2012

This year started off with a round of redundancies at work, my husband unhappy with his job and lots of anxiety about not knowing what was going to happen.

This year ended pretty good. Both my husband and I got down to our goal weights (I lost twenty pounds!) though its shifted up a bit with all the Christmas food. Billy is happy with his job and no longer leaves a 6am and returns at 9pm as he did at his old job in London.

Here are the highlights of my year:

I stopped eatting meat for five months to make the most of our orgainic veg box and in the process started taking loads of vitamins that I still take. (That is always a new year's resolution that I forget to do). I'm now back to a carnavore.

In January we went to the Cotswolds to visit friends:

We took our annual May holiday in Copenhagen home to my great grandfather.

In July, Olympic fever took over and I got to follow the torch around England.

In August I got to fly over Suffolk in a helicopter which made a centre spread in my paper.

 In September we went home to Florida to see my family and had a few days to ourselves in Key West for our fourth wedding anniversary.

For Billy's birthday on December 23rd we went on the London Eye and ate Danish pancakes before meeting friends for bowling on Brick Lane.

It was a pretty good year and I hope next year is even better! Click here to see my work photos of the year.

So Long 2011...

Its funny. I am actually optimistic about 2012. This was not the case for 2011, but I'm happy to say its really turned out pretty good. Last New Years I was terrified about not having enough work, money, happy things to keep me going which continued for the first six months of the year. But then I got a full-time job, moved down south, went to the states twice. Not bad.

I was looking at my resolutions from last year and I only kept one of my resolutions. I got to see my Momma in at the end of June and that was well needed. I came back to the UK and moved to England a day later. Lots of change happened at once but it was such a relief to feel like my old self again. Honestly I started this job when I was miserable and it helped me focus on good things. So for that I am thankful blog though I find when things are going smoothly I don't really update as much.

We've got big plans for this year. Yes I am making long term plans and it feels pretty damn good. One of our plans is to finally take a big trip to one of two of our ultimate destinations: either Japan or New Zealand. We always said one of those would be considered our honeymoon as we skipped out on ours in lieu of me moving to the UK and paying tons on a visa. We are planning a smaller trip to Portugal or Morocco. It doesn't take long to get to the continent or Africa from here so I want to take full advantage. Actually Holland is only a six hour ferry ride across the sea from here but we've already been to Amsterdam.

We may also be adding a new member of the family. We are considering getting a dog (we don't want children. at least not any time in the next few years) but I'm still a bit weary after losing my dog Baby. Its a big step and we have to make sure we are both ready for a new doggie.

I am also determined to lose the weight I have gained since living in this bloody country. I find baking really cathartic and when I was miserable at my old job I baked too much. Also my stupid old resolution to not wear trousers and jeans was a bad idea!! When you only wear tights you don't realise your waistband is expanding! So I've joined Weight Watchers online to lose a stone and a half. This is a warning that I may be using this blog to moan about this! The good thing is that we are trying loads of new healthy recipes including Caribbean chicken with Mango salsa that we are having tonight (its a ww recipe believe it or not).

But I unfortunately have to work tonight and tomorrow and the day after that all of which Billy is off. Boo. So Happy Hogmanay!!

PS This is one of my film images from NYC that I scanned the other day for the first time. It was from the Occupy Wall Street movement back in November.

Resolutions...

Check out my 2010 photo slideshow here.

MY NEW YEARS RESOLUTIONS:
Last year my resolution was to only wear skirts and dresses for a year. Well, I made it till August and then I got really nostalgic for denim. I also made a resolution to look more put together so I decided that I would always have my nails painted. This lasted until September when I went off work with anxiety and couldn’t be bothered. But I think those were two very admirable attempts at keeping resolutions. Hopefully this year I can do better.

See my momma this year-
I am a big momma’s girl. She is the most amazing woman I’ve ever known and I am a very, very lucky girl. If she can’t get over here to visit I am going to have to go home.

