My Goals for 2015

This year I really want to make more of an effort working towards the life I want to live. I have a very long list of changes I would like to make which focus on three main areas: diet, fitness and life. I came across the book 52 Small Changes: One Year to a Healthier, Happier You a couple of years ago, and I really like the concept of making a small change every week. The bigger goals like "eat healthier" become smaller, more manageable goals like "eat 4 to 6 serving of vegetables per day". This gives you a chance to really focus on achieving that one goal each week. Sounds like a good idea to me, so I'm going to try it out this year and incorporate as many of the changes that I want to make as I can. Really, how hard can it be?

As with anything like this, everyone is different. Everyone has different goals, interests and capabilities. Hence why I am not going to be following the plan laid out in this book to the T, but simply as a guide. A lot of the changes laid out in the book are things I agree with, however some of them I am not interested in so I will be replacing those with one of my personal goals.
I wanted to document the changes I make on here, firstly for accountability but also to keep check of progress and to share my experiences. At the end of each week I will share with you the change I focused on, what I did and whether I achieved it. For this week I thought it would be a good idea to give you an idea of my end goals for each area.

Diet
Over the last few years I have become increasingly more interested in living more healthily. I have read a lot on what is good for our bodies and what isn't, however very little of this information I have actually put into practice. I have been trying to go dairy free for over a year now but never fully committed to it. I am admittedly addicted to sugar so would like to cut that out. I am considering going gluten free. I would like to eat a lot more vegetables, eat three proper meals a day and snack healthily.

Fitness
Currently I do not do any kind of exercise. This is very bad. I am unfit, I get out of breath easily and I have very little strength or stamina. I have never enjoyed sports, and P.E. was always the lesson I dreaded at school. However, now that I'm a bit older and a lot less active than I used to be, I really do recognise the benefits of it. I've got no specific goals for fitness, but soon as though I'm starting from the bottom any progress is good.

Life 
This category includes pretty much anything not covered by the previous two. Household, relationship, finance and self development goals included. I want to figure out what I enjoy and want to do with my life, get more organised, improve my money management and and stay in contact with friends and family to name a few.

The Beauty of Going for a Walk

I have many memories of going on walks with my family. It was something we often did. Something to get us out the house, get some fresh air and blow the cobwebs away. Maybe it was something to wear us out when we were young and full of energy, and something free that we could all do together.
More often than not we wouldn't even get in the the car. We would simply walk out the front door and see which direction took our fancy.
I remember walking to primary school. There was a few others from the village that also did and we would sometimes be all walking together. Even though it was at least a half an hour walk, only the rain or lack of time would stop us. In the Summer we would enjoy the walk more, playing and chasing each other on the way home. I remember the steep hill we had to walk on the way out of the village and the many times that I fell and injured my knee. In the Autumn we would collect conkers and play with them in the school playground.
I remember many of the walks we took as a family to Meanporth beach. I specifically remember the time when my Dad taught me how to whistle. He spent the whole way there showing me with persistence how to shape my lips and blow, demonstrating himself, until I finally mastered it. I then spent the whole way back whistling, so pleased with my achievement. 

When we got a dog, I would walk him to the beach with my Dad almost every day of the week. I would love running across the beach with Sam, chasing him and throwing sticks.
On a cold windy day we would often get wrapped up warm and walk along the cliffs, or drive to kennack or cadgwith and take a walk through the woods. We would appreciate our nice warm house all the more when we returned.
If I ever needed time to think. If life ever felt like it was getting too much. If I just need time alone. I would take myself out for walk, usually with Sam, to the top of the cliffs. I would sit on a bench up the there looking out to sea, listening to nothing but the wind and waves, and the thoughts in my head.

It didn't even matter if it was wet outside. We would dress up in waterproofs and embrace whatever the weather was. 

In the autumn our walks would often take us blackberry picking. This was something me, James and Dad normally did and then Mum would make a lovely apple and blackberry crumble with our pickings. On cold days we would sometimes stop to get a hot drink from a cafe on the way back.

I've realised I don't go on walks hardly at all anymore. Where I live now is quite different to the cliffs and valleys and beaches of Cornwall. I had lived in Cornwall my whole life and so knew the place well. I knew all the places to go on a day out, all the beaches along the coast, all the footpaths we could walk along. There's certainly advantages to where I'm living now but there's also many thing I miss in Cornwall. I suppose after time, and a lot of exploring the area we will get to know the place we live now better.

