Back in the saddle

Goals from months past...

So, at first I wanted to do a monthly goal recap, at the very least. And I couldn't even reach that!

Moreover, most of my goals from January are still on my list now. I have no real excuses concerning that and I'm very annoyed at myself for not being able to complete these meager goals in four-five months time. Booooo me.

Learn and read

1. Read Style Statement by Danielle Laporte. > not completed at all, although I worked through it for a while.
2. Read the book on neurosciences and education for professional development. > not completed, it moved from my shelf to my desk tho. Improvement!
3. Read Wuthering Heights > DONE. Yeah! I really enjoyed it. But it felt like reading the story of an abused house, which it is in a way. 

I think it shows I'm a classics and fiction books reader. I demonstrates also that I decreased the amount of my reading dramatically since becoming a young professional. I thought it would never happen to me but it has! 

Obviously I read a lot online, and I read some other books that weren't on the list (Sherlock Holmes adventures, graphic novels, tales) and that took less time and effort than those books listed above.

Sports

Go 3 times a week to the gym. > still working on that : I've been ill and absent or way lazy. 

Write

NOTHING
I'm walking the shame lane by rereading these goals. I just have this tiny hope that one day I'll look back and think : how could I not give importance to reading and writing?

Organise
Finish my photos from 2013! ie. treat them in Lightroom and print them. > I've been working on those. My problem is that I have to be in my office to work on the pictures, at my desk. And I don't like that. So, I've started talking to my boyfriend so we could install Lightroom on my laptop so that I could work on the pics more often.

Unpredicted successes!

Because they happen too!

Learn and read

• I used iMovie and fell in love with the app to create a video in French and in English to present my school.We used the video during a presentation to our foreign partners when we visited them in Germany (with the Comenius program). We were so proud the students rocked the presentation my colleague and I worked on for two months. Additionally, we had a lovely time in Germany.

• I took my sewing machine out, and not only decreased my pile of "to mend" clothes but I also made some curtains. Those curtains are for a secret project I can't reveal right now, but I'm really excited about it.

Sports

I went skiing during the half-term in March. That counts for sports, right?

Organise
This is not going very well at all as I keep taking photos but don't edit them, publish them or print them. 

Others

We watched a lot of good movies. My favorite was Only lovers left alive. I can only encourage you to listen to this "oriental rock" in the soundtrack if you want a taste of the movie.

Impromptu Hiatus

Hello friends,

It's been a while. That's all I can say. Sorry ya all.

Best,

Nat

What's ahead : monthly goals - January

So, I know we're already half way through (or almost) the month. I'll nevertheless state my monthly goals! Enthusiasm! Fun! Let's do this!

Monthly Goals

Learn and read

1. I want to read Style Statement by Danielle Laporte*. This is about finding a phrase that defines you. You work through the book (there are worksheets) and at the end you have something like a mantra that helps you define your clothing style, the way you want to decorate your house and this spreads to the way you interact with people or work. I like everything that has to do with designing your identity and I've been trying to define my personal fashion style for a while. i hope this will help me achieve it. Susannah Conway, who worked through the book and advised it in Unravelling, has created a board on Pinterest about her statement "Creative Sensual".
2. Also on my list : the book on neurosciences and education I bought during my training with Pascale Toscani, a researcher. This is professional development. 
3. Hopefully, I'll manage to cram in Wuthering Heights too. I've seen the adaptation by Andrea Arnold and it just triggered my curiosity about this classic piece. I've been actively reading Jane Austen and the book Jane Eyre and seen countless adaptation of these works. It's my guilty pleasure!

Something I didn't put in my goals is "sports".

I started at the end of last year, joining a gym.
I'll try to go 3 times a week, managed at least twice a week since the beginning of the month. Not too bad!

Write

1. I'd like to finish my short story I started for my writing club. 
2. For the blog, it would be lovely to post at least 4 posts this month (starting small). I'd like to finish the installation of my new design and create a French version.
3. I also want to start a page in my own name, so that I'm not totally invisible if you do a Google search (so vain!). 

Organise
I need to finish my photos from 2013! ie. treat them in Lightroom and print them. Hopefully I'll show you some.

Mea Culpa

I do realize these kind of posts are really dry to read. It might be inspirational to see what other people are up to but we don't really learn something new, we don't go on improving our culture that way. Some other type of posts will come.


* Now, I don't know if you've heard of her. She's a blogger considered to be like super influential and has quite a big following ( around 75000 people on Twitter for instance). I don't particularly "get" her. I find she's got a lot of good ideas but I don't like the way she sells them or the price she sells it at!

What's ahead : yearly goals and the word of the year

          Yearly Goals

So, what are my goals then for 2014? 

I did work on those and will give them proper power this year.

Like a lot of people I used the workbook Unravelling the Year Ahead by my fave blogger (I did say I have a lot of favourites) : Susannah Conway. I love her because she keeps things real, she's not the type who will go "5 ways to get what you want" "say no!" or "say yes!".  I've been following her for quite a while, when her blog's name was "Ink on my fingers", when she didn't have any idea whether she'd be a professional photographer instead of a journalist, when she went to retreats as participant, when she started writing her book etc. I've seen her grow and she was a complete inspiration. She's the only blogger I've financially supported by buying her book, and joining her ecourses (I'll do some reviews one day).

Anyway, enough raving about my girl crush.  

Here are the main goals I'll dedicate myself to this year :

1. Make new (female) friendships and improve on the relationships I have
2. Family, give them more time
3. Learn and read
4. Write
5 Declutter, organise and decorate

I decided I would also give myself monthly goals related to the yearly goals that will be specific to the time of the year and reflect the evolution of my desires.

          The word

I find the exercise a bit fastidious. I never seem to be able to come up with a word that feels right. This year is not different. I force it a bit on myself but what it does is that it does reflect how I want to feel this year. I want to be



You have to know I'm a type 4 (from the Enneagram). This means :

• I struggle a lot with envy and satisfaction.
• I have a hard time choosing between incarnation and imagination (I stay way too long in the latter). 

So this word will push me to get over my faults and get real, it will also push me to admire the present and what I already have.

I'd like to feel accomplished as a teacher, an artist and a woman.

This last part is extremely important, maybe the most important.

Teacher and artist (writer, drawer, photographer), that's work, I can only count on myself and a bit of luck to make it happen.

Woman. That's something else. I can explore my sensuality alone first (I have a bit of difficulty to be in touch with my body, this is really frustrating), but then I need a partner. Same goes for my womanly aspirations (having a household, a home ; becoming a mother). The question of the partner is one I'm worried about as my current partner doesn't seem so into it as I am. I hope we'll reach common grounds.

Discovery : Cosmic Fantaisie (radio show)

So I know we're talking English here but this radio show has a gorgeous soundtrack and a theme I love : the Moon. 

We are all aware that the Moon is a symbol of womanhood, given we're supposed to mimic its cycle with our cycles. It has positive and negative interpretations of course, like most old symbols. I'd like to focus on the positive ones : (creative) gestation, rest, mystery, intuition etc.

Why is it relevant to us this month, this year? Well, maybe you noticed that this year was somehow placed under the Moon guidance, as the full Moon was on the 1rst of January. It is apparently rare. I wasn't aware of it until a few days after the New Year Eve but I still appreciate its significance (I love symbols!).

Anyways, back to the radio show. First, the soundtrack is really good, secondly I love this kind of "conceptual" shows, where what is important is the ambiance not the information, where the show becomes a journey into an event and an exploration of feelings.

My favourite (I often have favourites) song, which was a discovery for me is :

Sing to the moon
by Laura Mvula