New year new blog

The last few weeks I've really been brainstorming where I want my blog to go.

Over the years, I've had a habit of letting my blog jump around all over the place with no real structure. 

This is something I really want to change. 

It's impossible to appeal to everyone all the time. There are those who love learning new things and exploring new topics, but who find endless book reviews tedious. Likewise, there are people who prefer reading blogs that deal with real life, be it world news or just others lives, to which they feel they can relate in some way. 

With my blog post coming pretty much at random most of the time, I think I'm making it all a little too confusing. So my plan for 2016 is to try and add a little structure. 

Now to be clear I don't want to be too rigid with this, because I'm a spontaneous person and when I feel the need to blog about life, concerns or the day to day joys, I'm gonna do it, but  life has a way of at times becoming incredibly mundane and as a result during these periods I can sometimes end up with nothing but book reviews up on my blog. 

So the plan is to create three scheduled posts a week. 

On Mondays I'll do an in the news post, where I look back at what world news caught my attention in the week just gone and discuss my thoughts and feelings around it, hopefully helping to give you, the readers a bit more insight into me as a person while also creating an opening for further discussion. Which might also give me some insight into you.

Because what are blogs for if not to share, discuss and get to know each other. 

Mid-week, I'll be diving into my book reviews. I love reading and also sharing my thoughts and feelings about what I am reading with others. 

Thanks to Net galley, I get the opportunity to read a lot of books before they are even released, in return I am asked to give honest reviews. My blog is a great way for me to do this, but I know that to some, excessive book reviews on a blog can feel a bit like the person doing the reviews is somehow getting compensated for doing nothing but good reviews. 

By grouping all my reviews into one post, I hope that people will see that my reviews are honest, that if I dislike a book, I'll say not only that I dislike it, but why. 

It will also mean that my blog is not just book review after book review all the time. 

Then finally, for the weekly basis, I would like to dedicate Friday's to posting a general post about my week, what I've been up to, what's been playing on my mind and so on and so forth. 

By providing this regular content along with the more spontaneous posts, I hope that my blog will be not only varied and regularly updated, but that it will allow readers to be more easily able to check out what interests them and ignore the rest. 

So that's the plan for my blog in 2016, only time will tell if this schedule works for me and my readers or not. 

My biggest goal; however, is to get some discussion going, so that I can actually get to know all of you better. 

So here's to 2016 and a new way of blogging. 

What are your plans for 2016? If you blog are you planning to make any changes or do you already feel you have a schedule that works well for you and if so what? I'd love to hear your thoughts on the above questions, as well as your opinion on my new schedule plan. 

Happy new year to you all

Love and hugs

Joss xx

New Year, New goals!

It’s that time of the year again where we set out goals and pray that we’ll succeed in keeping them.

I’m fairly unconfident this year, as one of my goals is to shed a whole heap of weight and even as I type this chocolate beckons and excuses for why I should put it off are churning in my mind.

•      The terrible final takeaway last night failed to provide the joy it should and thus must be repeated but with something from a better takeaway.

•      The massive collection of Christmas goodies still yet to be devoured

•        The fact that technically the Christmas holidays aren’t over until hubby and son are back at work/school.

I could go on, but I’ll spare you.

Last year’s goals consisted of weight loss, getting organised, blogging/writing more, cutting back on the smoking and dealing with my anxiety issues and hopefully as a result getting out more.

I failed miserably at the weight loss so much so I have avoided the scales like crazy most of the year. I just wasn’t in the right place for dieting, largely due to having a lot of pain this year with my back and IBS but also due to succeeding in the one area I never thought I would, smoking.

My plan for last year was merely to cut back on how much I smoked as I was getting through a massive 2 x 50gram pouches a week and sometimes a little more when my pain was bad.  Well cutting back turned into quitting all together for both my husband and I.  A massive achievement which was far easier than either of us ever imagined, we are now completely smoke free. I say that because I know a lot of people have switched to E cigs, we used nicotine free versions of those to help us quit but now we are off them as well, in fact Dan was off them after just a couple of weeks and I was off after about a month.

The amount of money we have saved from quitting is amazing, and has meant that we have been able to have a pretty good Christmas this year, which is great.

That was about the only goal I did well with. I failed miserably as being more productive, except when it came to the A to Z challenge which I felt I did pretty well with even earning a place as one of the blogs thatrocked the challenge, with my doggie theme, which was great.

I had a lot of ups and downs in 2014 and pain, so I wasn’t too overly disappointed in myself.

Another thing I did just manage to do in time, was deal with my anxieties. I visited the doctor about it at the beginning of December and he put me on some anxiety medicine. It’s early days yet, but I am hopeful.

So onto this year’s goals:

•        Lose weight, although I am going to wait until I am able to get back on my stronger pain meds, before starting my diet. Being on the new anxiety meds, my doctor wanted to reduce my pain meds just while my body got used to the new meds I was taking not only for my anxiety but my IBS, so I am hopeful that when I go back to see him on the 8^th of this month, he’ll give me back my stronger pain killers and I can start looking to lose weight. This also gives me time to continue enjoying the remaining Christmas fair and to get a decent take away in before my diet starts, that eradicating some of my excuses. J  

•      Get more organised. I have already gotten started with this by buying a Filofax type planner, with a calendar section for my writing/blogging as well as one for everything else in life. I’m hoping to post a blog post every day and all going well, I plan to write all my post on the Monday so the rest of the week can be focused on my current WIP and commenting on all you lovely peoples blogs.

•      Finishing the first Rehabilitation girls books ready for publication. This will be a big challenge for me as it will be the first time I edit my own book using Grammarly, fingers crossed it’s as good as they claim. J

  

  we were playing around with the colours and mood for the cover on this and like this sort of look although preferably with a much better model than myself in the finished product lol  

•      Continue to try and work through my anxieties and get out more. I’ll be starting on that Sunday I believe, when I go with hubby to one of his steam engine shows. I would like to say I am excited but to be honest I am not really feeling it at the moment as my IBS is playing up after too much fizzy wine last night and  my back isn’t fairing much better, but oh well

•      Work on being more focused and less distracted. It does seem a shame to abandon my whole, "oh look a bunny!" thing when I have got so good at it though. :) 

• I'd really like to get involved with some more blog hops this year also, so if you know of any good ones, please let me know in the comments. Thank you.

So that’s my New Year goals along with my 2014 fails and successes. How did you do with your goals in 2014 and have you set any new ones for 2015? Let me know in the comments.

Love and hugs

Joss xx