Girl, Independent

I’d almost forgot that once a year on the last day of the year, WordPress sends me a review of what’s gone on in my blog in the last 12 months. I remember being really chuffed last year when it arrived out of the blue and I relived some of my travels from the year, including my Sardine Run adventure and diving with sharks.

This year’s review however, was slightly disappointing. My review told me I’d posted a total of once in the whole year, and while it wasn’t exactly surprising in retrospect it did make me feel sad. After all 2013 has been one of my most eventful years. Not necessarily in terms of exciting travel to exotic locations, but certainly in terms of new personal adventures. Not only had I vowed to blog more in 2013, I’d even had more opportunity to : I’d changed jobs in August and had a full 7 weeks of not working. “Blog more” had been on my to-do list all summer and and not mangaged more than one post – and even that was late.

If I’d blogged more, my 2013 review would have showed that I’d not only done more snowboarding, and visited a new country in February (Andorra!) but also that I’d cycled across the entire width of the UK, over the Penine Hills from the glorious Lake District, to my home town of Sunderland, with a bunch of people I met on the internet. It would have mentioned a weekend in the lovely Peak District in England, eating Bakewell tarts, that I’d visited a glorious little Tuscan village in winter, and discovered the best italian cook in all of Tuscany. And it would have also shown that in September I returned to that little village to get married, and had the most perfect wedding day, in a medieval hamlet in the italian hills.

So as I sit typing this (while getting a gorgeous pedicure at Buff in North London, highly recommended), I’m going to try and find more me-time in 2014. Me-time to blog, because when I do it, I really enjoy it. I’m not doing it to make a Fortune, or give up the job and go full time, I just do it because I enjoy writing, and rarely get the opportunity to be creative in my banking job. And I also do it because I enjoy reliving memories.

So this time next year, I’d like to be sitting here (getting. Pedicure) reading my 2014 review about my snowboarding to Italy in February, and used my very basic newly learned italian to good effect. I’ll be reading about my swimming with humpbacks in the caribean in March, (bucket list!) and my road trip back around Tuscany and some lovely little agriturismos getting fat(ter) on amazing pasta and great wine. And perhaps some retrospective looks back on some 2013 trips as well (and perhaps earlier).

I’ll need to become less of a perfectionist to achieve this, something I’m Well aware of. I even had some coaching earlier in the year, to help me overcome my perfectionism-driven procrastination. JFDI has to be the. Acronym of 2014, I think. Or at the very least, JFSI – S for Start, and don’t worry about the end product for now. Posts don’t have to be perfect, neither do they have to be long. A five minute posting session with a couple of fun photos should be enough.

And my other, recently abandoned hobby – photography, should get a revisit next year too. While I might not get the DSLR out every day, I do want to redo a Project 365 again. Project 365 for those who don’t know is a “take a photo a day” style challenge. I recently went back and revisited one I did in 2008, and while I only got as far as mid year before stopping (not a great year for having a job in the banking industry) it’s looking back in retrospect that can make me appreciate even the most mundane of photos. And it’s all composition practice too.

So I’m not one for New Year resolutions generally, but I’m hoping that I’ll have a few happy memories to relive on WordPress in 365 days time!

Here’s my report, if anyone’s interested…

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2013 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

A New York City subway train holds 1,200 people. This blog was viewed about 4,900 times in 2013. If it were a NYC subway train, it would take about 4 trips to carry that many people.

Click here to see the complete report.