Looking Back on January 2017

Towards the end of last year I got lax on my “Looking Back On…”, which sucked because I really enjoyed doing them and it was a nice way to reflect on my best of blog, keeping all my favourite posts from the month together along with a summary of what we got up to. So for 2017 I’m going to do my best to resurrect them.

January has, as ever, been a truly long and gruelling month. Anxiety has been high, self esteem has been low and the weather has been pretty rubbish. This January was particularly bad as I was (still am) nursing a truly broken heart and it’s left my self worth and mentality in shards. I’m trying so hard to keep my head above water but little things each day can set it off. A slight positive is I’ve lost 10lbs this month without even trying. I always do well on the “broken hearts diet” and I hope I continue with it as I haven’t been happy about my weight for a while. Yesterday was also the 2 year anniversary since my Grandfather passed away and it’s a day I really struggle with, I miss him so much. We also had a few money panics in the middle of the month. Everyone is broke in January, which sucks, but then I have LMs birthday and this year I also had our trip to Disneyland Paris but having finished my books for the month yesterday it turns out I did okay and I’m going into February looking pretty strong. Praise be.

So, good stuff. I’m a red head again, YAY! It’s still a bit patchy due to bleach being the base layer and it’s a lot brighter than it used to be but I’m hoping after a few months of top up dying it’ll sort itself out. It’s in much better condition already I do feel better for it. When I dyed it back a lot of people told me that I look like me again and I honestly cried. Little Miss turned 5! Which I do desperately want to embrace as a good thing because hey, I kept a human alive for 5 years, but I feel so sad she’s growing up! We went to Disneyland Paris to celebrate her birthday and I got to spend time with my best friend Bee (who has already blogged about our trip). We had a lovely time despite the journey down being horrendous, it being freezing cold and I ended up with the flu. We attended the Neverland Brunch at Inventions and in all honesty, it was the most magical thing we’ve ever done. LM’s face when she realised Peter and Wendy were going to be there was a picture. My friend Jess also sent me the sweetest gift to help me through this tought time. I moaned on Twitter I’d lost my High Beam and then I came back from Paris to a brand new bottle she’d ordered for me. We also took the kids to see Moana at the local cinema and it’s made LM even more obsessed with it (if that’s even possible) all we listen to is the soundtrack on repeat these days!

February is looking quiet.. Unfortunately national “shame for singles” day falls in there but I’m going to spoil the love of my life instead, that being Little Miss obviously. There is pancake day to look forward to though and school half term. Hoping to get away to the city for the day and maybe catch Sing, Fame with animals? Can’t really say no to that!

ANYWAY, time for my post round up, and despite feeling pretty rubbish 90% of the time, I got some good content up although not as much as usual;

As far as travel posts go I managed one from Walt Disney World and one from Disneyland Paris. I promise I am going to branch out a bit more from Disney parks this year. I still have tons I want to say about New York, Niagara Falls hasn’t even had it’s own post yet and I still have loads I could write about Paris. LM and I are also off to London a few times this year! Anyway, this month I blogged about Things I Was Looking Forward to in Disneyland Paris this month, I think I managed to tick off everything, so look forward to some trip reports in February. I also wrote about why you should go see Finding Nemo the Musical at Animal Kingdom. It’s honestly amazing and my photos don’t do it justice.

I managed to keep you all updated with our life by finally getting some content up about Christmas 2016. Despite everything being over shadowed by the break up we did have a lovely family time and did loads together during the season. It’s LM’s favourite time of year so I really try and go all out by visiting markets and going on trips with her. She was off for almost 3 weeks this year and I enjoyed every second with her. I went into more detail about specific days such as how we spent Christmas Eve because we have so many traditions we like to cram into 12 hours as well as sharing our Christmas Day. Christmas Day as a single mum is hard but I’m so blessed to have parents who really go all out for us.

Finally I shared how we celebrated Little Miss’ 5th birthday. She had a really lovely day even though it’s quite as I’m still not feeling brave enough to throw her a party. Maybe next year? This year however it was Peter Pan themed! She had asked months ago for a Peter Pan cake so I just rolled with it. She got some Tink related presents and everything was wrapped in green paper with green balloons and Peter Pan banners. It all seemed to go down well and it went nicely with the Neverland Brunch from the week before. It all came together perfectly.