New Year resolutions

I don't really have any New Year resolutions this year.  I already made some back in the Summer and they are "Things I want to achieve by the time I'm 42."

I'll share them here now, only because it makes me more accountable and therefore should help me along with my will power.

1. My family.  I want to spend more time doing things outdoors with my family.  I'll put things in the diary - walks in the hills, days out on the bikes, make use of our campervan, make picnics and get out in the outdoors.  I'd like to spend time finishing jobs around the house together, and making sure the garden looks amazing so the house is a relaxing and wonderful place to spend time.
2. Get below 65kg.  I'm aiming to do this by exercising for at least 30 mins daily.  I'm going to give myself some fitness goals along the way too, such as a 5km run, then a 10km run, and then a triathlon sometime in the Summer.  To help me out, I'll weigh more regularly, and write down what I'm eating.
3. Write a book and sent it to a publisher, and make money from my writing.  I'm going to work on editing a book that I've already finished (it was some time ago, so it's probably going to be quite a comprehensive edit).  I'm also going to work on teaching resources to sell, work on People Per Hour etc. and also keep a track on time spent on writing projects so I can see how much I actually earn per hour.
4. Have some control over finances - I'm going to save money I make from writing to spend on treat days and holidays.  I'm also going to make and stick to a grocery budget each week.
5. Scouts - I'm going to create a County Induction Pack, complete all my Manager and Supporter Training, establish a wider training team for the county, develop a wider Cub Leader team at Holmer, increase the Wildcat Pack to 36 Cubs and go camping with the Cubs at least once per term.
6. Teaching - I'm going to have a successful year.  I'd like the lessons I teach to be exemplary in terms of children being engaged and enthused, reflecting on own learning and learning behaviours, developing vocabulary and independence.  Most of all, I'd like the children in my classes to be happy, confident and kind.  I'd like to develop the Modern Foreign Language teaching in collaboration with the high schools we feed to.  I'd like the garden club at school to develop our garden to make it a place that people are proud of and want to spend time.  I'd like to be viewed as somebody that people can turn to for help or advice when they need it.

Those are my ambitions for the year ahead.  Now I just need to rediscover my energy, which seems to have escaped me lately, and my willpower, to enable me to achieve any or all of these.

Throwing out expectations

One of the reasons my blog has been so neglected is because I had this idea (from the blogosphere) that your blog should somehow be making you money.  Each post has to be carefully crafted, search engine optimised, sponsored and "monetising".  Apparently, the reason we blog should be all about stopping the day job and making money. 
I'm stepping away from that idea.  With that in mind, I've hesitated to blog, because I didn't have quite the right picture.  I wasn't sure that it would be quite such an appealing post.  I wasn't getting thousands of likes so I should save that post until I had a bigger audience.  Its actually stopped me from enjoying my blog as I did at the beginning, when I just used it as an online journal.  Right now, I just want to get back to the daily habit of writing, unburdening, scribbling my thoughts.  There may be a photo or picture to accompany my words, there may not.  I may share my post through social media channels, I may not.  I might get twenty readers, or 100, or none.  I don't care.  I just want to write regularly because it makes me feel good.  I think this might even be turning into a New Year resolution, though I absolutely won't beat myself up if I don't do it.  I have enough things on my to-do list with people relying on me and looming deadlines.  I'll beat myself up about those ones instead.