Journeys Are My Diary

Life, Adventures, Entertainment and more - A little bit of everything blog!

Goodbye 2016

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Some will say that 2016 has been a terrible year and in some ways it has. I honestly can’t believe that Brexit happened, or that Trump became president of the USA. Furthermore, the amount of celebrities that died this year seemed more than any before, especially with regards to legends. It makes me feel somewhat selfish to say that 2016 has actually been a really good year for me and our family. Of course, its had its ups and downs as all years do, but generally I’m left feeling happy and content as 2016 draws to a close.

So what are the major things that have happened for us in 2016?

At the beginning of the year, we managed to finish all the decorating in the house. It was a huge task and took quite a few weeks but eventually we got there. In April our house went on the market but while we’ve had a couple of viewings, it hasn’t looked very optimistic overall.

We attended a few geeky events, though not as many as I would have liked. There was Walker Stalker in February, Fairytales (in Paris) in June and Harry Potter in August. Sadly all three were fairly disappointing but at least we can say we did! There was no cosplay this year either, by myself or by the kids. I’m sure that’s largely due to the fact I still really want to get on with my diet (yet somehow not enough to do anything about it).

We got to see quite a few movies at the cinema, which is nice. The list (that I can remember) is; Deadpool, Zootropolis, Suicide Squad, Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, and Moana. I was looking at the list of Movies to look out for in 2016 and while I didn’t see all that I would have liked, I did see most.

Lily turned 8 and Megan (only a few weeks ago) turned 12. Megan also accepted her first choice for Secondary School in March, finished Primary School in July and started Secondary School in September. It feels like it’s been a bit of a landmark year for Megan especially, not to mention she’s ended the year with her first proper boyfriend (who she attended school disco with). Lily managed her 25m badge in swimming and since she had started the lessons unable to swim, that was quite a good achievement.

There was no major holiday this year (like Florida in 2015) but I was lucky enough to travel to Paris twice – once with my family and once with Nat. We also had our first family camping experience, during the summer holidays. We were lucky enough to be gifted a really nice tent too, which made our second trip, much nicer. We’re hoping to do more of that this coming year.

There have been lots of lovely moments, including a family Valentine’s Day spent together as a four, Galentine’s Day celebrated with all my favourite girls, holidays and weekends away with family and/or friends, a 40th Wedding anniversary celebration for my mum and dad despite my dad no longer being around, and most recently Christmas with family and the day after Boxing Day with extended family.

Finally my blog has very much taken a backseat this year and I hope to find a little more time, especially during the beginning of the year and maybe with better planning, throughout the year as a whole. However Closet Geek has really flourished and as my first full year draws to a close, I have to admit I’m very proud of my little baby. I’ve gone from selling pencil cases, hair bows and girls dresses at the beginning of the year, to adding bunting, cushion covers, ears and even the odd item of clothing for boys. I’ve made my most successful cosplay to date, in the form of Jane (from Tarzan) and I’m looking forward to continuing on again in the coming year.

February Round-up

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Somehow the beginning of March seems to have escaped me already and I realised I never did my monthly round-up! Despite the fact February actually ended at the beginning of last week, I thought I should make the time to sum up anyway!

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Watching: Vampire Diaries (Seasons 3-6), new series X-Files, current series NCIS, Limitless, Blindspot, Mean Girls, Tron Legacy, Moulin Rouge, Terminator Genisys, Ant Man, Deadpool, The Walking Dead,
Reading: George’s Marvelous Medicine, Fantastic Mr Fox, Six Lies
Sewing & Making (for Closet Geek): Custom dresses – it’s been really nice to sew a few different things. I made a Snow White fabric dress, a Mickey travel themed dress, an Alice in Wonderland fabric dress and a Thumper fabric dress. I also made a few other dresses including Belle (blue) and Honey Lemon. There was a Marauders Map passport cover and a few new pencil cases too. Finally I knocked up a Wendy Disney-bounding dress for Amy to wear on her birthday in WDW.
I also pimped out a Locker for a competition and I’ve done a fair bit of cooking this month!

