This week has been a big week for me. Well, not really. Relatively big, I mean, in that I’ve had to go outside several times and even have conversations with other adult humans (it’s half term and there is only so much indoor time with my children I can take). There have also been multiple celebration days this week, so I thought I’d take a moment to observe these and how they’ve made me feel. In reverse order of date, but probably order of significance, they are:
Chinese New Year
Kung Hei Fat Choi, everyone! I love Chinese New Year. My mother is Chinese, and while as a family we observe very few Chinese traditions, we are sticklers about the terribly important custom of making a whole load of food to celebrate the new year. This is happening on Sunday and I am very excited about it. But the other reason I love Chinese New Year is for the same reason I like the other New Year: it’s a chance to look to the year ahead and make (more) resolutions. I have almost always failed at my resolutions by this point in the year, so I really appreciate the chance for a reboot. My resolution/ new philosophy for this year was “Think less, do more.” This was very easy to do at the start of the year; I was between editing projects, so I had time to tackle all the other bits of my life that really benefitted from that kind of proactive approach. But in recent weeks I’ve had more actual editing to do, and it’s very easy to slip into a pattern of edit-sleep-repeat. Sometimes you’ve just got to do that because deadlines, but it’s not necessarily the best thing for your health, your state of mind, or your business. This blog, for example, has been neglected, because I thought about it and decided I didn’t have time to write anything. But perhaps if I had already made the decision to blog, set aside a small amount of time to write a post and just done it, I would have been able to get a post out sooner, and it probably wouldn’t have taken time away from anything important. So, in the Year of the Dog, I resolve to stick to this. Think less, do more. And do exercise. Which I will need to do after the amount of food I’m planning to eat on Sunday.
Valentine’s Day
Valentine’s Day. The day we dedicate to the one we love. Or the day we spend on a train and get the one we love to pick us up from the station, then make him put the children to bed while we catch up on work. Oops. I’m not a one for Valentine’s Day, really. I don’t see the point of it. Not that I objected at all to the bottle of wine my husband bought me. But if Valentine’s Day is about celebrating the ones we love, I feel it’s OK to take a minute to do that here. My family have been wonderful as I embarked on this crazy journey into freelancing. My husband has never stopped encouraging me. And my girls have been so understanding of the fact that Mammy sometimes has to shut herself in her office for days at a time. Perhaps it’s a bit odd to talk about love and business, but if I ever find myself in need of motivation, there it is.
Pancake Day
This is not significant in any way, other than the fact that a Nutella-and-banana pancake is a beautiful thing, and this week I got to eat three of them.
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