You can tell that we are in the New Year!  It used to be on TV when we only had three stations (!) that you knew it was New Year because every advert break had some sort of weight loss advert on!  I always used to think it was so unfair.  Having had a wonderful Christmas with family and friends and yes perhaps eating more that in a normal week but it is Christmas.  Then these adverts would start and basically shame you.  Its the same at the gyms, which would be practically empty before Christmas but whatever time you go now it is full of people with new work out gear on hogging every machine.  It is also the same I have to say here in the UK after Wimbledon.  All of us who played tennis all year did not go to the courts for two weeks after Wimbledon.  It only ever lasted two weeks and the same with the gyms and the diets, people would stop after those two weeks!

Now I have noticed another way for people to beat themselves up after Christmas; the Instagram Influencer declaring that January is the pefect time to declutter your home, car, husband, children, LIFE!  I am not joking!  If not one but at least twenty have popped up onto my feed this week all advocating a different way to throw everything out! 

These Instagram Influencers two weeks before were all around showing you their carefully curated Christmas decorations without a pine needle out of place (not that they have real trees as that is too much hard work!) and showing you pictures from every angle but come one minute past Midnight on December 26th and they are there with their Dyson stick vacuums, having packed all their decorations away, cleaning for all they are worth.  Then out come the boxes lablled “Keep”, “Donate”, “Sell”!  Why they think anyone else will want their stuff who knows!

Don’t get me wrong I am all for decluttering.  Goodness knows I fully realised that having the bear minimum was a good thing, after having had to clear out my Mother and then my Grandmother’s homes after they passed.  Particularly my Grandmother’s home as she had had her mother living with her for a few years so that was like two homes in one!  My relatives were of the era where you had two sets of china; the good set for high days and holidays and the every day set!  I was determined to only have one set of china (well pottery actually) and it gets used every day and holidays! 

They both had cabinets full of things which they had been bought or collected which were just sitting in a cupboard.  The best piece of advice we had was from the lady who came from the Auctioneers to value my Grandmother’s things.  She said keep what you love and let the rest go, otherwise our home would be filled to the brim with stuff and we would not be able to move.  That is what we did.  It was a shame as my Grandmother had some wonderful pieces of furniture but they fitted into her old Victorian home and definitely would not have fitted in our little modern one bedroom house! 

I, of course, was going to do miracles between Christmas & New Year and gets lots of jobs done, but this bout of shingles put paid to that!  I have just finished the antibiotics and just have another day’s worth of antivirals to go.  It is feeling a lot better than it did a week ago although I still have the rash on my face (!).  I am hoping that I will not have to have another set of tablets, we shall see how it goes.

I am a tidy person at home and do not like it when things get in a mess so that helps (if I am honest I am a little OCD about it!) and I do have a sort out, as we always called it, every so often to get rid of things that have sat in drawers for ages and not been needed or used so I get rid of them in some way. 

So over the next few weeks I will be doing a bit of decluttering but don’t let these Instagram people shame you in any way!  I love the Christmas decorations up and only take them down on January 6th when I absolutely have to!  I dust them all and put them back in their boxes for December 1st this year when they can come out again.    Don’t let the fitness Influencers shame you into drastic diets either!  As a PT guy said the other day slow and steady wins the race and I firmly believe that! 

I hope your first week of January is going well, you lovely lot. 

Hugs & Love, Susie & Coco xx