The first month of the year is already coming to an end and my very positive energy from the start of the year is already wearing off a bit – yay! I hope you all had a good start of the year despite the world situation that hasn’t changed much.
This month’s highlights:
- Adopting a turtle’s nest! After reading this post on Markus and Micah’s blog, I immediately decided to sponsor a turtle’s nest. Markus and Micah have the nicest blog where they publish really interesting posts on a wide variety of subject, one of them being climate change. I highly recommend checking their blog out – if you don’t know it already – as I’m sure you will love it! Through them, I adopted a turtle’s nest to protect the turtles in their region, as they are an endangered and very vulnerable species. I received pictures from the hatchery and I’m extremely happy to be able to contribute to this amazing project of theirs!
- Cooking and baking: I have tried many new recipes this month, both sweet and savoury, and I loved making muffins, naans and trying many other recipes! I have also taken my sister’s juice maker during the holidays and I’ve made many fresh and home-made juices – a perfect way to eat more fruit, as I know it is something I struggle with. Plus, it’s absolutely delicious and much healthier than what you can buy at the supermarket!
- “Snow”: for those of you living in “cold” countries it is probably nothing, but we had two evenings of snow here in Brussels… yay! Even tough I really hate the rain, I love snow: it just looks so pretty and peaceful – the perfect excuse to cosy up with a blanket and a warm hot chocolate! I hope we’ll have more days like these next month!
My latest trips and adventures
- There weren’t much actually, as I spent the first part of the month in quarantine, and most of the other days at home, as it was too cold and rainy.
- Despite all that, I did discover new places in Brussels, especially restaurants and cafés. The first one is a super cute café which serves a huge variety of donuts with different flavours. I chose maple syrup and pecan as my first choice, but I am already planning on going back to try all the others. More recently I also tried out a new Syrian place that just opened, and it was absolutely delicious!
Hobbies and distractions:
- With the New Year, I came with many intentions, especially regarding my hobbies. I have to say that I have seen an improvement but I am still struggling to find a right balance between the goals that I have in mind and what I can actually achieve. I am, however, slowly getting better at it, and I hope that I can have a proper routine for February that allows me to relax and enjoy my hobbies without being distracted and losing time scrolling through Instagram!
- Despite all this, I have managed to read a bit more, do some piano in the evenings and found some time for watercolours, so it’s not that bad! I’ve almost finished La Casa de Papel and finally finished Gilmore Girls! There were times where I didn’t watch it at all but I’ve recently picked it up and finished it very quickly – I guess I liked the last seasons more than the middle ones!
- Another thing that might be worth mentioning is that I have finally seen Frozen II for the first time! I really liked the first one, the songs and the vibe and animations, so I was a bit hesitant when the second movie came out, but still very curious. I have to say that it did not disappoint at all! The songs are great and the movie in itself is just beautiful: I already want to watch it again!
General thoughts:
I feel like this month hasn’t been as productive as I thought it would be, even though I did do a lot, just not as much as I would have liked to and, especially, not what I wanted to. I was very busy at work and I did put a lot of pressure on myself to work on my goals, which obviously hasn’t helped. On top of that, the lockdown/pandemic situation, associated with the gloominess of winter definitely didn’t make me feel better, but I’m hopeful for a more grounded and intentional February!
Looking forward to:
- Some days off: I have some days off of work in a few weeks and I’m really looking forward to them as the weekends have felt extremely short recently. Because of the lockdown and closed borders, I won’t be able to travel but having some time off will be extremely beneficial nonetheless!
- The end of February: not sure if this counts ahah, but I really don’t like the month of February and can’t wait for the weather to be a little less awful and a bit mor spring-like! I will still try to make the most of this dreadful month but I’m still very much looking forward to spring!
How was January for you? What are you looking forward to?
Published last year in January:
2019 Review – a year of traveling
– A weekend in Luxembourg
Sunny Days with Juliette 
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