed my family healthy food without battles at the dinner table. I've created a set menu for the month and am anxious to get started in January just to see if it makes cooking less stressful. Five out of the seven days of the week have a theme: Easy Monday (Josh has lacrosse practice this night), Taco Tuesday (any Mexican entree), Whatever Wednesday (This will be Cyril's day to choose when he gets older), Ethnic Thursday, Italian Friday, and Square Meals Saturday or Sunday.

• We've had several best friends visit us this year. First, our dear friend Kirstie and her friend Corey met us for a rendezvous in Edinburgh then we welcomed Josh's best friend Al into our temporary home before Christmas. Both trip were way too much fun and ended too soon and we hope to see both of them again in 2016.

• Even though we weren't able to move back to Moorhouse in 2015 as we had originally planned to do, the builders have made steady progress and we're hoping we'll finally be home in 2016.

• My best friend welcomed her first baby to the world, Ani Robin Cinquemani in May, and I was able to give her lots of cuddles over the summer.

• I started a photography course and am halfway through learning how to edit in photoshop. I'm in no way an expert but my photos have improved significantly since I started shooting raw images in manual mode.

• I went to the Lord Huron concert in Manchester with Josh and Jess and both Jess and I now have a secret crush on all of the band members, shhhhh!

Well that's all I can remember right now, sorry for the random order of events, I never was much of a writer! For 2016 I have a few goals and I'll check back in next year to see if they've been met:

• I'm going to start the year with an empty jar and fill it with notes about good things that happen. Then next New Year's Eve we'll empty it out and see all of the great stuff that happened in 2016. This may end up being in journal form however as I don't think my OCD will allow me to stare at a jar filled with paper.

• I will continue to do my exercises to the best of my ability 2-3 times a week, attend yoga on Tuesday nights and go rock climbing once a week with Josh and Cyril.

• I would like to meditate 2-3 times a week, obviously daily would be ideal but I'm just being realistic with myself.

• The shopping ban will continue and hopefully our nest egg will grow as a result.

• Lastly, I hope to continue growing through further research on parenting and minimalism

Happy New Year everyone, cheers to a fresh start!