MY WINTER GOALS

Hello and welcome to a little goal setting blogpost.
I haven't focused much on goal setting this year for obvious reasons such as the year going absolutely nowhere near in the direction we all thought and hoped it would... But I thought, since a few of you have asked to hear about my winter goals this year, that it would be nice to pop some down as a way of centring myself and hopefully finishing off this year on a high.
Now I haven't bothered to reread my last goal setting post so apologies if some overlap but once again, this year's been a funny one so the chances are that the last goals I set for myself are still tbc... To be completed that is.

1. Stay Healthy
So first up me and my little baba girl to be aka raisin (she was the size of a raisin when we found out I was pregnant) need to stay as healthy as possible during the winter months, once again, for obvious reasons. I MUST MUST MUST book myself in for those all important jabs (yukky) and continue to balance out the McDonalds that this little lady wants (teehee) with tonnes of fruit and vegetables, something that will be much easier once we have our kitchen back... boy oh boy do I miss cooking and making fresh juices every day.
I'm taking regular supplements and vitamins and forcing the fruit down at a time that being kitchen-less has resulted in a fair few undesirable takeaway dinners... And ensuring I'm getting out and about where possible for some hefty walks with the dogs. I'm loving my body now more than ever before and it's bringing me such joy to nourish it in ways I've never bothered to before.

2. Nest Nest Nest
In a similar vein to the above goal, I am well and truly in nesting mode and tbh have been since I was about 8 weeks pregnant. Early on in my pregnancy I sent my mum a list of things I wanted to get done around the house before the baby comes, asking her if she thought it was doable and realistic. She replied with one almighty "HELL YES!" and I set to work planning and booking in workmen to get all the odds and ends done.
We've had a few jobs on the go at once including our utility room, downstairs loo and kitchen renovation which is SO exciting. George and I popped in last night to take a sneak peek of the progress, as we've done each night once our wonderful installer Lukas has left and I was BLOWN AWAY with how awesome everything is looking. I'm SO excited to have the kitchen of my dreams and it fills me with so much joy knowing how many memories with our little family, are going to be made in that room, the heart of our house! I'm sure I'll be itching to share the finished space with you so stay tuned in November no doubt.
Aside from that we're having some work on the dining room done, a splash of paint to our living room and staircase/landing and of course we'll be setting up baby raisin's nursery a little closer to her due date, it's all so very exciting!

3. Create Something Beautiful
During lockdown I tried my hand at painting and found myself absolutely falling in love with it. Whilst I have no real artistic flair I do have any eye for combining colours, which I feel is half the battle, so it was really fun to let my imagination run wild and paint in an abstract way once I had the colour palette down. I created three paintings, with each of them now hanging proudly in our home, and both George and I love them so much, which is such a wonderful feeling. Since the restrictions began to lift I haven't so much as picked up a paint brush, so my next goal is to get painting again. I'd love to create a canvas piece for baby gals bedroom or for our new kitchen and I'd even love to try my hand at up-cycling a piece of furniture and giving it a new lease of life with some paint too. I have the perfect piece in mind from my parents house that my mum said I could have, so I reckon I'll be investing in a sander and booking some time out of work soon to get cracking.

4. Remain Calm, Strong and Positive
This year has been SUCH A DAMN ROLLERCOASTER and in parts, a year that I'd quite like to banish from my mind forever. HOWEVER, I've come out of the other side even more positive than before, funny how other peoples negativity can do that to a person hey. I'm stronger, prouder, happier and more stable than ever before. I know who I am; that I am a good person, I am kind and caring, giving and generous, sensitive and positive for 99% of the time and that all of those things are great and make me who I am.
I've learnt so much about myself through everything I've been through this year and I've learnt some coping mechanisms for staying calm, positive and true to myself, plus having the excitement of a little girl coming into our world is what saved my life this year, or my mind at least and I'll be forever grateful to her for that. I want to continue with this calm mental attitude for the sake of my mental health, my baby and the rest of my loved ones, I don't want to put them or myself through that kind of pain again.

5. Make 2021 Saturday By Megan Ellaby's Year
I said that 2020 would be our year but we all know what happened there. And whilst I'm really proud of what my two man team have achieved this year despite everything, I'm sad to say that we're ending on such a downer as we were unable to secure any yarn for our knitwear. It's frustrating as hell because my designs were nailed over a year ago now but as we're such a small business and as there was a global pandemic there was sadly a yarn shortage in Italy where we source our merino wool. Once factories were back in action the yarn was in high demand which naturally meant going to larger businesses with larger orders than what we are doing right now so sadly and annoyingly we missed out. We wanted to bring out a variety of different styles of knitwear using different yarns and techniques but once again due to the pandemic and factories closing this also fell short.
I'm really gutted but as always trying to remain positive and to remember that in the grand scheme of things this really isn't a big deal. We'll still have some new pieces launching in time for Christmas and this set back only makes me more determined to work super hard to take Saturday where I know it can go in 2021.

Thanks so much for reading, I'd love to hear if you have any goals for the colder months.
Take care.

x M