Goodbye, farewell, auf....(etc etc, you get the picture)

It has been an embarrassing long time since I have blogged here so you may have thought I had already left but I was actually weighing up my blogging options. I started this blog at the beginning of 2011 to track my year and how successful my resolutions were going to be. As I approached my 40th birthday and what felt like, the 40th year of making the same bloody resolutions each time, I decided that if I didn't hit them in 2011, then I would give up completely and find some new goals.

The resolutions were basically to get fit/lose weight and to have a proper crack at writing. I had varying success. I went to the gym consistently all last year and am still going! I know, I'm shocked too! I have lost just under a stone and am definitely fitter than I was (although it's all relative of course)

I haven't put as much effort into writing as I would have liked, BUT I did win my first competition (and my first proper prize money!!) and I also managed to complete Nanowrimo on my first attempt so I'm going to go ahead and call the writing a success too.

So this blog has served it's purpose and I am moving on to newer plains. Namely wordpress. If you would like to continue hearing about my procrastination with lots of pictures of the food I eat thrown in, then please come and find me at Toxic Vegan I hope to see you there.

xx

Nanowrimo - ohmywordo

Quick update - I am struggling with this a LOT! Day 22 and I have 22,000 words under my belt. Just to recap, the target is 50,000 by the end of November. I need to write around 2,700 every day to finish on time. I managed 5,000 yesterday which shows you just how far behind I had become! Or just how much can be done in one day! Depends if you are a half full or half empty kind of person.

I was *this* close to quitting twice last week but have decided to plough on! Wish me luck. I will definitely do this again next year but will plan a little and decide before the 2nd Nov that I'm going to join!!
To any other crazies out there tapping a way - best of british :-)

PS 22k in 22 days then 28k in 8 days - of course it's doable :-/

PPS I will post back in December when I have time to breathe again and let you know if I made it or not. Place your bets......

Nanowrimo

Well I have been very quiet of late I'm afraid, usual life things invading my writing time - building works, husbands 40ths (yes, he had 2 like the queen), kids etc etc but now I am really throwing myself into it. I have registered for Nanowrimo

I know!!!

I have never really looked into this properly but it kind of struck me as the literary equivalent of 60 minute makeover. Still, the combination of a) building work on the house starting this week and being VERY noisy (who knew) and b) a friends chance status on facebook deliberating entering have resulted in me deciding to knock out a novel in a month. I figure if I'm taking refuge from the noise and dust in coffee shops and libraries around town then I might as well put the free wifi to good use?

To put this into some perspective, I have been planning a food blog for some months (I felt like I wanted to split the writing/health & fitness aspects of this blog) and have been contemplating a name for over 2 months now.

I couldn't write 3 words in 2 months, and now I am planning over 2000 a day. The mind boggles. Well, enough talking about it - I need to get cracking on the novel. Did I mention that I don't have a plan or idea yet??

Good luck to any others entering the madness this month - I will keep you posted - if my fingers don't fall off first.

It struck me today how much my Dad would have loved twitter...

......it actually punched me full in the chest. The thought struck, like many good thoughts, while I was cleaning the bath (this may go part way to explaining why our bath is still tie-died on the bottom half.)

Now the thought has lodged itself in my chest like a kettle crisp swallowed lengthways. He once text me from a ski-trip to tell me he was up a mountain drinking beer in the sun while I was at work, he phoned me from concerts at wembley and was the first person I knew to have a fax machine. Aside from my Grandmother, and that's another story.

Twitter would have been irresistible.

So I'll add twitter to the list - the latest addition joining iPads, booja booja ice cream, sky on the go and grandchildren. You miss so much Dad. We miss more.

You down with NLP, yeah you know me

Picked up this Change your Life with NLP at the library last week. Am just a few chapters in but really loving it. So far I have focused on my goals, written a 3 year plan, looked at my life balance and learnt about the power of the mind. Pretty cool for 4 chapters huh?!

I am excited about finishing the rest of this book and will definitely report back, but wanted to share a quote from the end of chapter 4.

Tip: Nothing has any power over you other than that which you give it through your daily thoughts.

I really LOVE this. Reminds me of the Dune books saying that fear is the mind killer. Well, that's enough feel good Oprah shit for one morning. Happy monday to you all :-)

Not writing.....or am I?

Have not been doing much writing. But I have been doing a LOT of tweeting. And updating facebook. And even making up a few vegan recipes for a newsletter. So that's kind of writing, isn't it? It's all words? Most of them comprehensible too. If you counted all the little 140 character thoughts that I have sent out over the summer that would be a lot of writing. I may count them up later, out of interest. Mine, obviously, not yours. Unless, you know, you have a thing about word counts. In which case, get help.

Summer holidays are over on wednesday next week and I am all set to start a new kick arse routine. I think I have mentioned before that I love a new year, or a new week and a new term is right up there for me. Time for a new timetable, new goals and best of all, a shiny new pencil case. Expect more blogging from me coming right at you from this September.*

*nb this probably means blogs every day for a week, then a couple the next week, before it dwindles off to an appalling 1 a month. You know, if past performance is anything to go by!

Tattoo Tuesday Link to Tattoo Mummy

I have 9 butterflies from my left hip to shoulder - 1 for each of the females on my side of the family. They each chose the colour of their butterfly - this is one of my favourites, it is silver/grey for my daughter Jasmine (age 7 then, 9 now).

There are some things that I would change about the butterflies as a whole if I could (!) but I love the idea behind the tattoo and keeping these chicks close!