Five year journal - #1

Tami Taylor blogged about keeping a 5 year journal, in scrapbook form. You can have a look at her progress here. I was interested to see the prompts she used to keep herself motivated every day, and I thought it might be helpful in kick-starting my blog. Thus far, the feeling over here at Off the Record has been, let's face it, a little morose and self pitying. In a bid to pick up the mood, and perhaps develop a bit of a readership/ interaction, I'll be following Debbie's lead, blog-style, and using her day-to-day prompts, plus some inspiration from other blogs and suggestions, to *try* and blog every day. Even if it's just a couple of pictures or a few lines - every day, a new post.

Let's see how we go.

So Debbie's journal prompts are for every day of the year, starting from January first. As it's nooowww... January 28th, I have some catching up to do *gulp*. For the first few posts I'll do a couple of prompts, until I'm all caught up. Here goes!

January 1st - What is your number one goal this year?

Well, that's a doozie right off the bat. My brain is such a muddle most of the time, it's hard to pinpoint what my highest priority would be.

Aside from all the regular Mummy stuff, I'd have to say, my number one *personal* goal, would be to successfully complete my first year of uni. Yeah, that's right; I GOT IN!!! Starting off slow, with just one course - Human Anatomy, that starts on the 3rd of March, so now I have the headache of finding child care for my daughter (who I've decided needs some sort of code name for this blog...more on that later).

So, there's that. Number one goal for 2014 - to successfully complete all courses that I enrol in for Uni, and do the absolute best I can do.

January 2nd - What are you most grateful for?

Well, I'd have to say that I probably already covered this one in the last post. The people I blogged about there are the one I am most thankful for, and I try to let them know how much I appreciate them as often as I can.

January 3rd - Are you content?

These questions sure don't pull any punches. I mean, obviously your first reaction is to say 'Yes, of course I'm content!'. If you really think about it though, what does content mean? Peace, happiness, wanting for nothing? In that case, if I'm being 100% honest, I'd have to say that I'm not necessarily content. I'm happy, certainly, and I love many aspects of my life, but there are plenty of areas in my life that I'd be happy to change. My house is in serious need of a clutter overhaul, and in order for that to happen, I (and my darling partner), need to do some serious purging and changing of mindsets. Having clutter around the place makes me uncomfortable, and definitely doesn't make me productive. Probably not the best starting point for a successful year at Uni.

There is a certain relationship in my life that I am definitely not content with, but the problem I have is that I can't change the other person's perspective. I can only control my behaviour and my reactions to their bad behaviour. Last year I allowed myself to be dragged into their mind games, but this year I will not allow myself to be lowered to their standard of bullying behaviour. It is a big aim of mine this year to learn to let it go.

Three might be enough for today. I can hear my family silently willing me to come spend time with them. More tomorrow; promise!

Love, me x