Get back to my pre-wedding weight-
I have already downloaded a bunch of workout videos to get me started until it warms up. I plan on taking the bike out a lot and riding along Billy as he runs. I sing the theme from Rocky to him to keep him going. The thing is, I HATE EXERCISING. It is so boring and I can’t keep it up for long periods, so once I get down to my target weight I will stop. Oh and if someone ever says that going to the gym won’t kill you don’t believe them. I almost died in a car crash whilst on my way to work out at the gym!

Make almost every new item of clothing I get-
I am pretty skint right now and I can’t afford much fabric or wool so this may be difficult, but I would really like to make most of clothes. I want to a few versions of my last dress and a bunch of dirndl skirts.

To get over to the continent this year-
I know I have said this before, but we are skint right now but I would really like to get back over to Continental Europe this year. Paris is pretty cheap to get to and though we’ve both been a few times, we’ve never been together. We would also like to go back to Spain or maybe Portugal. We’ll see what deals we can get.

Bye Bye 2010

My lovely husband is sick with the flu like most other people in the world so tonight is a quiet affair, no crazy street partying for us old farts.

Instead I thought I'd take a moment to recap my year a bit:

*A year a go today we were flying back from the states so that means it has been a year since I saw my momma :( ...

*I had a horrible job that made me physically sick and gave me nightmares. I was a forensic photographer for the police and had to photograph crime scenes and assault victims. It was horrible seeing murder victims, suicides and the worse was dead babies. I'm not sure how I will recover from such a scarring experience as that but I'm off to a good start. I quit my job at the end of October which was incredibly liberating, but at the same time losing that amazing government salary was really sad. But my health comes first as my incredibly supportive husband often reminds me. And I am happy to say I haven't had a nightmare since I left that place.

*I started my own freelance photography business! Eek that is quite scary and as I am still in the process of getting it going I don't want to jinx it by saying something too optimistic.

*I have sooo many ailments in my life (I am not a hypochondriac, I am just unlucky) here were the top five of 2010:

-I sprained my groin in July at the T in the Park music festival by getting my wellies stuck in the mud while the rest of me carried on and I had to go to the hospital
-I sprained my ankle in Amsterdam
-I have had a chest infection, a ton of migraines, bad acid reflux and nausea.
-Chemicals splashed in my eyes at my forensic job and I had to be taken to the hospital in ambulance and had 3 liters of water poured over my eyes that were pried open by an evil nurse (think the brainwashing scene from A Clockwork Orange).
-I had severe anxiety attacks that felt like I was going to die (yet another perk of my old job).

(This is an honorable mention: I am lactose intolerant and I ran out of pills in Madrid and I had to through a chocolate ice cream cone away without eating it on the hottest day ever)

*Billy and I went to both Madrid and Amsterdam this year.

*At the end of our Madrid trip I was almost mugged. The escalator going down to the subway was broken so we had to walk down carrying all our luggage. Billy was in front of me and I was struggling to get my bag down when I turn quickly to see a 18 year old woman with her hand in my purse. I yank myself away from her while my luggage fell down the escalator (breaking my new boater's hat) and the guy who was with the mugger caught me before I fell down the escalator myself. The girl who tried to mug me did the catholic cross the heart thing because she was afraid and I was in shock and couldn't do anything but stare at her. In that moment I was so confused I couldn't even talk.

Everyone was staring at me and I couldn't say anything (a very rare thing for me). I eventually turned and got down the steps and they scurried off. She didn't get anything from me and hopefully she learned her lesson but I was so horrified that I didn't say anything. I still bothers me to this day. Now when someone walks too close to me I get paranoid.

*I built my first snowman (Phil) this year.

*Our 3 year-old niece made me her best friend. She calls me Auntie Zoo.

*I gained 10 pounds which are about to go bye bye.

*I won Scottish Music Photographer of the year in a competition judged by the iconic photographer Harry Benson.

*I bought a sewing machine and a fold-up bike.

*I made my first dress.

*I watched many World Cup games. Go USA!

*And finally I started this blog.

HAPPY NEW YEAR

Next... my resolutions.

PS MY PHOTO OF SCOTT FROM FRIGHTENED RABBIT IS THE LAST PHOTO OF THE YEAR ON THE SCOTSMAN'S RADAR SITE.