With the holidays over and done with I thought I would check in and see how I went with my holiday bucket list that I wrote when we were all literally throwing up in the bucket before Christmas. A few weeks later I must say I am feeling much more relaxed, a little more tanned and certainly fatter…let’s see how I went…
GO WALKING MOST DAYS
Apparently I complain about NOT having time to do exercise and when I do? I don’t do it! So complex! I did manage to go for a few walks at the farm but used the hot weather as an excuse not to. I would have had to get up before 6 to get it in and on holidays the bed was calling. Plus! If you exercise without Instagram, did it even happen at all? Quite the quandary. I did manage to get a few km’s in at the beach though…a total of 24.75kms done. Better than no kms at all right?
NOT BLOG
Oh my this was SO good. I thought that as soon as I stopped I would be inspired to write meaningful posts, create recipes and I would write them, save them in drafts and I would and I would be sorted for the rest of the holidays. This so didn’t happen.
EAT A POTATO SCALLOP, OK CAPPED AT 10
Oh you KNOW it. I managed to eat 5.5. They were delicious and crispy and salty and the BEST.
TRY SOME NEW RECIPES
I even took my cook books with me – a whole pile of them. Plus I got a new cookbook for Christmas (Tony Tan’s Hong Kong) and I STILL didn’t do it. Oh well. There’s hope for the new year! I did create a pork belly salad which was pretty good but it needs some tweaking before it makes the blog.
CATCH A FISH
Does it count if I took photos of Maggie and Harper catching one with Rob and their Grandfather? If so, then TICK!
READ AS MANY BOOKS AS I CAN
I did! Without my phone near by and the distractions of social media, I read and read and read and READ. I powered through 5 books in 10 days and then when I got the phone back, I literally could not get through pages without being distracted. How dumb is that? I read:
Rich People Problems Kevin Kwan
A Little Thing Called Life Linda Thompson
Force of Nature Jane Harper
The Mummy Bloggers Holly Wainwright
Buddhism for the Unbelievably Busy Meshel Laurie
The Choke Sofie Laguna (still reading this one)
DO SOME WRITING, JUST BECAUSE
Yeah…nah.
TAKE SOME VIDEO AND TRY AND TEACH MYSELF HOW TO USE IT ON MY CAMERA
Yes! I have done this. I now just need to work out how to turn it into a memorable video. Watch this space…there will be a post coming for Olympus about this when I can sort my shit out. Or ask Rob to do it…not I will! Promise!
SOCIAL MEDIA DETOX
You can read about it in this post here – this was a holiday highlight and I highly recommend that anyone do this to get back to reality. I have been so annoyed at all the bad habits coming straight back though.
GO FOR A NIGHT TIME SWIM
We did this and it was SO good. The girls loved this so much (a big deal for some country kids who don’t have a pool) and it makes up one of the best memories I have from the holiday.
PLAY SOME CARDS
I may not have played canasta, but we did play a couple of games with Nikki (What do you Meme? and Cards against Humanity) and they were HILARIOUS. Highly recommend for some fun.
SIT AND TALK TO MY HUSBAND WITHOUT DISTRACTION
Yes, we did this. I mostly spent time apologising for being a mole.
PLAY A GAME OF BACK GAMMON
Negative. I do love this game though and wish we had.
DO A PUZZLE
Do puzzles with the kids count? No. Fail on this one. I LOVE a puzzle but I also love being able to do it undistracted and without 2 year old hands helping.
WATCH SOME MOVIES OR TV SERIES
I got just one more episode of The Crown in and that’s it. Not one movie either. I suppose that’s because I was reading a lot, but still. Fail.
GET MAGGIE TOILET TRAINED
Yes! Success! Spending time in warmer weather we were able to tackle this and do a pretty good job. She gets it. We still have a few accidents and she refuses to do a number 2 on the toilet and requests a pull up for those, but we are mostly there! I am stoked with this.
DRINK BEER AT LUNCH WHILE EATING SOME PRAWNS
Der. Of course I did! Maybe it was wine or Prosecco though…does that count?
SPEND ONE ON ONE TIME WITH THE GIRLS
So much. So good. And boy did they love it. Rob did this too with the girls taking them all on long walks indivdually and they loved it. Must work on this more this year, it’s so simple and so important.
SPEND A FEW MINUTES EVERY DAY, EYES CLOSED, LISTENING TO THE WORLD AROUND ME
I spent a lot of time colouring in, which gave me long periods of time where I thought about nothing, completely free from thoughts and to do lists which is kind of like meditation and mindful fulness so I will say a yes for this, even though it didn’t look like this.
AND NOT GET SICK.
Fail. We all got sick. All 5 of us. It wasn’t pretty.
All in all, I am happy with the ticks on this. Going into the year I really hope that I can deal with the social media addictions, keep the reading up, spend more time with the kids one on one and get moving. Seems pretty simple right?
How did your holiday wish list go?
Learn anything about what you did and didn’t do?
You’ve done a fantastic job of the bucket list. Go girl. The memories you have created, what a wonderful gift.
Social media is the name of my life. I think I’ve forgotten how to just be, how to use my brain rather than having it used for me.
And the pork belly salad, well I can’t wait for that post.
Cheers Kate
Bane, it’s the bane of my life not name 🤣
Holidays are so good aren’t they? Sounds like your family had a pretty simple, idyllic time together. That’s how our beach holidays were when I was a kid. Just family, swimming, fish and chips, games.
I gave myself a project for these holidays, to sort out my two storerooms of doom, and I smashed it! So happy that a little advance mental planning got me in the right head space. Sometimes I go and stand in there, just to enjoy the space and order. That’s not weird, right?