And in other news…
– Spent the first week of the month feeling completely ill! Was so glad when I finally got over it.
– Pancakes on Pancake Day – yum! We had stuffed savoury pancakes for mains and sweet ones for dessert.
– Had probably one of the best Valentine’s Days ever. We spent it as a family and it was fab from start to finish.
– Lily was in a class assembly and Megan was in her first Shine assembly of the year.
– Booked extra tickets for the same Harry Potter convention as before, this time for a Yule Ball.
– Celebrated a belated Galentine’s Day, Amy’s birthday and Easter, all in three days while Amy visited.
– Lily had her first ever sleepover – and I cried because she’s growing up!
– Chris and I traveled to London and Walker Stalker. It was a bit of a flop but we made the best of a bad situation. We did have a nice hotel room, bought a few nice things and had a lovely meal out.
– Finally made headway with the house. We made a list of all the DIY to do, booked people to come and do valuations on the house and started looking for houses to buy.
– The girls attended their first school disco together, at the same time. Usually Lily fell in to the lower school part and Megan the higher, but for the first year they are together. They looked so grown up too!
– My GBF Adam came to visit for the weekend. I only saw him once last year so it was really nice he came to visit so early in the year!
– My mum finally returned from holiday. She went away from 1st Feb to 29th Feb and it felt like a long time! I cried when we first chatted afterwards…

Looking forward to in March:
– Finding out which secondary school Megan will go to (I know by the time I wrote this since it was 1st, but it was a major point in March). This will begin our house hunting.
– Lily’s 8th birthday. Technically this has already happened by the time I wrote this post but I definitely was looking forward to it.
– Chris’ birthday. It falls a little later in the month but I always enjoy celebrating anything with him.
– Getting a handle on selling the house. Making a good dint in the DIY and getting the house on the market.
– Closing Closet Geek for 10 days. This is connected to the last one really but because of all the DIY we have to do, I’m closing my store for just over a week. I do love to work and sew but it will be nice to have a break too.
– Easter Holiday. Just like Half Term in February, I enjoy having the kids off school. This is partly because I enjoy their company and partly because I love not having to trek out in the morning and can stay in my PJs!

January Round-up

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Last year I gave up on my weekly round up posts during about October, having done them for all 2015 and all 2014 as well. Instead I’ve decided to try and tackle monthly updates instead!

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Watching: The Fall (Season 1 & 2), Making a Murderer, Criminal Minds (Season 1-3), House (Season 1-6), Before I Go To Sleep, Thor 2, James and the Giant Peach.
Reading: An Abundance of Katherines, Disney After Dark (Kingdom Keepers)
Sewing & Making (for Closet Geek): As well as the usual; Young Lottie from The Princess and the Frog, Hiro from Big Hero 6, Marauders Map cushion, Valentine themed hair bows, mouse ears, scrunchies and bows on bobbles.And in other news…
– At the beginning of the month, we all wrote our New Year resolutions. We sealed them up to reveal on NYE, but I honestly don’t remember what half of them were already!
– We’ve been lucky enough to eat out a few times this month; once for breakfast at Mill Lodge, once at The Nosey Parker and again at Gateway Park.
– We finished decorating our bedroom on January 10th. This is about 6 months after we started!
– Booked to go to a Harry Potter convention in August.
– We had the first snow on 14th, but sadly it didn’t stick around. We’ve had a lot of cold weather this month but still no settled snow!
– Bought a new toaster for the kitchen. I’m gradually getting all red bits.
– Tried to diet and failed miserably. January has been a tough month, with motivation and with being busy. February is my start over, so we’ll see how it goes.
– I did something really crazy and paid a deposit to do Lincoln Christmas Market this year. It’s a 4 day event and god knows how I will manage to get stock ready for it, but I’m committed to doing it now! I also decided cancel another event I had paid a deposit on, realising it was going to make life too crazy.

So there you have it – the highlights of January.

Looking forward to:
– Valentine’s Day. For me it’s not so much about it being a romantic day, but showing love to my family. All four of us are planning a special day together, followed by a special meal.
– Amy coming to visit. Though I saw her briefly in December, it feels like a long time since we had a proper catch up! It will be nice to drink wine, probably order takeaway at least once and catch up.
– Walker Stalker. Chris and I have booked a one day ticket at London’s Walker Stalker and I’m really looking forward to it. Not so much for the con (though I hope to meet Norman Reedus) but also because we’ve booked one night in a nice hotel and it will be nice to spend time as a couple.
– Half Term. We don’t have any plans, other than Amy visiting and technically Walker Stalker falls into that week, but I love not having to get up and dressed, take the kids to school etc. I also really enjoy having the kids around the house.

Movies to look out for in 2016

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As you may know, I’m a bit of a movie buff. I love most genres and to be honest, most movies. I love a trip to the cinema, a night curled up on the sofa, or just sitting and sewing while watching a good movie on Amazon Prime. I’m lucky really in that I get to go to the cinema quite often, so I figured I would share the movies I’m most looking forward to in 2016. Right now, I’d really love to go and see “Joy”. I think it was technically released in December but either way, I think I might even head off to the cinema by myself!

