2014 - A Huge Year With A Less Huge Me?

2014 is here, and that's as good as time as any to start my blog again. It's also a good chance to see if I can stand doing lots of typing on the iPad. (Current guess is no.)

I've missed blogging, so I'm looking forward to starting again and I think it's going to be useful because I'm expecting 2014 to be a pretty big year. This year will feature another series of trip updates as we're back off to the USA for 5 weeks, and we're looking at buying a new house. Exciting! (And in regards to the house completely overwhelming and terrifying too.)

I feel like I'm also having an epiphany of sorts at the moment. I haven't made any New Year's Resolutions but around the start of the year, in complete coincidence - although possibly heavily influenced by complete festive overdoing - I seem to have just fallen into a pattern of looking after myself more. (I say this as I sit slumped on the couch, watching hours of episodes of Say Yes To The Dress).  I don't feel like this is a conscious attempt at weight loss, thought that would be a nice by product, just as if I've realised I deserve better than the sluggish, uncomfortable, unfit person I am. I feel like it's never clicked that way before. I'm far from doing anything drastic - chocolate, coca cola, cookies and cheese are permanent friends of mine, but I'm getting my thyroid medication finally right, I'm drinking a lot more water, cutting down on takeaway and I've even started waking earlier to use my treadmill. (I know, you couldn't be more shocked than me.) It's just feeling like a natural progression.

Anyhoo, that's boring. I'm going to NEW YORK CITY again. It'll be interesting to see it after seeing Paris, which was always my fantasy city. I think I'm going to love it as much as before - Paris will be more beautiful, but NYC will always feel more like a home.

This trip to the US is intended on being a bit of a last hurrah, as we cut down on travelling to be sensible audits with a bigger mortgage, so it's covering the one thing I felt I still needed to get out of my system - Route 66,  a "Greatest Hits" of places we've already been and loved - NYC, Vegas, Chicago and LA/Anaheim/ Disneyland, and a surprise visit to New Orleans which we added after we had a spare space.

My love for Americana, especially my interest in the 50s, car culture and diners (heh heh), has meant that Route 66 has felt like somewhere I've needed to see sooner rather than later, so we're doing a tour. We picked the tour based on the "promise" that they stopped at Winslow, Arizona so I could stand on a corner with this guy.

Taken from TripAdvisor

(Eagles fans shout out!)

So all things seem quite good. I finished 2013 feeling completely stressed, sad and flat, and it's nice that a lot of those feelings seem to have stayed back there.

Here's to 2014. Hope it's great for you.