Woody Wonders

I'm late with publishing my blog this week as I had to prioritise other things this weekend, which leads me quite nicely into this week's topics.  First of all, I'd like to tie up the Xmas side of things and then talk a little bit about New Year. A couple of weeks ago I spoke about the build up to Xmas and how easy it is to become overwhelmed at this time of year.  You can only do your best and can only focus on one thing at a time.  What really helps me is keeping some element of routine in my life.  They act like a safety net when I'm feeling like I'm in the midst of chaos.  It's very easy to forget about our usual routines at Xmas and, to some extent, that can be quite freeing.  The downside is that we can end up in a whirlwind of moving from one thing to the next without any purpose.  In my case, the one thing I do without fail is to stick to my exercise routine.  I may choose to do 10 mins yoga instead of a 10k run but for me, exercise is the...

Don't sweat the small stuff this Xmas I have a love-hate relationship with this time of year.  I don't know about you but I always find the run up to Xmas really stressful .  There's never enough hours in the day.  You're trying to clear your 'to do' list at work before the end of the year so you can start afresh, and you have home stresses of trying to sort out Xmas presents, family and such like. I'm not going to bang on about what a difficult year it's been, we all know that and quite honestly, I'm bored with the whole thing now and it is what it is.  However, I have missed my annual kick-off to Xmas shopping which would have been a trip to Beverley around mid-November to visit my friend.  Although let's be honest here, there's usually more coffee drinking and chatting going on than Xmas shopping.  Online shopping is not as much fun, I like to see and touch things plus I spend 10 hours staring at a screen all day for work, I don't wan...