To be honest January’s movies don’t hold a lot of interest for me, so I’m going to skip right on to February. The first of the movies I’m looking forward to this year is the much awaited “Deadpool“. I absolutely love Ryan Reynolds and there has been a huge amount of build up and hype to this movie so it had better be good! To be honest I don’t know an awful lot about this anti-hero but I have seen most of the trailers and it looks hilarious!

March brings the release of “Divergent: Allegiant” and this is one I’m really looking forward to. While I’m disappointed that they decided to split the last book in two, I’m also glad that it means two more movies. This Allegiant movie is the first part of the last book and will release shortly, while the second will presumably be another year away. I have really enjoyed the Divergent series so far and hope that this won’t disappoint like Mockingjay Part 1 did. Plus, more chance to see Four? I think so…

April is another month that can be skipped for me. A live action version of “The Jungle Book” is being released by Disney but to be honest I haven’t even seen The Good Dinosaur yet, so I doubt that will be top of my list to see.

“Captain America: Civil War” is out in May, as is “X-Men: Apocalypse” and “Alice Through the Looking Glass“. I absolutely can’t wait for the Captain America movie, despite not having seen 2 yet (I must watch that this week”), but Iron Man is in this one and also it looks epic. I hate that Cap and Tony are going to be fighting it out for the majority of the movie, but I’m sure it will make for a good story line! Also the new X-Men movie looks awesome. I’m really loving these “younger generation” versions of the movies that they are making at the moment and love all the people they have cast in the roles. Apocalypse looks like one of the best so far and I’m excited to see how it turns out. Finally, Alice in Wonderland has the sequel, Through the Looking Glass being released. I was very late watching the last Tim Burton movie but I have to admit I enjoyed it. While I probably won’t be heading to the cinema for this one (unless it fall around my birthday) but I’m sure I’ll be watching it sooner or later.

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June has the next Turtles movie coming out, but since I only saw the other on the plane home from Florida (and wasn’t fussed), I doubt I’ll be queuing to see this one. Also “Finding Dory” is out and while I’m sure it will be good (it’s Disney), with Finding Nemo not being anywhere near my top 10 (or 20) Disney movies, I don’t think I’ll be planning to see this either. “Independence Day Resurgence” is about the only movie that holds interest in June but that’s because I enjoyed the first one. I’m not convinced a follow-on will be any good but it looks packed with action so it might be worth a watch. Sadly there is no Will Smith and he was a highlight of the first one for me, plus there is Jeff Goldblum and he is most definitely a downside for me. That said, Liam Hemsworth is in it, so it might be okay, if only for him.

“The BFG“, “Ghostbusters” and “Star Trek Beyond” are all released in July but I think only Star Trek I’m looking forward to. While I do love Roald Dahl, there is already a BFG cartoon movie that’s pretty good and I’m not sure I see any point in re-making it. That said I haven’t seen pictures or a trailer so I will reserve judgement for now. Ghostbusters is something that I’m sure will get a huge cult following, mostly because of the original movies. However for me I’m never sure when they make another sequel, so many years after the last. Just look at Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull! So that just leaves Star Trek and while many people have had negative things to say about the more modern versions, I love them. I especially love Chris Pine as Kirk and so honestly you can’t really go wrong for me. This third one (of the newer versions) looks full of action and adventure (not to mention another lost enterprise) so I’m sure it will be great.

“Suicide Squad” is pretty much the only movie of interest to me in August. Until about a year ago I didn’t really know much about the Suicide Squad storyline but with watching “Arrow” and some extra knowledge from Chris, I now think I understand a lot of it. Not to mention Lily’s favourite “Harley Quinn” will be in it and also Will Smith, so it’s go to be worth a watch. Also Villains. You know?

Neither September or October have much of interest for me though I spotted “Bridget Jones’s Baby” which might be worth a watch (eventually) and maybe “Gambit” too. November has “Doctor Strange” which I don’t know much about but the stills look pretty cool. More importantly though it has “Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them” which again I don’t know much about but absolutely can’t wait to see. Whether it will be cinema worthy or whether curiosity will just drive me to see it at the cinema anyway, I don’t know – but I hope for good things! Sadly December holds nothing of interest yet either but I believe there is a Star Wars spin-off set to be released and since Chris is into Star Wars, I guess we might see that.