Back to University

Please forgive the lack of posts this month, I plan on getting back on schedule by the end of this week. I started back at university on the 19th of this month and the following weekend my Mum came to stay with us for 3 nights, so I've been a little busy.
It's really good to be back at University. After such a long summer holiday it's nice to be busy again and to get back into a routine. It did feel strange going to lectures again though as it'd been about 5 months since the last one. It was pretty horrible weather on the first day back and I got soaked, so I really hope it's not going to be like that all winter!
It was really great to see Mum, even if it wasn't for long. I'd been missing Cornwall and my family over the summer, especially as living so far away I don't get to go back often. The first afternoon I showed her around where we live here in Seaford. On the Saturday we spent the day in Brighton doing all the typical touristy things, and the day after we visited Eastbourne.

After a full week back at University, me and Michael realised that it's going to be harder to get days off together with his shifts being different every week and me mostly just getting the weekends off. So we took the chance last Sunday to have a day out together. We went to the Sealife Centre in Brighton as we had a 2 for 1 voucher to use. I really enjoyed our day together, and looking at all the animals in the aquarium. We took a lot of photos but it was hard to get any good ones with such low lighting.

After visiting the aquarium we brought doughnuts from the pier before heading home. We ordered chinese for dinner and watched a movie. I really do look forward to the the days we have off together, or even the time we spend together everyday.

My Day

Right...so I've been so bad at writing on my blog since I've moved to Uni. But I would like that to change that as I do actually enjoy writing these posts. And no time better than the present so I'm gonna get back into writing by talking about my day.

I hate 9am starts. I know it's far better than when I was at college as don't have to travel for an hour and a half beforehand, but I am simply not a morning person! I meant to get up at 7:45 this morning but ended up pressing the snooze button for the next 20 minutes before finally surfacing. After that, getting dressed, doing my make-up and trying to eat breakfast was a complete rush. I left my bedroom at 8:50 and got to the lecture theater just in time.
It was Human Physiology, a lecture on the endocrine system and muscular system. During that lecture I just felt so tired though, so found it hard to concentrate. I don't even know why as I survived at college with a lot less sleep than I got last night.
After that we had a Human Physiology lab on histology. We were looking at tissues taken from organs of a rat, such as kidney, lungs or small intestine slides. I don't mind using a microscope to look at the slides and identify structures, but I hate drawing them. The unlucky thing about it though is this lab is assessed and we need to hand in 5 drawings showing appropriate level of detail and answer various questions about the tissues. We have two lab sessions to complete this in but I only managed to get 1 of the drawings finished on this first session. I found it so hard to draw a representation of what I could see. Also they expected more detail to be drawn than what I have previously had to when drawing from a microscope.
Finally for today I had a tutorial session. For this we had to prepare answers to questions based on DNA structure and discussed DNA replication. We have this session in a small group of 6 people, so everyone has to be involved in the discussions and can't go unnoticed. I think it's also a great way to show how much you know compared to everyone else. It certainly made me think that I need to do a bit more reading on the subject.
I made lunch when I got home, pesto pasta. Then I tried to get some work done but wanted something sweet to eat so I made some doughnut muffins instead. I'm now going to re attempt getting the work done!

Brittany, France - the place, the culture, the people, the life.

I am currently on holiday in France visiting my grandparents. I've taken my brother with me and we came across on the ferry to Brittany last Tuesday. We're staying at their house in central Brittany until next Friday.

It's a lovely place to be here. The countryside is beautiful and the land is a lot less populated than it is back in the UK. I love that they've still got huge forests out here, and seem to use a lot more renewable energy than we do. I love the style of houses out here and culture that's still kept strong. They have an attitude that if it's not broken then there's no need to replace it, so many people still use old things that we wouldn't. The bakeries here appear to be so traditional, baking fresh bread everday, and also the crossiants, baguettes and fruit tarts (made with patisserie custard which I love!). They also seem more self-suffient than the British, many tending to their own vegetable gardens and keeping animals for produce. The way of life out here is far more relaxed than what we're used to. All the shops in the towns and cities close at midday for their lunch break, but this would be almost unheard of in the UK. It's a lovely place to live out here and a great place to be growing up for the children. The kind of place I'd maybe like to live myself one day. (Just need to learn the language!)

My favourite French dessert.

What To Do . . .

I've completely finished college now; no more work to do and no more stressing over exams! I've got about 8 weeks until I plan to be going away to University and was hoping I could find a job to fill the gap in between. I've asked around in some of the shops and supermarkets if they've got anything going but not had any luck. After being recommended I decided to register with Smith and Reed Recruitment in the hope that I would be able to find work through them. So that's what I've done today.
I'm also still continuing with my driving lessons and I'm aiming to pass my test before the end of August. At least now I have no more college work I can concentrate solely on learning to drive and am able to have more regular lessons.
Other than that I'm left with not much to do. I don't like to be lazy as I feel like that's a waste of time so I would like to be doing something in my time off. I thought I could work on improving the state of the garden, or the house but don't have anything to work with. It would be good to find somewhere nice to walk around here too. I've now got more time to work on my blogs as well, but as I'm not doing much there's not much to say about what I've been up too.