I got signed off work two weeks ago with tennis elbow. I'd been back to work for a week after using a week's holiday and then I get signed off for two weeks!! One week off work is okay as it's usually half rest and a half catching up with tasks around the house; doing those things I don't get a chance to do in a normal working week due to lack of time and energy. Like deep cleaning the bathroom and kitchen, and last year I was doing my de-cluttering as well.

There are many things that I couldn’t live without, but I have picked just five to tell you about today.

My Journal.

I have written my thoughts into a notebook for many years since 1993, I started it quite sporadically although I am now on journal number 51 which I think is staggering! Some of these include notebooks from online courses though. During the latter years that I was with my ex I didn’t always write my thoughts out and there are only ten from the time I spent with him, so that's an average of one a year. Since I left him, however, I’ve filled thirty notebooks that are just my thoughts in the last eleven years! That's an average of 2.7 notebooks a year!!!

We had some snow at the end of January. Now I'm aware some places get a lot more snow than we get here, but we have to take what we can get. It always looks so pretty, initially anyway. When we get snow, it tends to snow late at night and either be gone by the time we get up, gone by lunchtime or it's turned to a dirty and messy slush. That's why I like to get photo's of it as soon as I can.

I have over twenty-five books on my bookshelves that I haven't got around to reading yet, so this year I made a promise to myself that I can't buy any more books this year until I've read those on this list. It's as if I'm afraid of running out of things to read! I wrote a list of the books I own and haven't managed to read yet and then I picked two a month to read over the upcoming year. Some books are novels, others autobiographical and the rest are inspirational books. I tried to pick a novel or autobiography and an inspirational one for each month, for a mixture of things to read. The list is as follows.

By January I'm still tired as work is still busy. January in the North West of the UK tends to be drizzly rain, dull grey skies with the occasional frost. On Friday 18th, I saw an attempt to snow! I struggle with winter after the New Year as it seems to last forever, at least in December there's Christmas and the New Year to look forward to. In January and February, there's nothing like that, so over the last few years, I've been looking at ways I can help myself in these dull dark and damp months. This isn't a definitive list and it will always be evolving, but I thought it would give you some ideas if you're having the same issue.

I've had a bit of a break from the dating site this year, part intentional and part unintentional. The first week of the year I was ill with flu, I was off work for a few days and the dating site wasn't at the forefront of my mind. The second week I was back at work but still, not one hundred per cent so only went on the dating site a bit.

How is everyone's January going so far? How are you doing with your new year resolutions or your 2019 goals if you do them instead? My January has been mixed with some amazing secret things that may or may not happen (so I won't disclose them at this point. If they do happen, I will most defiantly write a blog post about it, don't worry!) And some less amazing, more mundane things have been going on as well.

I've never been a fan of new year's resolutions. The odd time I made some in the past, I ended up either forgetting them or breaking them, so instead for many years, I've set myself goals that I would like to achieve that year. I thought that this was a much better idea and over the years I have accomplished many goals.

A few weeks ago I was out for drinks with some of the peeps from work and one of my work buddies, asked to see one of my dating profiles. He deleted some of the profile images so that there's only three now, filled out some of the questions on it and also changed a few of the 'about me' answers.