There are a few I haven’t mentioned that I either don’t know enough about to comment on, or I’m not sure when they’re being released. I guess time will tell if any others start to appeal throughout the year, but at the moment – these are my top picks.

Goodbye 2015, Hello 2016

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I feel like I’ve neglected my blog somewhat over the last couple of months and now that January has rolled around, I want to be motivated and post more again. My mind is bubbling with ideas for posts and I even have a few to catch up on from December. I’ve just ordered a new organiser to replace my Alice in Wonderland one from last year (sadly it’s not Disney but the  layout is similar) and I’m ready to start 2016 feeling fresh and ready to go!

2016

Normally I would look back on the resolutions I made last year and pick apart what I managed to do and what I failed at. However the truth is, I didn’t really manage many of my goals. There were plans with weight loss, with moving house, with money and to be truthful none of them really got anywhere. So instead for 2015 I want to just focus on the positive parts!

2015

All in all, the year was a good one. I don’t remember many lows (though emotionally I’m sure I cried lots as that’s just the person I am!) but at the same time there were only a couple of highs. One of the major highs was the trip of a lifetime that we had to Florida in 2015. I honestly never though visiting Walt Disney World and Universal Studios would ever be a thing I got to do. However with the help of mum, the dream came true and for two wonderful weeks we enjoyed plenty of sunshine, Disney and Harry Potter.

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Another awesome thing about about 2015 was finally setting up my own business so I can work from home. The idea sort of spun off from making the girls, Olivia and Amy all dresses to wear in Florida. It then spiraled into a working idea and Closet Geek was born in August. I’ve had so much fun getting started and more importantly having people like the things I make. I have high hopes for 2016 and hopefully this time next year I’ll be able to report that I’m still going strong!

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Of course there are many other lovely things to note, so I will add them quickly too.
– The girls growing and changing including; Megan picking a secondary school for next year, Megan getting her ears pierced, both doing well in school plays, school reports, class assemblies, sports day etc., making a TARDIS with Lily for homework, going on both girls school trips with them, starting up their YouTube channel (Double The Geek).
– Trips away including; London, Disneyland Paris and Berwick.
– Cinema movies including; Big Hero 6, Cinderella, Tomorrowland, Pitch Perfect 2, Inside Out and Star Wars.
– Shows including; Disney on Ice, X-Factor Live, Phantom of the Opera, The Railway Children and Avenue Q.
– Randoms; experiencing a solar eclipse, losing a lot of weight pre-Florida, Chris passing his driving test, Cosplay and Comic Cons, writing and completing a murder mystery, collecting loads more beautiful Disney items – especially Mrs Potts, Lumiere and Cogsworth (along with many Tsum Tsums and Disney traditions), reading some great books, discovering some new places to eat, going to the Disney Cafe in Harrods and meeting Tim, plus so much more!

2016

So that brings me onto the new year and boy do I have plans!

My blog – It’s going to take a backseat to many things in my life, but I don’t want to neglect it completely. I hope to post at least 3 times a week and I must remember to share my posts, connect on Twitter, gain more followers and follow more bloggers myself.

Money – This time last year my finances were in a mess and I had just quite my job. To be honest money is no better right this moment but I hope to work through my debt this year, especially now I’m able to work from home too. I’d love to save for a holiday but I know that moving house might take some finances too.

House – We must move this year. Megan starts secondary school in September and living in Gainsborough still is just not an option. Get the house sorted, decorated as best we can and on the market. Aim to move no later than Summer.

Weight – I’m so up and down and once Florida was no longer a motivation I’ve really struggled. I really want to try, I’m going to try. 10 stone is still my goal.

Family – Not working (especially at my last job) has made life so much more chill on the whole. I’m a nicer person and a better mum, even though we all still have bad days. I’d like to continue this, making time to teach the kids things they want help with (keyboard, recorder, bike riding etc) but also to make time for family dinners, movie nights, board games etc.

Friends – Our friendship group is so up in the air right now. Relationships have changed and the dynamics don’t seem the same. To be honest I don’t know what this year will bring for our board game nights or murder mysteries but I hope to at least see everyone, even its in slightly small groups.

I’m sure there are more things but these are my main pointers. As a family we all sat down and wrote our New Year Resolutions yesterday so I guess we’ll see how it turns out!

Like I said before, I have a few posts planned and towards the end of January I’d like to give my blog a re-jig. I hope that 2016 is a good year for us and of course I wish the same for all of my readers! Happy New Year!