Oh my. What a year hey? What can be said about 2020 other than "It was just a little bit extra"?

Anyway, here I am AGAIN. I looked at the last blog post which I created on March 16th this year, never published and realized that's when it felt like time stopped. My last memory of something that resembled normal and the time since has been a vapid blur of feels, moments, highs and lows. A whole lot of lows. But there's something to be said about a global pandemic for making one take stock and think a LOT about life. One minute I'm happily enjoying lunch and beverages with a friend (oh BEND AND SNAP), next minute we are told not to leave our homes and there is a freakish shortage of toilet paper. Yep, that was all sorts of extra.

So I don't blog often as you know, and I've felt kind of guilty about that. I've had this website for quite a few years now, used to blog a bit and then life kept evolving and changing and I just never got around to it as much. And to be honest, getting me to sit still for a length of time during the day is not an easy task. Ever since I began my life change with fitness and weight loss, I'm on my feet 10 hours a day, always moving, always doing something and staying as busy as possible so I don't slip back into old habits. Its been rewarding in many ways but I find it very difficult to stay put, especially on the computer. Considering the fact I pay for this website and it's features, well it's time to utilize that and release the thoughts that swim around in my noodle from time to time. Why I might even share recipes like some head banging, domestic diva - because like so many, I've been teaching myself how to bake, how to cook and other forms of creative pursuits in order to stave off boredom. 

I do hope to spend more time on this blog in 2021, jotting down thoughts and waffling on about things that I find might be important....or not. And while I'm stubborn and refuse to set goals for a new year - nor will I firmly make resolutions, I plan to commit more time not only to this blog but also to reworking this whole website yet again to better reflect the changes in the past few years as well as the changes that I hope are to come. This time has given me a chance to grow, learn and explore things in ways I never considered. I stopped looking at various situations in terms of right or wrong  and black or white, I had to examine everything from so many different angles and dig deep. To throw a nugget of wisdom out there - never let your shovel get so dull that you cant dig harder within yourself to find treasure.

Anyway, I'm ending this year with a determination and a hope that whatever the next 12 months will bring, that it's going to be as productive and as positive as I can make it. And it's time to stop stuffing around and make some commitments to myself in various aspects of life - in terms of what I do on a business level as well as a personal level. And as mentioned, this website is my first start. While I don't want a clean slate and certainly don't buy into the whole "out with the old and into the new", it's very much time to refine things, present my work better and be a more open version of myself with less filter. That may involve the occasional naughty word and some moments of bluntness. But I'd rather march to the beat of my own drum than follow the masses and not be true to myself. It's time to just say what I think, be as I am and to hell with anyone who doesn't like it. I may own my business but I am not my business - I'm a person first and foremost. So it's time.

Time. It's a pretty precious commodity isn't it? Something we can easily take for granted, something we value yet easily waste. And I plan to be more mindful of MY time in 2021, use it more wisely, distribute it a bit more carefully and as always, take the time I need when I need it to do the things I want to do. In years past, from January onwards, it feels like my time gets scattered to the winds and pulled in various directions and this is a chance for me to adjust the sails so to speak, take control and manage my time much better. I've tried the last two years to better how my time is spent and often have failed in order to appease others and that has to stop. When you juggle too many balls, something gets dropped and my business has suffered for that.

You see, people make the assumption that because I'm self employed; that my time is in abundance, that I sit here with all the time in the world to spare. And that I will drop everything I'm doing to meet their needs. And I hear the same from others in various fields - that because they run their own business, they must have allllllllllllll the free time in the world and can just do whatever they want at whim. And I'll speak for those people right now and say that is a 100% incorrect assumption. No! We do NOT have all the free time in the world. No! We do NOT have the magic ability every day to just wander away from whatever we are doing so we can slack off, watch TV, go out for lunch and flit around like birds. A creative soul isn't always the most business minded and can lose focus when distracted.

Most of the time when we are not doing what we want to be doing business wise, we are hustling. And when we are not hustling, we are creating. And when we are not creating, we are juggling this ball called life with our homes, our loved ones and the usual day to day things that are part of our existence. So no - my time isn't just something that others can expect me to give away whenever they think it suits them. My time is MINE and I will control it accordingly. I've not had a lot of control over the events of this year but I can control how I spend my time and plan to be more committed to this happening.

Which means a schedule and routine. Which means dedicated time each week to projects, to my husband and dogs, exercise, marketing, social media, to my home. And my goal for 2021 is to adhere to that schedule and routine as much as humanly possible. As well as that, I plan to try and detach myself from that little annoying gadget called a cell phone and have less online presence so I can be PRESENT in the here and now. In the real world. Time at night, when I finally stop for the day, that's when I can catch up on the more social aspect of life - maybe even a quick check in during breakfast. But in order to increase productivity, I need to stop staring at that little screen and responding to every message the minute I see it or hear it come in. We make ourselves so accessible on social media that I think sometimes people forget boundaries and have that expectation that someone will always be there on that little electronic device to answer them. So enough of that - I've got to step away from that with more frequency and have done a pretty good job the past few days I think.

Next topic! Yes I'm on a roll now. Still relevant to the above topic but veering slightly into a different direction. When it comes to how I spend my time, I want to do so with a lot of consideration, thought and purpose. It's time to shed a few bad habits of doing things that I've been trying to break away from for some time now. As life trots along and I get a little older, I've realized that I've somehow accumulated a house full of STUFF. And I'm beyond ready to simplify. As I told someone recently, life can be like a junk drawer and if its neglected, it will become cluttered and unmanageable. So it's really time for me to clean out my "junk drawer" so to speak, get rid of things that no longer bring me happiness or peace and break the habit of loading more stuff into my junk drawer. I can certainly live with less and that will allow me to appreciate what I have all the more. And when I do decide to hunt and gather, it will only be for things that help create joy and moments to cherish.

2019 was a year filled with so many amazing experiences and I realized that I was loading up my life with a ton of memories and filling my world with less clutter. Obviously for reasons we all can understand, 2020 was not filled with as many amazing experiences, not as memories created - and as things waddle along, it's unlikely that I'll be zipping into the new year doing more goat yoga or signing up for a flash mob or silent disco. I'm a realist, I know that even when these vaccines come out, the odds of the pandemic vanishing forever is very minimal at best and it may take years for life to revert back to something resembling normal. So again with the time, I'll be using it wisely in the year to come, spending it wisely on doing the things that make me happiest. And hopefully I'll manage to squeak in some great times with dear friends to create some memories that surpass all that I'd hope for.

And if by chance a silent disco happens - well that will be the icing on the cake. Even if it's in my front yard with my future new neighbors. Have disco balls, will disco.

So that's it for now my friends. It's the end of the year as we know it.......and I feel fine.

Stay well, stay happy, cherish your time and dance like you've got ants in your undies.

Sam.