January Letter 2025
Happy New Year! A Special Offer, and 9 posts to change your thinking...
As you’re reading this, I am in Japan. So I wrote this before I went, imagining it as a summary of the year that was, in order to be ready for the year ahead. And indeed below, I have shared links to 9 posts (all should be unlocked so in front of the auto-3-month archive paywall) that I really want to make sure you’ve read before we go on. But at this moment in time I also find myself with various random thoughts, along the lines of the following…
When you pack to go away for several weeks, you really see how little you truly need, ergo, there may be more clearing to be done next year! I love to travel light and the Technicals backpacks have been a holiday gamechanger. My rule of thumb is a week’s worth of clean underwear and socks, 2 bottoms, 4 tops, 2 jumpers, 1 jacket, walking boots, 1 pair trainers, PJs, toiletries, 2 x books, my paints and a sketch book/notebook. Plus snacks, water bottle, wallet, phone, passports and a packet of Nurofen Meltlets (no water required).
It’s interesting what I’m sad to leave. Number one our doggo, of course. He’s getting on a bit now so I worry that three weeks in dog time is an eternity. But he’ll be somewhere he’s much loved, so I try to see it as him having his own little doggy hotel break. After that it’s my plants! I shall sit them all in the bath with an inch of water and hope for the best.
How getting the fridge to empty becomes an extreme sport. What mad combinations of ‘curry’ can be concocted to leave nothing perishable? I also batch cook several slow cooker meals to put in the freezer so when returning, tired and jet-lagged, we do not have to do a supermarket run. I cook up any spare fruit to freeze too. And while I do all of this, I think, I should really do this even when we’re not going away.
I also have to do all the laundry and leave the beds with clean sheets on. Carpets must be vacuumed, floors freshly mopped, the works. Which is rough if your morning call time is 5am. But that’s the way I roll. It’s about how my home can make me feel when I return. Anyone else?
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Apart from this I’m not having any New-Year-New-Me thoughts. I have no resolutions to share. I’m not joining a gym, or taking up a new hobby. I shall continue eating chocolate, and keep enjoying the occasional cocktail. But I think this is why I love being away at this time of year — I feel reprieved of all expectations and obligations. On Christmas Day we’ll have been touring Kyoto. On New Year’s Day, we’ll be in Tokyo. Beyond that is yet to be seen, and that’s just fine.
I shall absolutely continue to write on here though. I love this platform. I love the research I find myself doing, and I love sharing those findings with you. So please do join me for the ride, take advantage of the New Year Special offer, let me know what subjects you’d like me to cover, and I’ll see you here again shortly! Kicking off, I suspect, with a Why I Went to Japan post. I’ll also be writing about hypnotherapy which has fundamentally changed my life.
Instead of new year resolutions, I make a new year word pledge. A word to sum up how I want to live the coming year. For 2025, my word is ‘boundaries’ which I hope will help me in navigating relationships, demands etc I’m self employed so can find myself saying
‘Yes’ to all sorts of requests some of which are, unreasonable it has to be acknowledged. My daughter has chosen ‘joy’ as she has spent a few years saving for her house deposit putting any idea of spending on fun on the back burner. She’s achieved that now
Happy New Year 🎉✨🎉
I’m in the live more buy less camp for 2025. Thinking of trying your December challenge again until I’m there and it’s all gone. However off to Marrakesh soon so that might be hard 😜 but going to try really hard too xx