Guest Post from Miss Smidge

My second guest post comes from the equally lovely Miss Smidge.....

So, Dawnie asked me to write a guest post for her on resolutions.

My first resolution must therefore not to be jealous that she is sunning herself on holiday whilst I am sitting writing this. Jealousy is a very bad thing. Ahem.

Anyways, resolutions. I am a big fan of resolutions, not that I ever really keep them, as instead they are a good record of how good I want to be.

However, I am never good for a whole year; in fact, month to month I fail at being good. I like to eat, smoke and drink and generally have fun rather than restrict myself, so instead of once a year resolutions I have been doing seasonal resolutions which are much easier (and so not a cop out).

As we are well into what we call spring here in Scotland, I though this would be a good chance to have a look back at what I promised I’d do over winter.

So, my Autumn resolutions were to:

• Keeping up with the not smoking: Ok, I must be honest here, I failed miserably at giving up smoking. I happily chain smoked right through Christmas and New Year. In fact as I was in Australia (hello Dubai duty free) I was worse than ever. However, B (Mr Smidge) has set me a challenge. If I don’t give up smoking by the wedding, then he won’t marry me. Harsh yes, but after 16 years if stubbornness, the carrot approach as failed miserably with me.  I am currently on day 2. Wish me luck.

• House decorating rather than just talking about it: / the big refurbishment: I love my little house. I really do. B and I really would like to start a family, and we are in denial that 2 tiny adults, 2 fat cats and 1 tiny baby can live without strangling each other in our tiny little space. It however has been decorated (I started a home tour here if you are interested) so I think I can check this resolution off the list.

• Making a proper meal at least once a week, from scratch. Now this is something I have really been getting into, in fact (nearly) every meal in our house is made from scratch now. With all the time on my hands from not smoking I also think this is going to increase further, last night, for example I made Thai green curry (with my own curry paste) and set up a minted lamb in red wine in my slow cooker for tonight’s tea. I never thought I would love cooking quite as much as I do now, so this was a great resolution to add to the list.

• Realising that it is time to stop thinking that I can afford to buy things from Cocosa or the Outnet. What is annoying with this one is that I can afford to buy nice things (well not so much now I am paying for a wedding) and that honestly, the quality is so much better than the offerings on most of the high street, for example my Twenty8Twelve by s.miller jeans bought two years ago still shirk back to their perfect skinny fit. My Baxter’s from Topshop bought at the same time, not so much. I think I will continue to be an advocate of quality.

• Using up the cleansers on my bathroom shelf and stop using face wipes. I’m still trying this, I now use Liz Earle Cleanse & Polish every morning in the shower, but honestly my face seems to be getting worse by the day. I hope that it is just the nasty impurities coming out (yuck) and this will settle down in time. I love getting my Joliebox every month too as I get to try out new products. I happily am becoming a product junkie.

And finally I wanted to:

• Stop panicking that my blog looks like it has finally grown up. Like everyone (it seems) I have been having a crisis of confidence about my blog for a while now. I no longer write about misery (I guess I am happy now) and don’t get the comments I used to. Instead my blog is now a mix of bad fashion, ok cooking, iPhone photos and chat about boys and marriage. Which is my life and my blog, if no one reads it, well that’s not what it is therefore after all, I really do write for me… I promise! 

Miss S x 

If you enjoyed this post you can check out Kate's blog here.

Guest Post from Miss P

Continuing with the resolutions theme I have my very first guest post. Courtesy of the wonderful 
Paula

RESOLUTIONS + P = FAILURE???

I’m not very good at giving things up. Take wine, for example. I tried to give that up for Lent this year*. I lasted two weeks. Actually a major achievement for me, but then I made up for it for the rest of Lent by drinking all the wine. All the wine in the world. Have you noticed there’s a shortage of wine around right now? TOTALLY my fault.

But see, this proves something. I shouldn’t make New Year’s resolutions. Let’s face it, most resolutions involve SOME sort of sacrifice- even if it’s not giving something up, it tends to involve some sort of life change and not only am I bad at giving things up, I’m bad at giving away my own time and slightly inflexible to change in my personal life.

And this year I had all these grand plans. I called it a goal, not a resolution, but really? I was just being a bit wanky because it was basically six resolutions in one. I was destined to fail from the start really. My” goal” was to get healthy. That was going to involve eating better, drinking less (see first paragraph to figure out how THAT worked out), doing more exercise, being less stressed, going to bed earlier . . .by the end of January – NAY, by the end of the first WEEK in January, I was already flagging.

The eating healthy bit I was REALLY enthusiastic about at the beginning. I spent ages on food websites researching recipes because part of the being healthy thing was cooking from scratch. In reality though, it’s hard to cook properly when the flatmate you share the kitchen with seems to be on exactly the same cooking schedule as you (NO MATTER WHEN YOU DECIDE TO USE THE KITCHEN!) and sometimes it just seems so much easier to just go online and order a Dominos veg-a-roma. With double cheese. And a side of mozzarella sticks. And when I say “sometimes”, I really mean “at least once a week”. (Seriously. I checked my confirmation emails from Dominos a week or two ago and I had about 20 just from this year.)

The drinking part was clearly a fail. I bought a yoga dvd to try and help me wind down at night. It nearly BORED me to sleep. I bought a roll-on “relax” stick off amazon to make me feel less stressed. I lost it 20 minutes after I removed it from its packaging. Which stressed me out, ironically, as if I lose something I become ridiculously fixated on it. (I found it three months later and it actually DOES help make me less stressed – at least temporarily.) And, as for my sleep in general, I seem to still flit between being sober and awake for most of the night, or falling asleep in my clothes and contact lenses because I’m a bit pissed and have had a hard day.

So pretty much all fails there. No gold star for you, P!

But there is ONE thing I’ve succeeded in. The exercise thing. See, I get a lot of exercise anyway. I walk A LOT. 40 minutes to work, and back, five days a week. One hour of pole fitness every Wednesday. But I knew I needed to do more than that. My body is used to me walking a lot. It keeps me fit but it doesn’t tone me up. So, one night, while mildly inebriated, I joined the gym. And I’ve been going regularly. A minimum of three times a week, but more likely to be four or five. I can’t see a difference in the bits I really WANT to change (ie. Stomach, waist, hips) but I do keep asking my friends to feel my bum, cos it FEELS amazing, even if I don’t really know how it LOOKS.  I’ll be keeping the gym up until at least August, so I’m bikini-fit for Ibiza. But technically, I only started going to the gym in April, so does that REALLY count towards my resolution?

I think New Year’s resolutions really are a bit like Valentine’s Day; I always think Valentine’s Day is a bit of a crock because why would you only show someone you really loved them one day a year? And New Year’s resolutions, when it comes down to it, are just a way to eat all the shit you want over Christmas and be a total couch potato with the promise that you’ll make up for it come January. And then, let’s face it, you usually don’t. I certainly didn’t . . .

 

*You’ll notice I said I tried to give up WINE. Not alcohol. I was still drinking other types of alcohol. I STILL didn’t last. Says it all.

If you enjoyed this post you can check out Miss P's blog right here.