Okay, so unlike my 50th birthday, I didn’t have any balloons for this occasion but I did have a very nice birthday cake made by lovely kids. I made one for work too so diet not going well.
For my 50th birthday, I was busking in the sunshine in Lanzorote (well I did enjoy wave jumping with Kathryn in Fuerturventura because my treat was a day trip there). This birthday, it was pouring with rain and I didn’t fancy paddling in the rough seas of the Solent. Did enjoy a lovely lunch with Chris whilst watching the rough seas. The food was not great for the diet but who cares on your birthday!
One of the most memorable moments of my 50th birthday was my 50 challenges. They weren’t big challenges (the 10 mile run and making croissants were huge to me) but they did make the year stand out for me. It is something I would highly recommend. Challenges keep me on track and alert. I would fall asleep on the sofa after work at 5pm if I didn’t push myself to do exercise or dance round the kitchen making dinner. If I don’t exercise before work, I do my daily solitaire and sudoku puzzles on my iPad (warning: extremely addictive so do need to turn iPad off and not use it again that day!). So this year I plan to do more challenges. To start with, I plan to do 30 day challenges. I love books like Challenge Yourself I Dare You by Stuart Ralph and 50 New Year’s resolutions because they spur me on and give me tips on how to achieve something. I plan to put this in action and set myself 12 challenges over the year. I’m going to cheat with June as we are 11 days in and plan to do at least one blog a week. Before the end of the month, I will hopefully have a full year’s plan.
One challenge which has become a regular annual one is the Goodreads challenge. I took part in it last year for the first time, and initially I was going to aim for 26 books whilst Jordan and Kathryn were hoping to read 52. I did change to 52 and a smug me can say I was the only one who completed. I actually read over 60 books. We are all reading again. This time I have challenged myself to read 53 (age came into that). I am out in front again and have read 29. Jordan has nearly finished his 28th book so this year’s challenge is getting very competitive. The kids are a bit old fashioned and like to try to put delaying tactics in my way like giving me proper books to read. Well I can take that challenge. Not so good in the work bag though: takes up a lot of room!
Speak soon!