How were November and December for you? How was 2020 as a whole? It was certainly not the year I expected when I started these celebration posts. It has made me look at the posts differently because some months the things I’ve wanted to celebrate have been small and in a normal year may not have been significant. But this year everything is an achievement and should be recognised and celebrated.
During November and December we celebrated three birthdays, all in the second lockdown. We also had our first Christmas at home, after Tier 4 was introduced.
I continued to make progress pulling myself out of the rut of the last few months. When I look back over the pandemic the best months for me were probably May, June and July when I created the routines I’ve wanted for several years. Now it feels like I’m almost back at square one and it is certainly not easy to get the routine back, but I continue to try.
Did you make a big achievement in November or December, or did you make continual progress on a large action? Remember all progress is positive no matter whether it is small or big. What did you start, progress or achieve?
I want to celebrate:
Finishing
- Building new bedroom furniture for M as a birthday present
- Building new shelves to hold our board games, giving us more space to buy more!
- Creating a video on my phone that shows what we got up to during November
- Another virtual Undergraduate open day and a virtual Postgraduate event
- Two Christmas jigsaws, one was a competition with my in-laws, which we didn’t win
Starting
- to pick up litter on the three mornings I walk M to breakfast club, after he requested litter pickers for his birthday
- meeting a friend for a lunch time walk once a week, this has been great way to get me away from the computer
- wearing big Christmas earrings. In the run up to Christmas I normally wear seasonal stud earrings, but you can’t see them as I wear headphones for meetings, so I bought big dangly ones. I enjoyed wearing them more than I expected
Progressing
- updating my clothes, so I don’t wear jeans and a hoodie every day
- clearing up the house; we’ve passed on furniture, clothes and games we no longer want
- getting back into regular morning meditation
Enjoying
- Playing Hogwarts Battle board game which we gave M for his birthday. It is great to have a game that follows a story and gets harder the more you play the game
- My first Netflix party, watching Bad Mom’s Christmas as a birthday celebration
- Playing Codenames via Zoom, including our own creation of Christmas Codenames
- Our new tables which are level, and a good width to play games.
I’d love to cheer on your progress, because we need the recognition and motivation that making small changes is as good as big changes. They are the small beginnings that with perseverance will help us make big changes.
What have you achieved in 2020 that you want to celebrate?
