January 2014 • ceriselle.org

In a rare move from me (ha), this post is long overdue. In fact, according to my drafts folder, I edited and uploaded these images in November but December was a bit of a busy month for me and I forgot all about it. So let’s pretend that this isn’t a late post but more trying to eke out the last dregs of Christmas so January doesn’t seem as depressing as ever.

Back in November, I was invited by Cabot Circus and House of Fraser to go and check out their festive offerings. I haven’t really been very festive in the past few years, but I never turn down a chance to hang out with some of my favourite bloggers

Bloggers, man. Have to take photos of everything. (above you can see Jo and Victoria from She and Hem, Josephine from Style by Josephine and Gina from Bristol Fashionista)

We were shown the four different looks that House of Fraser had available which were all beautiful. I especially loved the last one – reds! toys! candy canes! I haven’t decorated the house for Christmas in a few years, but this year I felt the need to get a big tree (fake, thankfully, but that didn’t stop it shedding needles…which seems a bit unfair) and decorate it with lights and lots of baubles and of course candy canes everywhere (and only a few went into my mouth rather than the tree)

Here’s me with SJ and Gina, wearing the same Primark tartan dress as every other blogger ever. I feel very lucky to be able to go to events like these, and to have bloggers in Bristol that I love seeing outside of events. Last year was a bit quiet on the events front, but I’m hoping to change that this year…but that’s for another post.

Thanks Cabot Circus!

Happy new year! I hope everyone’s had a good holiday season – I’m enjoying my time off and haven’t eaten too many boxes of chocolates. (Roast dinners, however, are a totally different thing). I’m quite glad to see an end to 2013 – it didn’t feel like a very good year for many of us, but hopefully, things are lookup up for all of us!

Blogging is brilliant at keeping you accountable – I’ve blogged my new years resolutions for the past five years (2013, 2012, 2011, 2010 and 2009) – it’s a lot easier to remind yourself of them on a blog than if you write them in a random notebook or diary somewhere.

So how did I do with last years resolutions?

SIDE PROJECTS DAMN IT – heh. So when I wrote that resolution, I was in the middle of writing an eBook about blogging. I thought that it would be a case of writing everything I know down, putting it on Amazon, and sitting back with a brew, waiting for the money to roll in. I knew that I wanted to keep it updated, and I still do want to update it on a fairly regular basis, but I realised that a website would be a much better way to keep bloggers updated – so in May, I launched Bonjour, Blogger! I’ve really loved working on that site, even when I feel exhausted by it all!
Read less blogs – I did so well at this at first! I took the opportunity of Google Reader dying (I’m still sad about that, you know.) to clear out the blogs I couldn’t bear for whatever reasons, but with the Saturday Summary feature on Bonjour, Blogger!, I needed to read more blogs, and my Bloglovin’ has crept back up. I am a lot less likely to stay subscribed to blogs I skip over or get annoyed at, so a partial win.
Socialising – I don’t feel like I’ve seen more bloggers this year, but I’ve seen the same ones more often – and I love that!
Exercise – In June, I started having some pretty ridiculous issues with my back, and exercising has fallen to the wayside – but let’s not pretend I was doing so well before that. Moving away from my gym and getting equipment at home meant I am less motivated to get on with it. Sigh.
Finding Joy – I have been awful at this one. (Sorry Mia!) It’s been difficult to find the joy for most of this year, but I want to do better!

And for 2014?

To become more confident when talking about myself – and by extension, Bonjour, Blogger!. I find myself shuffling my feet and looking down (metaphorically) when people ask about BB. I need to talk it up more!
To hold a few blogger events – plans are afoot for this already, but I’m hoping to do something at least every other month! Ambitious? Probably.
To do some public speaking – Working in accounts, you don’t get to see the outside world very much. On the rare occasions that I have needed to talk to a large group, I find I end up mumbling into the microphone and babbling. Need to get better at this – and I guess practice is the only way!
Exercise! – not just getting on the cross trainer, or cycling, but walking more (especially with the dogs!). I have managed to maintain my weight loss from last year, but there’s still a way to go to my original goal.
To not abandon ceriselle.org so much! – I’m so sorry, little website. I feel so bad that I’ve abandoned you for the new shiny site over there.
To organise my finances better – The original version of this resolution said to use my Xero account more to classify my outgoings, but they just sent me a message saying the personal feature is shutting down the year, annoyingly! Any recommendations of some thing similar for a personal user that will bring in all transactions automatically?

If you see me not doing any of these, do poke me!

Archives for January 2014

Latest from Instagram