2015, a year in review

Better late than never right, but here is my roundup of 2015.

So let’s get the ‘elephant in the room’ out of the way first. My beautiful Mum died in July of Pancreatic Cancer. Although we all knew it was coming (as much as Mum denied it, of course) no words can explain the heartbreak. She is the first person I have ever lost (my Nan and Grandad are still alive and kicking). 6 months on it still feels like she is on holiday. If only that were true hey. Maybe she is, who knows, I hope she is on a beach somewhere drinking some big ass cocktails with her boss and companion Richard, who also died of the crappy disease.

Surprisingly to me, and maybe to my friends and family too, I didn’t crumble. I thought I would dissolve and not ever be again. However, I have thrown myself into absolutely everything instead. Perhaps its the antidepressants  (which I whole heartedly recommend by the way!) but I have increased my fitness with different sports and classes, bettered my diet and started setting up a career path. Don’t get me wrong, there is not a minute that passes that I don’t think of her and want her back, I have my melt downs but life does indeed go on. It has to because having 2 little toddlers that don’t understand whats happened I have to suck it up and swallow the tears.

Right, to the more positive out-comings of 2015. First off, I completed some great classes via the Tea and Crafting workshops. Learnt some new skills and had a fab time doing it! My reviews of them are on the blog also and I thoroughly recommend them. Especially screen printing and jewellery making. I hope to do a few more this year also.

I made a ‘Things To Do’ list at the beginning of the year to give my year some structure (and things to look forward to I suppose). All but a couple of items got ticked off which is awesome. The items that got shifted to the 2016 list are;

• Park run
• Get tattoo for my mum
• Get to target weight

So the Park Run will be ticked off on Saturday, no matter what! The other 2 will be an ongoing challenge. The tattoo will be money dependant, the second is a continuous slog. I have worked extremely hard this year on my fitness and diet. Since February I have lost 6 stone which I am dead chuffed with. Admittedly quite a bit was baby weight but still, It’s a crap loads to carry. It all started with the Couch to 5K running challenge. In February I couldn’t run for 20 seconds. Honestly, it was embarrassing. But 2 days ago I ran 5k in 26.30 mins!  I’ve completed a 10K for the Willow Foundation, and two 5K’s in the summer for Race for Life and the St. Albans Half Marathon. I’ve really got into Pilates and Yoga too, thanks to my local YMCA gym. So 2 more stone to go this year, hugely determined to succeed and continue bettering myself for my family and for my own well being. My new challenge will moving over to a vegan diet, watch this space.

Lastly, I wanted to have a bit of a shake up of my appearance to go with the weight loss. I bleached my hair white (mum always liked blonde hair, annoyingly I managed to get it like this after she died!), got some more ear piercings, new tattoo and my nose pierced. Looking back over that list it would appear I’m having a bit of a midlife crisis. Oh dear.

So, 2015 has been both the worst year of my life and the best. Losing mum is soul destroying, utterly sickening to my core, but I have also made some positive changes to my life that perhaps I wouldn’t have done if I hadn’t have lost her.

Anyways, here’s to an amazing 2016, chin chin.